Perhaps They Will Play?

Schools have shut down. Local facilities and places of worship are closed. Businesses and companies are preparing for remote working, shut downs, and implementing support for extended or unlimited sick leave. Grocery stores are packed with people and emptied of toilet paper, soap, hand sanitizer, kombucha. Kombucha? Really people? So I checked on Amazon. Nope. No toilet paper. But--fear not, I also checked several versions of OTC birth control methods and it seems that at least for the time being, those are still in stock--let's see what happens by the time we all have at least the next two weeks, if not longer, home with our kids. But in all seriousness, there are many and mixed emotions about this and none of them are wrong. But one of the questions that has come up again and again between parents, educators, schools and learning institutions is this: what will our children do?

There have been a variety of answers from around the globe but here's mine, right here from my couch: Perhaps they will play.

Yes, in the face of a novel coronavirus, I see the demise of play being only a novelty. Yes, the lines at grocery stores, drug stores and big box stores and ACMoore are out the door, but you know who gets to move to the front of the line? Play. Maybe, just maybe, if there is a silver lining to all of this it is that for the first time in a long time, or maybe even ever, people will play. Not just children, but grown ups, too! Without the hours filled by structured activity and scheduled routines, perhaps we will play.

And it may look and feel a little funny at first. We might be a little rusty. For some, this will be a whole new horizon. But somewhere, deep inside us all, is an inherent need, desire and knowledge of how to play. Yes, there is work to be done. Yes, our children need to learn. Yes, play is enough for now. So will I be setting up shop to homeschool my kids? Not quite. Will I be setting up activities to inspire my kids? Probably--but only because that is how *I* play. And will every moment be filled with plans and structure and sunshine and rainbows? Nope. Honestly, there are going to be moments here that are a total &#$* show because there always are! I just can't catch them on camera because I'm too busy flailing my arms and yelling in a loud, booming voice... But in between those less than Instagram worthy moments will be unstructured, unplanned, uninterrupted play.

And it won't look "perfect." There will be boredom and from that will come critical thinking and problem solving and creativity. There will be arguing and from that will come conflict resolution and relationship and connection. There will be messes. So many messes. And cleaning. So much cleaning. And scientific discoveries and experiments and concoctions and explosions. There will be glitter. There will be tears. There will be playdough and colors mixed beyond recognition. There will be laughter to the point of tears to the point of remembering that after 3 pregnancies, laughter to the point of tears is risky business during a toilet paper shortage. There will be trips to the park. There will be rainy days we put on our rain suits and rubber boots, grab our umbrellas and get outside anyway. We will see the best in others. We will see the worst in others. Fear does that. We will also see the best and worst in ourselves. Like I said, fear does that. There will be questions. So many questions. There will be talking. So much talking. There will be hopes and wishes and disappointments and frustrations and surprises and wonders and curiosities.

So lean into this play. Let it be the first time in a long time that you do. Let it be OK to not fill the moments or the minutes or the hours. Let it be OK to play a bit yourself. Let it be OK to fall apart like a giant block tower being knocked down. And get up again. Rebuild. Regroup. Remember. Remember what it's like to play for the sake of play. Not for "learning" or for "purpose" or for "product." Those things happen anyway, trust me! So dive into this. Lose track of time. Immerse in the deep waters of Pretend and Make Believe--whether you're revisiting an old and sacred space or entering this world for the very first time. You can dip your big toe in and then another and then your foot, your ankle, your leg. Or you can grab your legs at the knees and do a cannonball off the high dive. There's no wrong way to play. Be silly. Be dramatic. Be someone else. Be something else. Be joyful. Be authentic. Be speedy. Be still. Be gigantic. Be tiny. Be invisible. Be invincible.

