The other night Barry and I were sitting out in our backyard as the girls played together nearby. They had finally hit their rhythm where it’s a fine balance of Maggie bossing and Audrey being a bit goofy/wild. They were having a ball, and giving us adults a few minutes to talk without interruption, a miracle. While we watched them Barry turned to me and says, “I love this, I think they’re doing exactly what kids should be doing.”
It as so true, and it’s a fight I have internally often, asking the question about providing things to ‘do’ for my kids/playing with them/entertaining them/allowing any screen time. And while watching them play, it looked like they weren’t really doing anything, just playing and interacting with each other, but they were doing something. With their bossing and giggling, they were skill building, relationship building, and hopefully building bricks that will lay a strong foundation to carry them through life.
We’ve got lots of activities (painting, chalk, bikes, blah, blah, blah), and we’re attempting to explore the PNW this year in a more aggressive way than we have in the past few summers, but really the girls most like to play together with objects that you can’t necessarily find in a toy store. We aren’t doing much this summer, lots of trips to A-Town, lots of play time in our backyard, letting our kids do what kids should do….play.
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Amen! Not enough parents let their kids just play. Not only does it develop social skills, it develops their imagination which leads to innovative leaders and thinkers. Something desperately needed in today’s world. I will argue that some kids need structured play time (many reasons why that I am not going to expand on), but for the most part let kids do what kids do best. I support you one hundred percent.
YES!!! Juniper will even tell you, “Kids were made to just play, play, play.” We had an older neighbor girl drop by to play today, a first. She’s 8, going into 3rd grade. They spent so much time negotiating–such a critical skill–“Okay, I’ll be the warewolf and you’re the dog, and you’re the human that protects the dog.” Then they would run around and chase each other for less than a minute before they were back to negotiating. “Okay. So you’re the Siberian Husky and I’m the Golden Retriever and….” So fun. (If not a bit awkward for me since I know NOTHING of her family….) Before I read that book “Free to Learn” I probably would have intervened somewhere, not anymore. Especially with mixed-age play. Mixed-age play is the best.