Master players revisited
This is what the loft in our house looks like more often than not.
Blocks are constantly set up as houses and castles. Armies war against each other, usually of the intergalactic variety. And the children who build them have long, ongoing stories attached to each of them. I would say about half of many children's day is taken up with this long, involved imaginative play.
I have written a lot about play over the years. At one point, I found the term 'master players' in reference to children who had perfected the art of play. In my previous post about this (click the link), I noted that my master players were in the six year old age range, which was older than most sources assume when writing about children and play. It annoyed me, because six is still so very young and play is exactly what they should be doing.
Here I am four years later. I have spent the afternoon listening to some very involved, complicated story lines from my much older master players. This time the players were 10, 13, and 14. That is almost ten years older than the age group most books about play target. Instead, we have pushed the children in this age range so far ahead of where they need to be that we have created a whole new subgroup for them... tweens. Really, they are children encouraged to act older than they need to.
What they need is free, unstructured time to play. (And imagine and think and be bored and run around outside.) I truly do not understand what the rush to adulthood is. You don't become a better adult by practicing adulthood as a child. You get to be a better adult by play.
As I listen to my children, not only do I hear them playing, I am also aware of all the cognitive and emotional work that is happening. Complicated imaginative play requires memory (to remember what the story line is, who the characters are, and what is going to happen often with gaps between play sessions), negotiation (everyone has different ideas about how the play should evolve, for the play to continue this differences need to be worked out), use of language (the only way the story can be advanced is through communication), emotionally work (many of the story lines involve events and feelings from their everyday life, this is a way to figure out how to make sense of it all), cementing knowledge (more often than not, what they have learned in their morning lessons comes out in their play as they make use of the new information),and body movement and coordination (more often than not, play happens on the floor, this involves crawling [excellent for brain building] and movement of all sorts).
I read far too often that parents are nervous about their older children playing, as if that will somehow set them back in the great race to.... something. They over schedule and fill their days with activities misguidedly thinking that this is the pathway to success, with the result being just the opposite of that hoped for.
The vast majority of us are all living every single moment of our day along with our children. Take a deep breath and let them play as you are able. Make use of this gift of time to let them be children. It is very possibly the greatest thing that could happen to them.
Blocks are constantly set up as houses and castles. Armies war against each other, usually of the intergalactic variety. And the children who build them have long, ongoing stories attached to each of them. I would say about half of many children's day is taken up with this long, involved imaginative play.
I have written a lot about play over the years. At one point, I found the term 'master players' in reference to children who had perfected the art of play. In my previous post about this (click the link), I noted that my master players were in the six year old age range, which was older than most sources assume when writing about children and play. It annoyed me, because six is still so very young and play is exactly what they should be doing.
Here I am four years later. I have spent the afternoon listening to some very involved, complicated story lines from my much older master players. This time the players were 10, 13, and 14. That is almost ten years older than the age group most books about play target. Instead, we have pushed the children in this age range so far ahead of where they need to be that we have created a whole new subgroup for them... tweens. Really, they are children encouraged to act older than they need to.
What they need is free, unstructured time to play. (And imagine and think and be bored and run around outside.) I truly do not understand what the rush to adulthood is. You don't become a better adult by practicing adulthood as a child. You get to be a better adult by play.
As I listen to my children, not only do I hear them playing, I am also aware of all the cognitive and emotional work that is happening. Complicated imaginative play requires memory (to remember what the story line is, who the characters are, and what is going to happen often with gaps between play sessions), negotiation (everyone has different ideas about how the play should evolve, for the play to continue this differences need to be worked out), use of language (the only way the story can be advanced is through communication), emotionally work (many of the story lines involve events and feelings from their everyday life, this is a way to figure out how to make sense of it all), cementing knowledge (more often than not, what they have learned in their morning lessons comes out in their play as they make use of the new information),and body movement and coordination (more often than not, play happens on the floor, this involves crawling [excellent for brain building] and movement of all sorts).
I read far too often that parents are nervous about their older children playing, as if that will somehow set them back in the great race to.... something. They over schedule and fill their days with activities misguidedly thinking that this is the pathway to success, with the result being just the opposite of that hoped for.
The vast majority of us are all living every single moment of our day along with our children. Take a deep breath and let them play as you are able. Make use of this gift of time to let them be children. It is very possibly the greatest thing that could happen to them.
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