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.