- Today we're gonna create a little bit of wisdom.
Wisdom in the sense that we understand
a little bit more deeply
what it is our children need
and what it is they're doing with all this time,
especially when we're locked down at home.
Now, you might be feeling a lot of guilt
and confusion and anxiety around
exactly how your children are spending
all of this time at home.
I know they're probably not moving their bodies
quite as much as they used to,
they might be on the screen a lot more than they used to.
They might be with friends a lot less than they used to.
And just in general, you might be worried about them
falling behind, falling behind on schoolwork
and falling behind in all the ways.
Let me first of all set your mind at ease
and remind you that children are so adaptable
and adjustable and flexible.
They are growing, their brains are fully plastic.
Everything can change and heal very, very quickly
throughout childhood
and a few months at home with their parents
is by no measure, gonna set them back
in any detrimental way.
In fact, the gifts that they're getting
from this quality time with you at home
can easily counterbalance all the fears that you have
about them missing out on other stuff.
And yes, we wanna answer those needs of movement
and of social connections.
But we also need to realize that
we can't answer all of them right now.
And that's just the fact that they're gonna be just fine.
So let's create a little bit of wisdom around play.
I know that's a big part of the reason you're here.
And it's my area of passion,
joy and what I teach every single day,
how to reclaim independent play for our children.
But let me just ask you, why would we do that to begin with?
Right, why would we care so much about playing?
Why is that exactly what your children should be doing,
at this very moment in time.
If you wanna get your children playing
for long stretches of time, every single day.
First of all, you are in the right place.
Second of all, you are a wise person
because that is exactly what kids need to do.
I'm gonna say this in a really brief way
and you can find so much more about this
on all of the resources that I put out on my website,
for example, podcast, YouTube, etc.
Here we go.
Your kids engage independently in play
to actually develop all of the skills, right?
And all of the areas of themselves
that are crucial to their development.
Independent play is the place where kids go
in order to develop in seven crucial areas.
Let me just quick, explain what those are.
So one is developing actual skills,
like fine and gross motor skills,
holding a pencil, cutting with scissors,
moving their bodies in certain ways, right,
skills that they need, even literacy and numeracy skills,
all of the hardcore academic skills
that we assign to math and reading, etc.
They're being developed through independent play.
In fact, research shows that when kids play with blocks,
it actually increases the high school math scores.
Isn't that amazing?
Mind blown, so play developed skills.
Independent play also helps them learn
to assess and to take risks, right.
Risk taking is such an important skill.
It's an important area of our lives
that we have to understand.
Am I brave enough to go out there and perform?
Am I strong enough to climb this ladder?
Can I really jump from here to there, or will I fall?
Through independent play, children naturally push themselves
and develop their bodies and their strength
and their capacity to tolerate,
understand and assess risks.
The next thing they do is they learn scientific exploration.
I mean, just watch any toddler
putting things in their mouth, mixing things up,
pouring things, picking these up,
we know that they are scientifically discovering
and exploring the world.
So if you let your children play independently,
and you simply apply an offer
and facilitate some great materials and tools,
they will become little scientific explorers
and their curiosity will be preserved intact.
Doesn't that sound great?
All through independent play.
The next important part of independent play
is constructing worlds.
Kids dress up, kids create little worlds, right,
a Lego world, a play mobile world, a block world,
a Barbie world, it doesn't matter the toy,
they create a world and they manipulate it.
Now as an adult, we're striving so hard
to become agents of our own life, right.
To get authorship and creativity
and feel like we can craft
and mold and shape the world around us.
Kids have that naturally and they exercise that
through independent play.
The next thing they do is that
they actually develop their physical bodies,
they attune to their bodies.
You see your kid just lying around on the floor rolling
and doing all these weird things with their bodies
and you think they're wasting their time,
why can't they be productive?
Well, actually, kids feel
what they need to do with their bodies.
They feel like I need to run, I need to jump,
I need to stretch, I need to rest
and they simply follow whatever
their body's cues are giving them.
How many of us are struggling to attune to our body's cues
as adults?
It's not easy to do when we've been programmed out of it.
But when you let your children play independently,
they maintain that programming intact
and they're actually listening to their bodies
and following what their bodies need right now.
They can work themselves up into a full blown sweat
right into a real workout,
just through independent play,
'cause they know that that's what their bodies need.
Isn't that cool?
The next thing is artistic and creative expression.
When children play independently,
they simply express themselves.
You know, we are so intimidated by a blank slate of paper,
right, a clean sheet of paper,
or we're intimidated by performing.
Children perform naturally, they just burst into song,
they burst into dance, they splash the paint around
without over thinking it right.
They're not intimidated
by the blank sheet of paper,
they're not inhibited by dancing in front of others.
And that is something that is preserved,
through allowing them to independently express themselves.
And finally, and perhaps most importantly, right now,
children learn social skills
and do emotional processing through play.
Independent play is therapy for kids, right?
I mean, there's literal play therapy,
and there's psychodrama therapy for adults
and lots of things in between
that are literal therapy modalities.
For kids, they have that naturally through independent play.
If something's scary, if something was traumatic,
if something is causing them anxiety or worry,
they will play out those themes through play.
They'll, you know, when the Coronavirus
hit the first thing I heard,
when the playgrounds was still open, was kids playing
"Coronavirus tag" (laughs)
And I thought it was hilarious but also so brilliant.
They immediately take the themes of their lives
that are challenging them into play.
All of this is to say, we've gotta create the wisdom
to reclaim play, to realize how important it is
especially now and to not disturb it.
My challenge to you today,
is to notice all of the ways that your child
is already actively engaging these types of play.
I promise you, they're there,
you just have to look for them.
And the key thing I want you to challenge yourself to do,
is not to interrupt.
When you see your child just wandering around
talking to them.
Or taking things and pouring them and spilling etc.
Yes, you can, you know, put towels around
and make sure they're not making a huge mess
and making sure they're not hurting anyone.
But don't interrupt, catch them in the act of playing,
I want you to notice, we're gonna go all into
all the different kinds of how to encourage the deep play.
And I go really deep in that in Present Play my membership.
But for now, I just want you to notice that
it's already happening.
Catch them in that act,
snap a little shot of them if you can,
or you can snap a shot of the aftermath of their play.
That's always fun to see as well.
What did they play with?
What did they play doing?
What were they dressed up as?
What kind of mess did they make?
Catch them in the act and share it with us,
because I want you to start taking note
and not interrupting when that's happening.
The worst thing you can do when your child is playing
is to interrupt them.
"Oh, but now it's time for lunch.
"But now it's time to do this.
"Oh, I see that you did the blue one with the red one"
Don't talk, just don't talk,
just be tiptoeing around.
Look from afar.
Don't catch their eyes until they make eye contact with you.
(gentle music)