Play: A Child's Work

When I watch a young child in uninterrupted play, I marvel at the degree of concentration brought to the moment. Whether s/he is still or active, a sense of purpose shows clearly in the expression. Crouched, he sits motionless, following the path of an ant with his eyes. She doesn’t hear us call to her, so intent is she on where the ant is going and what the ant is doing. She has entered the world of Ant. The same is true as she moves her dolls one-by-one from the carriage to the little bed, tucking them snugly in for their naps, perhaps talking softly to each one. He can spend long moments, lying on the carpet, rolling his cars and trucks back and forth, intently studying how the wheels roll across the rough surface.

If we interrupt her in these endeavors before she is satisfied, she will probably show an intense resistance to being jerked out of her absorbing meditations; rather like we feel when we are unexpectedly awakened from a deep sleep. That is why transitions are so difficult for young children. With all of their senses completely engaged in their play, it is quite a shock to be told that now they must get dressed, eat breakfast, brush their teeth, or anything other than what they are doing right now! Even the promise of doing something they love to do may meet with extreme frustration, because it brings them away from the all-engrossing moment.

Of course, being able to transition from one activity to another is an important skill, and one that children learn in time, but it is vital to provide long stretches of uninterrupted play for our children.

Play is many things. Play is practice. Play teaches. Play heals. Play nurtures. Play is a child’s work. Play is serious business. Play is hands-on learning about the world. Play, for adults, is invaluable soul food.

The eminent psychologist Carl Jung wrote that the activity that enabled as us to lose time when we were children continues to nurture and heal us as adults. For Dr. Jung that activity was building sand castles on the beach. How many of us remember what we loved to do as children that made time stop to the point of losing ourselves in doing something all consuming? How many of us, even children nowadays, do only one thing at a time, the habit of “multi-tasking” like second nature?

Several consequences of doing more than one thing at a time come to mind. Some research indicates that constant multi-tasking may lead to memory loss due to simply having too much on one’s mind. Going into a room, intent on some purpose, and then forgetting what I am after is becoming all too common!

Another effect is that we fail to truly experience or be aware of what we are doing or whom we are with. When we are not present for even little chunks of time during a day, where are we? We are reliving or regretting what happened in the past or worrying about what might happen in the future. Either way we are using precious energy on something that has already occurred or may never come to be. Regret and worry add up to fear and anxiety, experienced by most of us in epidemically unhealthy amounts. Thus the need for play, play in the real sense of play.

When we play with our children, it is important to follow their lead and to remember their ability to enter into play with total focus. Our adult impatience or lack of enthusiasm causes us all too often to become bored, and we inadvertently set our children up to develop short attention spans, diminishing their innate capacity to completely enter the world of play. Being able to sit quietly, absolutely feeling the sand, for example, as it slips through our fingers, opens a space within us where we are truly in communion with our child, allowing us to reenter that lost world where all that matters is this sand and this moment in time.

Toys: A Child's Tools for Life

Now that the holidays are over, most of us are wondering where to put all of the stuff that our children received from Santa and well-meaning relatives. We also know, after a month of play, which toys are “keepers”, which ones excited no interest, and which ones we will have to sneak out of the house in the dead of night while our children are asleep. These are the toys that we deem dangerous, poorly made, or downright annoying.

Toys are the tools for play. Play is such an important component of growth and development that I will devote an entire column to it in February. For now, I will say that because play is our children’s work, their tools must be made from the finest materials and designs. We wouldn’t dream of giving a violin prodigy an instrument made from a cardboard box with rubber band strings. Why, then, would we give a child in the important process of learning about the world and her place in it, a gaudy toy that emits odd squeaks, tinny bells, and cartoon voices, like so many of the plastic choices we see on the shelves?

Baby really needs only three simple toys: a wooden rattle, a small felted wool ball, and a square of silk. The wooden rattle stimulates the senses of touch, taste, and hearing and offers something to suck and chew on; the felted wool ball is colorful, easily grasped by little hands, and eventually enhances eye-hand coordination; and a square of brightly-colored silk, say 10” by 10”, can be tied into a simple first doll, placed just out of reach to encourage crawling, and used for the always favorite “peek-a-boo” game. I marvel at how much fun—and learning—a toddler gets from smooth stones, water, sand, and a regular, old-fashioned cardboard box! After the initial allure of the plastic thingies with bells and whistles, most children abandon them in favor of the simple, well-made toy from natural materials.