I wonder what will come to mind in 20 years when we look back on this time? I wonder what will come to our children's minds in 20 years when they look back on this time? I wonder if this had happened sooner if ACMoore stores might have stayed in business with all the shoppers stocking up on emergency craft reserves? If you need ideas for play activities, you know I've got your back here. But also know that you don't need ideas for play activities. The definition of play in and of itself negates the whole "activity" end of it. Play is chosen. Play is natural and happens in its own space and time frame. Sometimes it moves with great velocity and zeal. Sometimes it looks a bit slower, more withdrawn, even sedentary. Move with it. Sit with it. Watch it and be in awe of it. This is the moment play has been waiting for. And since we're all home to stay, let them play, let them play, let them play!


Be well, be safe, just be! And as always...

Happy Playing!

What My Ridiculous Nightmare Taught Me About Children & Weapon Play

I had a ridiculous nightmare last night. The kind of ridiculous nightmare I wake up from and can't go back to sleep because I'm afraid of having another ridiculous nightmare. Maybe it was that one extra hamentasch I'd had after the Shabbos meal, right before bed. Maybe it was the game I was playing with S right before dinner. Maybe it was the topic of children and weapon-play that has been on my mind lately in general. So I woke up my husband to tell him I'd had a bad dream. And he knows the deal: no one's going back to sleep until I tell him about it. Even as I'm telling him, I know it sounds absolutely ridiculous and even I can't figure out why it was so scary to me.

I had been locked inside of a big, dark room. I managed to get out and walk through an equally dark hallway to the top of a stairwell where across the room was a light, curly-haired woman holding a gun. I held up my arm, extended my forefinger forward, thumb up in the air and three fingers pointing back at me. I proceeded to make all of the right noises "chew chew chew." but even Ridiculous Dream Me knew that my 5 year old style hand gun with "chew chew chew" noises was no match for a real weapon. And then I woke up.

And as I lay there, still shaken even half an hour later, I realized that this is the epitome of adult worry: holding up a pretend gun made out of your hand when everyone else has real weapons. Powerlessness because in spite of seeing what's coming at you, you have all the wrong tools for the job. And my adult worries, similarly to my childhood fears, still feel a size too big. Especially in the middle of the night after one too many hamentaschen.

The topic of weapon play has been at the forefront of my mind as S and several of his classmates explore it on the playground. It's an area that has peaked my curiosity long before S first came home from school in the fall with all new vocabulary and dramatization around it. I've read research, engaged in conversations with other educators and early childhood specialists, listened to podcasts and lectures and even reflected on it myself. What is it that draws in the level of curiosity and exploration our young children have with weapon play? So many are quick to say it's the internet or television or video games. And yet, long before there were PJ Masks and Ninja Turtles on the playground, there were Cowboys and Indians, Cops and Robbers. Weapon play is nothing new.

Our adult ears are so sensitive to those "chew chew chew" sounds. We cringe at hearing a five year old child use words like "kill" and "shoot" and "smash their head in." We either redirect, disallow, ignore or a combination of all three. And our children intuit one way or the other that, for some reason, this is something we do not play... We would not "play-shame" a child for pretending to be a teacher or a wizard or a turtle...but for pretending to be a soldier or a ninja or, heaven forbid, a "bad guy?" We are justified in this because bad guys are, well, bad. And when we say "we don't play..." it becomes essentially that red button on the playground that says "Don't Push Me." Or, they get more creative than that and begin to play in private. Either way, that play happens. It has to. It's almost compulsive. They may mask that gun as a fire hose or a squirt toy, but it's still shooting.

"Ask a child what they are shooting and they will almost never say a bullet." said one educator in a group discussion on this topic. So I tried it. I asked S on numerous different occasions in the Fall when he came home with an interest in weapon play what he was shooting. Sure enough, every time it was something different. Fire. Poison. Ice cream. Bubbles. Never bullets. I fought the urge in those months to redirect, sometimes less successfully than others, but most of the time I realized this play had to run its course. And it did, at home, at least. More recently it's crept its way into his classroom and school playground with many peers. And the issue has been of concern to many parents. I feel slightly less concerned having the "evidence based knowledge" that this is normal and developmentally typical. I do, however, still have a discomfort with it.

