Ralph Waldo Emerson
We think and talk a lot about play in our house these days. Tiger is almost 18 months old and his imagination is really starting to spring to life. For example, he loves trains. OK, that's putting it mildly – he's obsessed with trains (especially a certain engine named Thomas and his
friends). Lately, every day objects are suddenly trains – the radiator, a blanket he tows behind him, the beads on his busy zoo bead cube, daddy's belly (we're not sure why, but it routinely is imagined
to be a train these days). Some parts of the day, the radiator is a radiator and he walks up to it and says "Hot, hot." But, other times, in his mind's eye, it magically transforms into a train and he walks up to it, runs his hands along it and says "Choo! Choo! Train!" DH and I are very intentional about how we react at those time, we don't say "no, that's not a train, it's a radiator." We say "oh! Is that a train? Choo! Choo!" and play along. He knows it's a radiator. We don't need to worry he'll think radiators are trains and fail his identification of household appliances unit of kindergarten (who the
hell knows what they teach in kindergarten these days? They might have to learn this skill to go onto first grade). He just imagines it to be something else sometimes. And so we try and imagine it that way too.
circle and says "star," or repeatedly refers to blue as "purple." If I correct him – "no, that's a circle," "no, it's blue;" he gets this sad look on his face like "oh, I did something wrong." He's 18 months old. It doesn't really matter if he sometimes calls a circle a star because he really likes stars. It doesn't matter if he says blue is purple because he loves the color purple (and the word) and wants to say it as much as possible. DH and I have talked about our tendency to correct and how we've needed to check that and instead say something like "I can see how that looks like purple" or simply, "yes, purple." Most of the time, Tiger is just looking for praise – he loves to hear us praising him for using his words, for getting it right. And that's more important at this stage than him actually getting it right.
A recent article in the NYT talks about the movement that is growing up around the importance of play. It's worth a read for any parent. As the article points out, when we talk about play, we're not talking about screen time, video games or electronic toys –even those that bill themselves as "educational." We're talking about rolling in the mud, throwing toilet paper in the air, making a fort - messy play. It does my heart good when I walk into my house at the end of a work day and see toys strewn everywhere, glitter stuck in the cracks of the hardwood floors, books strewn everywhere, fingerpaints out on the table, a fort in the corner, and a very happy kid. The house is a mess and it's tiring to know we'll have to clean it up after Tiger goes to bed, but it means that he's spent another great day learning to play with our wonderful nanny and her daughter. That is, without a doubt, more important than a tidy house. But, believe me, it's taken a while for DH and I to adjust to that and get comfortable with it. Oh and there is not one, I mean not a single, plastic-lights flashing-noise making toy. We simply don't have any. Well, we have one, a baby Einstein thing that plays music
and tells you the colors in English, Spanish and French. He uses it on the changing table sometimes and it did help him learn to say his colors, but he could have learned them from us and his books and
flashcards without that toy. Otherwise, all of Tiger's toys require imagination and motor skills to power them. We still have plenty of toys (TOO MANY), but I am always shocked when I go to a house full of these really loud, flashing toys and the kid seems to be having fun
but they're just kind of sitting there. Maybe pushing a button or something. No imagination required. Huh? Why? Also, those toys are annoying as hell. So, again, why? I can guess why –because although Tiger is becoming increasingly self-directed in his play and can now play for much longer stretches of time on his own, he still largely needs and wants a partner to play with. That means, DH
and I spend a lot of time of the floor playing with him and running around the house doing the same (it's winter now, so we're mostly housebound although global warming has given us a few days where bundled up wagon rides were possible). It's physically tiring after long days of work and not great nights of sleep (2 years molars – yay), not to mention the focused attention it requires can be very draining. But, really, we get only a few precious hours with him on week days and on weekends, we trade off sleeping in, so what better is there to do than play? It can be challenging getting dinner together, but a couple of nights a week we eat eggs or PB&J or (gasp!) hot dogs (uncured), which Tiger would prefer to a roasted chicken anyway. So be it. On days where we're really exhausted, DH and I just lay on the living room floor for a bit and Tiger is happy to crawl all over us laughing, kissing and tickling. We even play a game called "night night" where DH and I pretend to go to sleep on the floor and make a ridiculous snoring sound and then Tiger jumps on us yelling "It's day! It's day!" until we get up. He requests this game nearly every day and asks for it "again! again!" and it doesn't require much energy on the part of the adults. Plus, we're role playing sleeping, which is something he needs to do often as we continue to work on his own sleeping issues.
Tiger also has very limited TV time – ½ hour per day. He rarely throws tantrums over wanting more and rarely requests TV if he's already had his allotment. When he does, he usually is easily directed to a book or train or musical instrument. So, that seems to be working out for everyone. From time to time, if I need to get something done (like dinner) and he's really needing attention, I have
used the TV as a babysitter. I hate doing it, but sometimes it happens and so be it. For the most part though, Tiger's world of play consists of non-electronic toys, imaginative games, arts and crafts,
books and as much outside play as the weather will allow. Coupled with plenty of trips to the local museums, indoor play spaces, the local train station and even our local airport. Our nanny is just so
great at coming up with imaginative games and also letting the kids lead the play (her 4 year old daughter comes to the house 3 times per week and is Tiger's best friend). I am constantly amazed at how easily our nanny accesses their world and taps into that realm of the imagination that all of us adults have lying dormant in our mind. I've been struggling with that the most – finding my imagination again. That and letting go of the very practical and stressful adult world in order to inhabit Tiger's. When Tiger grabs the toilet paper roll and starts pulling, we let him pull. Then we throw up the wads of white paper in the air and yell "it's snowing!" There is definitely a part of me thinking about the mess and also how expensive TP is and how we now have wasted a whole roll, but I'm able to see that part of me is ridiculous and childish and that the part of me that is laughing and loving my child's experience of this roll of white, fluffy paper is actually far more sane. It's not always like that. DH and I have talked about our resistance to fingerpainting. Tiger loves to paint, but it's so messy and such a hassle, we rarely do it with him and leave that to the purview of our nanny who has him generating paintings at a pretty furious rate. Beautiful swaths of blue and green. Fiery reds and
oranges. They adorn the walls of my office and home. I need to work on dropping whatever outing we have planned on a Saturday in favor of "paits" when he asks for them.
I haven't quite figured out how to re-activate my imagination, however. That part's trickier. I had a fierce one as a kid. I played for hours alone with my imaginary friends or with neighborhood and school friends pretending the basement was an ice skating rink, that I was a
mechanic fixing my bike, etc. My best friend growing up had a wild and vivid imagination and we spent days upon days up through even our middle school years playing in imaginary worlds. When we got older, the games morphed into stories, which we would write in spiral notebooks during and after school, putting our real life friends and teachers into wild imaginary (and often funny – at least to us) situations. Where did that all go, I wonder? The truth is it didn't "go" anywhere – it's just been layered over by all the "have to's" and "need to's" of the adult day-to-day world. I haven't found the magic key to unlock that door, so instead I'm letting Tiger re-educate me. I'm learning by watching him learn about his imagination and accepting his invitations to join in those games with him as often as possible. As he gets older and indulges even more in this imaginary realm, I hope that I
can drop my adult mind and follow him in.
So, readers, how do you access your imagination with your kids? What kind of games do you play with them and how do you encourage old fashioned, messy play? I would love to hear your stories, tips and suggestions.
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