After-school programs (SFO/fritidshem) in Denmark, Norway and Sweden are places for learning and teaching oriented projects. Politicians in all the three countries explicitly express an interest for the potential of childhood and play as support of school life. In a general comment on article 31 UN warns against an increasing pressure for learning. A consequence of this is that children`s free spontaneous play is marginalized and that children’s spontaneous play is under pressure. Our point of departure is that play is a central part of the (free)time that children spends inside institutional framework. With this as our backdrop we will do a close reading of how play is presented in the official documents regarding children`s institutionalized leisure in after-school programs in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Such a reading makes this study relevant for Nordic educational research. The interpretation of the official documents is made particularly from the concept of inläsning and utläsning as Säfström (1999) describes it. Our reading show that there is room for interpretation and that the official documents are open to an understanding of play as something instrumental. This is in line with what we interpret as a dominating perspective on play where play is viewed as a learning tool. Our reading also shows that the documents are open to a change of perspective where play is regarded for its own value. This is not only an opportunity – it is an obligation, which the general comment from UN (2013) has pointed out the seriousness of.