S and I were playing together on Friday night after the Shabbos meal. The game morphed into S using a toy bottle as a "poison shooter." I grabbed the closest thing to me, a Mitzvah Machine (which looks curiously like a toy Keurig coffee maker). Every time his poison shooter shot poison at one thing or another, the Mitzvah Machine shot bubbles of good deeds or slime of kind acts or even glitter powder of helpfulness. Eventually, the Poison Shooter relented and decided to enter the Mitzvah Machine and repent for his unkind acts with plenty of more altruistic ones. But this didn't happen until Saturday afternoon! So maybe that ridiculous nightmare was also triggered (pun intended) by the game being yet unresolved when we went to bed...

And here I was, in that dark balcony of a place I've never been staring at this woman I've never seen, holding up my pretend gun shouting "chew, chew, chew," but I can't remember how to play. And that's when it hits me:

We can't remember how to play. For our youngest children, much of their lives are beyond their grasp--whether literally or cognitively. So much is out of their control, but when they play, they can control everything. They can be anything, become anything, overcome anything. And we can't remember. We can't remember what it's like to have all of the power to change in your hands and none of the hopelessness of defeat. And we've forgotten how to change; we've met defeat so many times it's often easier just to stay the same. To still be holding up that pretend gun made out of your hand even though The Enemy has real weapons. But what is this elusive enemy? With her slight figure and light curly hair? Across a balcony in a dark room in a place we've never been? It's worry.

Worry that our children will become what they play. But let me tell you something about children and play. Children embody their play. Completely. Get a group of five year olds with cats on their mind and you're going to have meowing, purring, licking, clawing--the full feline experience. There's no just talking about a cat--they must be the cat and completely commit to the cat until that cat is done. And let me tell you something else. I have known children who have pretended to be cats since I was a child pretending to be a cat and not one of them, not one has become a cat. Some still talk about cats. Some even have cats. One actually had a separate Facebook profile for her cat, but I digress...

Play is the experience of a child. It is the ability to hold the whole world in your hands when 85% of it still requires a step stool to reach. Play is for fun. It is for learning. It is for release. It is for control. It is for power. It is for conflict and resolution. It is for experimenting and trying on for size. Play is for wonder and for curiosity and for questions and for answers. Play is a lot of things and I firmly believe it has to happen. It has to run its course. It has a purpose and when the purpose is fulfilled, the play changes. The cat gives way to a dog that gives way to a dragon that gives way to a wizard that gives way to a Bad Guy that gives way to Batman...

When the hand is a magic wand, we don't worry. Even if that magic wand can obliterate the world in one fell swoop, it's whimsical, mystical and pretend. But when the same is a gun, it hits too close to home. It epitomizes to us that world that for adults is 85% still out of our reach and there is no step stool. The difference between the child and the adult, however, is that their hand being a gun is not equivalent to the loss of innocence. That we can't remember this--that is the loss of innocence. The fact that at one point we learned the difference between a magic wand and a gun--that's when innocence was lost. And likely, it was a realization that came from an adult. And it's important in life to know the difference between a magic wand and a gun, but does it have to be on the playground when you're five years old shouting "chew chew chew" and an adult comes to tell you "we don't play..."

We don't play. We don't remember how and even when we try, it's tailored by an adult mind that can't recall the playground anymore. I have to have this Mitzvah Machine because what else do I do when someone is shooting poison at me? The only thing I know how. I toss out the only tools I have, good deeds, kindness and helpfulness. And maybe that's exactly what I need. Maybe those are the right tools. Maybe Ridiculous Dream Me had nothing but a pretend gun made out of my own hand because play is enough.

Happy Playing!

Pretend You Are Playing...

"Mommy, what did you play when you were little?"
In the recent months, my boys have become particularly interested in hearing about what my own childhood play experiences were like. S in particular loves to hear stories of what types of toys I played with and what topics and stories I played about. Trips to our local thrift shop started to result in a growing collection of original cabbage patch kids (I am one doll away from having more cabbage patch kids than actual kids). I may or may not have begun grooming my boys to play with vintage My Little Ponies. They got the surprise of the summer when two brand new Pound Puppies arrived for adoption at our house in retro 1980s true-to-the-original packaging. And yes, I had to retro-actively order one more for myself, because I'm still jealous that my big sister had a big Pound Puppy, Cinnamon, and I only had a newborn, Fudge. I finally got my big Pound Puppy, a similarly colored breed with different ears and spots unlike the original Cinnamon, and if anyone asks, her name is Nutmeg.

