In his Personal View for our current issue of PaperTigers, How Children Play Around the World, author Tom O’Leary describes how he recently learnt some important lessons from his daughters…
Tom is the author of RetroActive: Skip, Hop and You Don’t Stop: Games We Played (BookSurge Publishing, 2009) and also has a great blog – Games We Played – so, I have to say, it was kind of reassuring, as a parent, to read his article – but also inspiring. I really urge you to read it all the way through – it did make me chuckle; and I’m going to quote the inspiring bit here:
The participation in natural, unstructured and creative childhood play teaches our children more than any coach ever could:
In play, children learn how to resolve conflict through compromise
The simplicity of “do-over” as a method of balancing two opposing opinions during play could be a lesson for many corporate and political quarrels.
In play, children learn how to be fair
The process of selecting “It” is based on pure objectivity.In play, children learn how to be tolerant
They learn that no player is too small, too slow or too awkward to be included in the game.In play, children learn to adapt
Rules are introduced or adpated as needed to ensure an even playing field, or to increase the challenge for skilled players.In play, children learn teamwork
Making a human chain in jail to give our remaining teammates a better chance to free us demonstrates our unity.
In play, children learn to trust
There is no greater ally than your playing partner.In play, children learn to take chances
Is it possible to make it to the other side if I run now?
In play, children learn to laugh and not take themselves too seriously
It’s just a game, after all.And in the perfect imperfection of unstructured, creative play, children are reminded of the most important thing: that they are children and that play is fun, just like it should be.
How about that as something to print out and stick on the fridge? It is so great to be reminded of this, and particularly timely for me now, as soon my two will be winding down for their school holidays. Here’s hoping it will be one they look back on as an endless summer spent playing out of doors…
Thank you, Tom, for your great Personal View.