The Fantasy of Children

Do you remember that day long ago when you coul just play without a care in the world?  Do you remember those days when you didn’t need toys?  When a great adventure waited just as far as your imagination?

I remember those days.  I remember sailing the high seas from my bed.  I remember dressing up in my nightgown because it looked like a princess dress and crawling between the different steps on the ladder of the bunk bed to take us from our world to a different fairy tale.  I remember gathering together in the forsynthia bushes in our tiny front yard because it took us to magic fairy lands, the woods of the elves, and anywhere else the mind could imagine.  I remember climbing trees to check for distant storms that would blow our ship awry, or enemies in the distnace.  I remember hiding in a cluster of evergreen and pretending that was our house.  We knew just where the kitchen was and would prepare meals of sticks and rocks.  We knew where the nursery was, which was where our dolls would go if we were lucky enough to bring them out with us.  We would run the gauntlet in our back yard, which was perhaps as wide as eight feet in a narrow alley way, the yard on the side so small I doubt I could lay across it now.  We would build caves in the snow banks and would curl up in them to sleep, pretending to be little bears.  They weren’t tunnels, like the forts, but more alcoves, and probably safer for it.  We would make slides on the front steps with a crash pad of snow in the snowbank at the bottom.  If we could imagine it, our world would become it.  There was something magical about it.  Bridge to Terebithia kind of reminded me of all of that.

Well, recently I was reading a few articles on NPR.  They were talking about imaginitive play and children.  Imaginitive play is healthy, but less and less children know how to play without their precious toys.  Toys have become necessary to play, which is kind of strange to me.  I’d always preferred to play with as few toys as necessary and those toys were often dolls, dollhouses, tea sets, and that sort of thing, stuff that encouraged our imaginative play.  However, I look at Corde and she needs toys.  If she doesn’t have toys, she’s bored.  You should see how they all react when I tell the kids that they need to go outside and don’t allow them any toys to play with.  It’s like I’ve sentenced them to death!

Those observances were right.  Often times kids would all hang around, all different ages because it didn’t matter so much back then.  They would talk, laugh, joke, and play.  To someone on the outside, it didn’t look like much, but they were doing so much more.  We’d see a bunch of kids sitting around and talking, but they’d really be around a campfire, talking and joking with the great elf king while planning their next great adventure.  We’d see them climbing trees, but they’d really be trying to escape the great monster in the bush or some giant wolf.  We’d see them running around in circles around the house, but they’re really chasing down some villain that stole something from the great magician who could send them home.  However, kids today don’t do that, not near as much.  They’d rather be playing video games or playing with toys.  They don’t use their imagination as much because they simply don’t have to.  They don’t like playing with younger kids because they’re a nussiance, a bother, and get in the way.  You don’t see packs of kids running around outside anymore.  They’re all at home, often in front of their teleivision.

It’s disappointing, really, and incredibly sad.  Kids are losing some of what it is to be a kid.  They’re learning to be something other than what a kid should be.  They’re losing a good deal of the fun and adventure that makes them creative, and as a result, they’re becoming just another drone in the world.

I’ve been putting a lot of thought into my kids.  Recently I made my daughter a Waldorf doll.  She loves it, but the doll hasn’t gotten much care.  I know part of it is due to the lack of clothes, but part of it is because of the abundance of other toys.  There’s just so much stuff everywhere that it just gets to the point of suffocation.  Why should she play with one toy when she can flit from one to another without a care.  She spends so much time in front of the television.  She’s got more toys than she can count.  It’s just turning into madness.  She can’t keep her room clean because she’s overwhelmed by all her stuff.  I’m about ready to just give it all away and start fresh, but I know she’d hate me for it.

Instead we’re going to be downsizing.  So many of the toys get played with rarely.  Most of them only get taken out once a month if not less.  She’s got to have toys she loves and enjoys.  I know it’s nice for her to have toys that she can bring out now and again that aren’t on the top toy list, but it’s all just getting to be too much.  She doesn’t know how to be creative anymore.  She just plays with pre-made concepts.

The other day I made Corde and her friends go outside to play.  They wailed and complained because I wouldn’t let them bring toys.  They wined for the first day I made them play outside.  After a while, they realized I wasn’t going to let them in to play because they were really starting to irritate me, so I listened through the opened window and heard them start to have fun.  They still weren’t having imaginative play, but they were talking about things in their lives.  They were actually socializing.  Now they just tell me they’re going out into the back yard and play if I don’t let them watch television.

This week I’m going to be really cruel.  The television is going to have a drape put over it that they’re not to remove.  This weekend the television is going upstairs in my room.  My daughter won’t be watching it when she’s got friends over.  If she wants to relax on my bed and watch television for a little while when it’s just her and her brother, that’s fine.  I don’t mind that, but when she’s got friends over, they should be doing something active or creative.  They should be doing more than just zoning on the television.

It may not sound like much other than potentially torturing my kids and the ones I watch with lack of television, but you’d be amazed the difference.  Corde gets out and socializes and as a result she’s so much better behaved at home.  She’ll play quietly when her friends aren’t here and gives me less attitude.  It’s not that she didn’t have friends to socialize with before.  She did, even if she didn’t see them so often.  However, the difference is that she’s now actually playing outside.  She’s getting a little bit of sun, even though she’s still so pale she’s almost see through!  She’s engaging in creative and i

maginative play when they’re over instead of just sitting in front of the television, zoning out on some show.  Their socialization doesn’t include the talking box, which means she’s actually getting so much more out of it.

Even Aris is benefitting from the extra socialization.  While he’s still his usual quiet, mild-tempered self, he’s also getting more time to play.  He spends most of his time out and wandering the house instead of in his baby cage.  It used to be that he’d play in his playpen so Corde would stop stealing his toys.  Now she’s content to leave him alone and let him play.  When the kids all go outside, he’s got the house mostly to himself.  He doesn’t have to worry about the other kids getting in his way while he plays his own variation of soccer, or them stealing everything he picks up right out of his hands because it’s disturbing their play.  He doesn’t have the teleivision to distract him as much either.  It’s a whole new world for him and I think he really enjoys it.

This creative play thing, this imagination, that’s what helps kids develop.  It’s what helps kids figure out who they are and what roles they want to play in life.  That’s how they figure out how they fit into social society.  It’s more than just structured situations that are controlled by parents, coaches, and teachers.  Instead they’ve got to figure out how their lives work with each other.  They’ve got to figure out what their interests are and what their friends interests are.  They get a chance to run off some steam and exercise their brains, which makes them all more exhausted and ready to go down to a peaceful sleep by the end of the day.  It wears them out so fully, and at the same rate, it energizes them.  Kids need to be kids.  They need to use their imagination.  They need to be creative.  They need to encourage their own natural curiosity about the world around them.

This is what I’m working on for my children.  I have no idea if it will work, but we’re giving it everything we’ve got.  We’re working on trying to make this place a healthier, happier home for them.  I know it sounds strange to say taking away television, video games, and a lot of their toys will meet that goal, but sometimes they just get overwhelmed.  We’ll see how this works out in the end…

~*~Raven Night~*~