Experts in child development agree that early intellectual, social, physical, and emotional development depend most on a child’s interaction with her environment, which includes especially, her people. Gazing directly into his eyes, talking with him in normal tones, and responding to him with smiles and encouragement whenever he initiates communication enhances and stimulates healthy development much more than most products that manufacturers insist we must buy to raise healthy children.

Music is essential, too, but rather than buying those Baby Mozart tapes, it is the soothing sounds of our own voices, no matter how refined, that best soothe and comfort Baby. Singing silly songs and teaching her the age-old hand games, like pat a cake, pat a cake, strengthens the all-important bond between parent and child that is essential for the development of trust and self-esteem. We can even make simple drums and rattles children love to use from beans and any hollow, natural object, preferable over anything manufactured, especially from plastic. (See my November column about healthy living in a toxic world.)

Books are wonderful, but even more so are stories we tell from our own experiences, using our vocal inflections and eyes to capture and hold our children’s interest. These stories can be as mundane as our last trip to the grocery store, or as fanciful as a recent dream, but they offer tremendous opportunities to teach our family values, spiritual traditions, and cultural roots. They become even more important as our children grow. Unlike the adult-generated, often frightening, and sometimes misogynist, racist, and violent imagery of so-called children’s movies and videos, our own stories enable and invite our children to respond and interact with their content—and us--rather than being an inert sponge of the harmful content of most media fare.

When we are in doubt about a toy, watching how our children play with it will help us decide whether to make it part of the collection. Is it one that she goes back to time and again? Does this toy enable his imagination to create scenarios that have meaning to him? Is she engaged while using this toy, or does it encourage passive activity? Does he seem satisfied and happy or cranky and restless after playing with it?

Our own feelings about our children’s toys are just as important. Consider whether a toy is well made and esthetically pleasing. Does it evoke memories of our own well-loved toys? Do we enjoy watching our child play? Can this toy open a window into the world of fantasy, enriching imagination and creativity? Let’s not settle for anything less.

Gift-Giving With Heart

We’ve all read the articles and books about how to simplify the Holidays. I actually tried many of the helpful suggestions, yet I still found myself fretting over the hunt for the perfect gift for that special someone.

And, what if, when I found that perfect gift, the price tag far exceeded my holiday budget? Well, I’d often get it anyway, rationalizing that I would spend less on some other gift, so it would average out. Funny how that rarely happened! Come January I groaned when I opened the credit card bills.

This year I notice a definite shift in my search for the perfect gift. Maybe it’s because I am now of an age when I look back on many holiday gift-giving experiences, and I’ve gained a new perspective. Maybe it’s because I look around me at the many years of material accumulation and realize that no one needs another candleholder or electric drill or toy piano that plays by itself.

What we do all need is love, kindness, and appreciation for who we are. As I look at the names on my giving list, I wonder how I can honor each beloved person with a gift from my heart. What come to mind are gifts of time and experience, or handmade, rather than manufactured goods from China or Japan. A friend, who liked my ideas, shared her list that looks something like this:

Husband: Coupons for massages from me
Tickets for two to the theatre with dinner

Son: Tickets to his favorite pro basketball team’s game

Daughter & Son-in-law: A night of babysitting and dinner at their favorite restaurant

Grandson: A fort made by me out of a huge cardboard box
A trip to the zoo with a train ride

Brother & Sister-in-law: Coupons for a dinner for four at their favorite restaurant

Niece & Nephew-in-law: Wine from a local, organic vineyard

Grandniece: A collection of travel toys that I assembled from the hardware store

Aunt: A rose bush and a day of working with her in her garden

Friends: Handmade note cards
Hand-stenciled prayer flags to hang in their gardens
Flower seeds collected from my garden
Blank books made from recycled materials

Book club members: Handmade bookmarks made from a collage of book covers from books that we have read together

Hair Stylist, etc.: Homemade, organic granola bars

I figure that this list of gifts cuts my previous holiday spending in half, and my joy in the giving increases by at least that much. How wonderful to spend time thinking of each person, really noticing what is meaningful to him or her, finding how we might spend time together, or creating a gift that touches their heart and makes them smile. That’s a Holiday gift to remember!

