The Single Most Important Tool for Play That Money Can't Buy

Many parents and educators put a great deal of thought and intention into what we provide our children with for the purpose play. We know that play is important. We know it is truly the work of childhood. We know from this act stem all of their physical, emotional and social development. And so we are mindful when we peruse the toy aisles. We carefully select the books we read and especially those we read to them. We surround them in spaces designed artfully and intentionally. Perhaps we adhere to particular theories of play that we feel support their process. On your mark, get set, hurry up and play!

We have put so much thought and respect into the space and the items that fill it and the people we let in and the routines we surround that with. But there is one thing that I would consider of value above anything else. One "loose part," one "toy," one indispensable element of play that is often overlooked, abused and even neglected or forgotten: time.

Research shows that children of all ages and abilities have a common need for adequate time to truly engage in the process of creative play. An article from the International Journal of Early Childhood Environmental Education entitled "Playing With Nature: Supporting Preschoolers' Creativity in Natural Outdoor Classrooms" sites through a qualitative research study of two outdoor preschool environments that among various factors and elements put into place and space, "large blocks of uninterrupted time"  were a significant source of promoting creative play and problem solving for preschool aged children.

And then we view the typical routine of the ECE classroom: Children arrive, settle in, perhaps play a bit or participate in table activities. Circle Time. Snack Time. Outdoor Time. Group Time. Specials. Extracurricular Activities. Lunch Time. Play Time. Nap Time. Enrichment Time. Pick up Time. After School lessons and sports. Dinner Time. Story Time. Bed Time. We fill every moment of their time. We even have a market for products to support this. Visual timers, safe-to-wake clocks, Siri, Alexa... And phrases like "Time Management," as though time needs an external source to overrule her. And why?

There are so many things a child must know before kindergarten. If we don't set the pace, we are not preparing our children for real life. If we do not fill the space between the minutes and the hours, they will grow bored. And we also interpret what we see. Children who may be boisterous and rowdy in the classroom or playroom. Children who may be "disengaged" and quiet or withdrawn. Children who are "not playing functionally" with the toys and materials at hand. Children who are experiencing conflict or "behaviors" or otherwise acting inappropriately. It must be time to redirect. To change activity. To switch up the routine.

It's uncomfortable for us. We have an ingrained adult impression of time now that likely was imposed on us from early on. We have a small threshold for waiting and boredom. We are used to instant gratification and technological advances support us in this. Our own pace is often so rapid that by the end of the day we're not sure if we're chasing the clock or it is chasing us. We often say things like "I need to slow down" or "I wish time would just stand still." " The days are short but the hours are long." But we continue to need to fill the spaces between words and between minutes. We can tolerate neither silence nor space.

I feel that so many of the battles we have with our tiny humans and within ourselves are not anything more than battling the clock and the ownership of each tic and tock. We say things like "it's your time you are wasting," but is it really? Or is it mine? Does anyone really claim to own time?

It is also my belief that a great deal of the issues we see today in our children's learning and development are related not to inadequate parenting, inadequate nutrition, inadequate knowledge or inadequate physical activity, but rather due to inadequate time. We have expectations of what play and learning should look like and beyond that, we have expectations of how much time should pass before, during and after that process. This particular task takes me this much time, it should be the same for everyone, no?

Children Who Are Slow to Warm Up
Some children enter a space and are not immediately engaged and immersed in play and activity. Perhaps they are looking around. Perhaps they pace the perimeter. Perhaps they seem withdrawn or like they don't know how and where to begin. So we push them along, we "make a choice for them" (because not choosing is not a choice). What would happen if we didn't?  What if we tolerated our discomfort with a child not immediately engaged in play and waited and watched...

Children Who Flock to the Familiar
Some children day after day, given a plethora of new activities and toys and materials will flock to the same spot or same activity. We label them as reluctant to try new things. And when the 15 minute block of "free time" is over, they still have only played with Magnetiles for the millionth day in a row. What would have happened if the block was not over in 15 minutes?

Children Using Materials Inappropriately
A child is carrying dolls from the dollhouse over to the block area. That's not where the dolls go, they go in the dollhouse. And, oh my goodness, the pompoms from the craft shelf are in the kitchen set being mixed voraciously in a pot! Now the children are wreaking havoc on the setup of the room and it must be time for clean up.

