My Connections to Play

“Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle.” 
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

You are worried about seeing him spend his early years in doing nothing. 

  What!  Is it nothing to be happy?  

Nothing to skip, play, and run around all day long?

Never in his life will he be so busy again.  

~Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile, 1762

I was lucky to grow up in a small town, very safe neighborhood where it was ok for a young girl to run around by herself without fear.  I spent a lot of time in libraries and in local parks.  My mother allowed us to play and explore our neighborhood with the other children pretty much at will.  Because I had this experience, I keenly feel what my own children are missing out on by living in a big city.  I feel like they don't have the opportunity to explore and imagine and run wild like I did, which I believe helped me grow into a confident, relaxed person.

To me play is, for that very reason, so much different.  It is not safe for my daughter to wander around by herself - she can't walk to the library or walk around downtown and explore used bookshops or hop on a bus with her friends and go role play along the river front.  I am sure there are children who do those things - but I am a mother who feels that in this big city environment that sort of freedom is too dangerous these days. So much of play has been relegated to indoor electronics - a huge contrast to when I grew up.

Play is and was an important part of childhood.  It is the time when children begin to imagine ho they want to be without yet being told there are limits.  It is the time where they get to express enthusiasm and hope and adventure.  It is when they learn how to negotiate and interact with different personalities and adjust to disappointment (oh, the drama of childhood friendships!)  Without play, children have a very limited theater in which to practice communication and social and problem solving skills they will need in adult life.