Living Safely in a Toxic World

Or Having to Look Up the Words Polyvinylchloride and Bisphenol-A


Do I take paper or plastic? Polyester or cotton? Tap or bottled? Trash or recycling? Vaccinations or Not? Organic or conventional? The options go on, and how, I wonder, is the average family consumer supposed to know the correct answers? Everywhere I turn is a warning about the possible side effects of my choices on my family’s health and on the environment. The daily headlines announce yet another recall of pet food, baby cribs, and children’s toys—not Thomas the Train! Then there are all of those new studies warning us about phthalates, fluoride, Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone, polyvinylchloride, and Bisphenol-A! What is Bisphenol-A? Just reaching for a household-cleaning product on the grocery shelf feels like pulling the trigger in a game of Russian roulette. Whom might I hurt with this toilet bowl cleaner?

I can get myself tied up in knots over trying to remember whether our recycling company still takes #6 plastics, or was it #5’s that they can’t remake into something else? And my family cringes when it’s time for a “doggie bag” at our favorite restaurant. “Oh, you’re still using these polystyrene containers?” I’ll ask innocently, as my son slides under the table. “Well, could you just wrap it in foil, please? Foil’s reusable AND recyclable, you know.”

I finally trained myself to keep the cloth shopping bags in the car so I, at least, take them shopping with me; now to remember to take them into the store. I’ve taken to carrying a small bag-in-a-pouch in my purse to use when I’ve forgotten the bigger ones. I know that those plastic bags are a real menace to the environment, both in the energy consumed in their production and in the trash that they make. Now, if I can just remember to catch the bagger before s/he has put all of my purchases in plastic!

As a matter of fact, the whole plastics situation makes me shudder when I read that the ratio of plastic to zooplankton in our oceans is ever rising with plastics coming out the winner by much more than a nose. Evidently there are two so-called floating plastic "Garbage Patches" that are each bigger than the State of Texas out there! Not to mention that the Food and Drug Administration admits that “Yes!” plastics do leach into our food and water. The idea that plastic toxins migrate—without our knowing-- into everything, including food, water, air, even our skin, is quite creepy, and certain scenes from those old Alien movies form in my mind. But, what if we all chucked out our plastic food storage containers in favor of safer ones? Wouldn’t that create several mountains of plastic, a so-called “Mt. Tupperware,” “Mt. Everwear,” and Mr. Non-Destructible”? Even so.

Then, after cleaning out my kitchen cupboards, my thoughts go to all of those plastic toys that my children played with over the years. Who would have imagined that Barbie’s perfect features ooze phthalates, plasticizer additives that leach out from day one? Without it, Barbie, rubber duckies, teething rings, and those sweet bath books for babies would be hard and inflexible. I guess that saving my old Barbies for my grandchildren is a bad idea on all fronts, not just because they perpetuate a misguided beauty image.

I don’t really mean to sound cynical about all of this. Perplexed is really how I feel; perplexed about what the real story is, i.e. can we believe all that we read and hear, especially when so many stories and studies offer conflicting evidence? And, I’m perplexed about how we got from A to B, A being “the time before plastics and food additives and garden pesticides and polluted water supplies”, and B being the present moment where almost every choice we make may be hazardous to our health. I don’t recall being asked whether I wanted my breakfast cereal to be enriched or a plastic model made of that wonderful wooden train that someone’s grandfather carved for them one Christmas.

It’s not that I long for the good old days. Perhaps I long for a time that hasn’t come yet; a time when manufacturers value the safety of their products and the effects of production on the environment more than making millions of dollars; a time when health studies are not funded by vested interest groups whose aim is to sell worthless, unnecessary, or even harmful medicines; a time when I can confidently choose apples for my family, knowing that they contain no pesticides and were picked by workers who safely make a living wage for their families.