And yes, I felt just a little bit foolish standing in the line to pick up my order from Walmart's Customer Service desk, holding onto my wallet and 30 plus years of little sister toy envy, but you know what? As soon as the grown man standing behind me saw what was inside my box he gleefully shouted
"Is that a Pound Puppy? In original 1980s retro packaging???"
"Yes, sir! And it still comes with the sticker sheet..."

And when I got in the line at the thrift store to buy two more original cabbage patch dolls so the boys would stop fighting over mine, the cashier had her own fond memory of being stationed overseas in Asia when cabbage patch dolls first came out and being able to purchase them at insanely inexpensive prices for the time since she was near the factory where they were manufactured. [Sorry to burst anyone's bubble who thought like I did that they were actually harvested from a garden bed...] Another woman remembered standing in line at midnight outside of the toy store when they first came out to buy one for her then two year old daughter. And when I posted a question to my Facebook page about earliest memories of play, the responses flooded in from favorite toys, games, play scenarios and more. How is it that on a good day, many adults cannot remember what we ate for dinner the night before or why we walked into the kitchen just now, but we can all remember playing as a child?

I believe this speaks volumes to the importance of play in childhood. Truly, child's play is more than just child's play. And the world's greatest pioneers of early childhood spoke to this truth. Voices like those of Fred Rogers, Maria Montessori and Vivian Paley all sang the same glorious tune, albeit in slightly different keys: play is the work of the child. It is where they discover and learn. It is where they feel and grow. It is where they grieve and overcome. It is where they worry and resolve. Play is the foundation upon which all else is built and it is truly the integrity of everything that emerges from it. If the foundation of a building is weak, the building itself will lack integrity. Play is where our children thrive, and yet, it is all but disappearing from childhood (not to mention all the years that follow).

Whereas early childhood classrooms once were a space of fantasy and storytelling, perhaps with some meaningful props offered and opportunity to reflect through various artistic, mathematical, literary, musical and scientific lenses, now there are desks and chairs and bodies made to sit still in them that are no more ready to sit still than a baby who's yet to sit at all is ready to walk. We've got so much. We've got research and data. We've got technology and industry. We've got scores to achieve and standards to maintain. What we don't have is time. There is not time for the luxury of play. What was once seen as the work of the child is now seen as an escape from that work. What once was the rule is now the exception to it.

My father is a psychologist, professor, lecturer, author and advocate. His area of expertise and interest is the world of work. His latest book, The Importance of Work in an Age of Uncertainty: The Eroding Work Experience in America talks about the massive climate change in our country's work and career force and how that has so greatly affected people across the board--from the CEO to the janitor and everyone in between. My father is truly passionate about the world of work and how it shapes who we are. So how did I end up an advocate for play? One might argue we speak from opposite ends of the spectrum, but I would argue that we are likely seeing and saying the very same things, albeit from varied stages of life.

And likely my own passion stems from the fact that two of the greatest advocates for my own childhood play were my parents. My mother also works in the field of early childhood education and greatly valued the role of children's narrative through play both in her classrooms and in our home. We did not have video games, though we did watch TV. We had plenty of toys and they spanned from those that are more open ended to those we craved and coveted as seen on TV. We did not always have someone standing over us and directing our play or dictating the story. We had times when we said "I'm bored." And we were allowed to dwell in that space and discover what could become of it.

