Ways to play (when you're not a natural player)

It was with some amusement that I opened The Sunday Life mag yesterday to find a column by Mia Freedman about the dread she feels when her kids ask her to play with them. Only the night before I had been espousing the soul benefits of being more playful and playing more with my son.  But her article rang true for me.

There will always be a thousand other things I want to do other than play like a four year old. And I am also not naturally gifted at playing. Which is precisely why I took myself off to learn to play last week with Sherry and Donna, and to arm myself with an arsenal of play 'tools' to keep it interesting for both me and my son.

Most adults don't want to play like little kids. But I do want to participate fully in my son's life  And he wants to play. So this weekend we tried more creative acts of play. 

We tinkered on Sunday, taking apart old remotes and torches that don't work and cords that have been homeless for years. I left it out on the table all day and he returned to it endlessly, both with me and without me. Starting something off with him and leaving it set up is often enough to encourage independent play (just as important as me playing with him) and gave me time to read the paper.

Then we played hide and seek, which was hilariously funny. Especially as he is not entirely certain of the game, and with unsupressed exuberance he would launch himself from his hiding spot squealing and giggling, 'Suprise!' even before I had started looking. I haven't laughed so much in a very long time.

To play: Parenting in the light Part 4

Wool maze

So then, how to show my son all the grand philosophy I want him to know?


Lots of earnest, inspired ideas came to mind as I thought about how to bring the sacred into our day to day lives; how to support us both to be peaceful beings. But the first thing I asked myself is, 'what does he want to do most of all in his day?'


The answer is terribly simple. He just wants to PLAY. 


And when I thought some more I realised I am the one to have forgotten how to do this. It seems as if this very verb, to play, might be the thing lacking in me (and so many other adults), and of which if I had more life would be much sweeter. I might forgive easily, judge less, like more, laugh often, and even cry when I needed to for as long as I liked. 


So like the researcher that I am I attended a workshop entitled Engaging Boys. I was the only non-educator in a room of kindergarten teachers, but it made little difference. I got what I wanted. I learnt how to really play with a boy who is learning about who is in the very act of playing.

I want my son to know he is a joyous, joy-filled being in a world full of potential joy. I want him to be playful with life. I want him to be light of heart and spontaneous and flexible and quick to smile. It is I that needs to bring that. He already is it. But every time I fail to be playful with my life, and especially with him, I take a little bit of joy out of our lives. 

Today, my son and I took a ball of shiny blue wool into the garden. And he ran from tree to fence to agapantha to post until he had made his very own web. He hissed like a snake the entire time. Then he invited me in, and we wove our way through it, and tangled ourselves in it and wound our way in and out. We made ourselves human catapults and we watched the light dance off this mighty maze that he had created. And I loved every moment of it. I played for the sheer delight of it. And now I really wanna make my own.