As a leisure time pedagogue I find it hard to have an insight into what children are playing, and how they play when it comes to free play. My experience is that in some free play, conflicts arise, which reveal hierarchies and power structures containing violations, whereas other occasions of free play suddenly come to an end as the pedagogue interferes. In this essay I investigate my responsibility as a leisure time pedagogue during children´s free play, based on two differing play situations. I also investigate the play as a phenomenon by looking into previous research on children’s play and development psychology. By reflecting on the two play situations I can further understand how to act in a more supportive way during the children´s free play, and how I should relate to the free play

I have in my essay found that the free play does not handle itself and that the leisure time pedagogue´s responsibility in the free play is to be present and observe when children are playing. In that way I can get an insight into the world of the children and I can give my support when the game becomes problematic or I can back away when I notice that I have disturb a free play that works well.