We had two of the greatest assets any child can have when it comes to play: TIME and SPACE. We had the opportunity to engage in deep, meaningful and continued play and we had the ownership of that narrative. Certain games continued on and off for months and even years. (Don't get me started on the Barbie Sagas of the Early 1990s.) When something was worrisome or scary, we played about it. My dad played about allergy shots with me more times than I can account for. There were plenty of areas I was not particularly confident in as a child, but play was a safe haven. In play, I could be whoever I wanted to be. In play, the story could end when it stopped being fun. In play, all things were possible in a world that would gradually close in to cross at least a few of those things off the list: I would not be a ballerina, monopoly money does not work in the mall, unicorns are not, in fact real, and husbands do not really sleep in the bathtub (sorry, Ken, but on Barbie's behalf, Jerry Seinfeld said it best: sleep is separate).

This past July, the world lost a powerful voice in play advocacy and early childhood education when pioneering teacher, Vivian Gussin Paley passed away at the age of 90. In one of my favorite books of hers (and really, they are all favorites), A Child's Work: The Importance of Fantasy Play, she writes the following:
"...we discovered that play was indeed work. First there was the business of deciding who to be and who the others must be and what the environment is to look like and when it is time to change the scene. Then there was the even bigger problem of getting of getting others to listen to you and accept your point of view while keeping the integrity of the make-believe, the commitment to the other players, and perhaps the loyalty of a best friend..."

Indeed, the chasm between the cubicle and the playroom is not nearly as wide as we may perceive it to be. Playground politics and office politics are not so different. And the dialogue of play has not changed one bit in the last 100 years although the stage scenery may have. Listen in on any group of 5 year olds and you'll  hear it:
"Pretend you are the mommy and I am the baby. And pretend that the baby wants to play but it's time for bed."
"No, I want to be a puppy! We are all dogs. Pretend you are the mommy dog and I am the baby dog and the baby dog wants to play but it's time for bed."
"Yeah, and the baby dog is really mad. Pretend you run away because you don't want to go to bed."
"And pretend when you're running away you get lost in the woods and it's really scary."
"And there's a witch!"
"And she's got a house made out of candy and cookies and dog treats...."

The characters' names and the plot lines may have changed subtly and significant world events have shaped the stories as they occurred. But one thing always remains the same and it truly fills me with wonder. It always begins with the words "Pretend..."

In "Pretend..." it is safe. Don't get me wrong--it can get dangerous. There are fires and storms and villains and weapons and people get sick and people die and people also come back to life and the plot can also change and the characters can shift and the story can even start over. And in a decade of teaching and working with children and now in 5 plus years of parenthood what has changed? Pedagogues come and go. Tools and technology emerge and just as quickly are replaced by updated versions. Across the board, most children do learn their letters and numbers and will read and write, albeit in their own pace and space. There's not one foolproof method to success, but more often than not the utilization of multiple methods is most successful. What is lacking? For many, it is the ability to "Pretend..." Who knew that was a skill? More and more, the absence of that TIME and SPACE has resulted in the absence of the ability to engage in and maintain that play narrative. And what is lost when we lose the story?

Perhaps we could argue that children don't need to play about being grown up and going to work--they are practically born already doing it, or at least with the expectation that they must be ready to by kindergarten. Blowing bubbles outside has been replaced by filling in bubbles on a Scantron sheet. Children do not lack for lessons on how to do that. They do lack for lessons on how to play--so much so that "play therapy" has become a common resource offered in schools for children displaying a deficit in this area. A deficit in play? How does that even happen? How did the world of "Pretend..." become a world in which children are taught to Pretend they are playing?

And Perhaps the nostalgia we all feel at the sight of a mint condition Care Bear sitting on the thrift store shelf or the vintage toy section displaying replicas of playthings past is not about the toys themselves, but the times that they represent. The days when bedtime always came too soon and even then, the game could always continue again tomorrow--right where it left off. The days when recess was not a privilege to be earned and likewise, taken away, but a standard segment of the daily routine--as necessary as lunch time and using the bathroom. The days when play was not an escape from the task at hand but, rather, was the task at hand. It wasn't a way to pass the time, it was the purpose of the time. And what I truly wonder is this: thirty years from now, what memories will come back to our own children when their little ones ask them "what did you play when you were little?"

Happy Playing!