Children Who Act Rowdy or Boisterously in the Environment may be expressing unfiltered joy, excitement and pleasure--unfiltered expression of emotions is the only way young children know to express themselves. Their lack of inhibition may not be what we as adults with years of practice at bottling up, masking and stifling emotions are comfortable with, but it is what is natural to our young ones. The same goes for expressions of frustration, disappointment or other tumultuous struggles in play. Do we rush to the "rescue" to help them "calm" their bodies (i.e.: tame their flames of emotion) and to "relieve" them from the discomfort of a tumbling block tower rather than allow them the opportunity to grieve that loss and rebuild? And in doing so, are we not also putting them into developmental debt? A buy now, pay later credit plan for soothing the discomforts of natural play emotion to the detriment of creative thinking and problem solving?

Children Who Cease and Desist From Activity
Little Sally was so busy playing with the baby doll in dramatic play but now she's stopped and is just pacing the room, seemingly looking for something to do. She needs a prompt. She needs a reminder to choose an activity.

They Are Starting to Argue
It's over a toy being shared. It's over the use of the space. It's over whose idea is implemented into the block building or who knocked it down when someone wasn't done yet. It's an issue at home and in the classroom. Conflict happens. But rather than allow it to happen and resolve, we do a fancy little dance called The Redirect. Heaven forbid the children experience the tension of conflict and resolving it; we can do that for them and it will save time.

They Will Be Bored
If we don't fill every moment of every minute of every hour of every day, the children will be bored. Gosh, that's uncomfortable for me to even think about...

But what if one day we just didin't. What if we didn't make their choices for them or nudge them along? What if we waited out the Magnetile play only to discover that after the comfort of the familiar, he felt ready to explore the novel? What if even though the function and space of a material was clear to us, we considered it is also clear to them? And that there can be more than one way to play with the same toy? That purpose is internal; not external. What if we let go of the parameters of our own tolerance of conflict and allowed children to discover and establish their own? And what if we let them be bored? What if we looked at child's pause in play as a semi-colon and not a period.

Something incredible happens to me again and again as a parent and an educator. I have a need to fill space and time. We need an activity. We need a provocation or an invitation or a theme or direction. And then, one day, I draw a blank. Either I lack a specific idea or direction. Or I lack the time personally to implement the million and two specific ideas and directions I have in my back pocket. And all that is left is space and time. Or even more anxiety inducing, what if I did put in the time and effort and set up an amazing space and provocation only to see children exhibiting unexpected behaviors with it--not immediately engaging, or using the materials differently than I'd envisioned or playing only briefly and then walking away? I have an attachment, you see, to my ideas and my space and my TIME. But then I step back. I stop and I a breathe and I let go. And the child who was not immediately interested eventually does step in and engage. Or the child who's using the materials differently actually had an amazingly well thought out plan and purpose, something I had not envisioned in my limited adult scope. Or the child who played for a moment and fled fulfilled her purpose in that space and carried it with her proudly to the next portion of her day.

Time, its function, its purpose and how we fill it is individual to each and every one of us. Our adult discomforts around it are not the same for our children. On the contrary, many need and crave the space of open time to truly engage in creative thinking, problem solving and meaningful play. I can remember as a child watching this particular clip from The Muppet Show and feeling amused by the bubbles and explosions and whimsy. Now that I'm grown, it always makes me cry. My own time has been hijacked but it doesn't need to be so for my children. Perhaps it's too big and too elusive to store in a bottle, but perhaps I can also open myself up enough to allow it to rightfully exist in its own independent space.

If I could make days last forever

If words could make wishes come true,

I'd save every day like a treasure, and then

Then, I would spend them with you

I invite you to step back. To breathe. To take a moment or even a minute and maybe, if you can, longer. I allow you the opportunity to take that moment, that minute, that hour and not need to fill it from brim to brim. I allow you the space of that moment, that minute and that hour to experience, to notice, to attach and then let go of the discomfort. And instead to watch. To observe. To see children given so much by those who care so deeply for their well-being finally being given the one thing that money can't buy: enough time. And truly, for that moment, that minute and that hour, giving it to yourself as well.

Happy Playing!