Serious Play
Dave and Shannon
I just read someone's post about their child doing a lot of fantasy play and
was wondering if anyone else's child was like this. then I was reading the
Unschooling.com online news mag and found this. so I thought I'd share.
Serious Play
For a healthy and active fantasy life children need time, space, and
pri-vacy, or at least only as much companionship as they choose. Obviously
school, or any other large-group situation --- day care center, nursery
school, play group, etc. --- does not allow much of this. Perhaps worst of
all, they are usually under the eye and control of adults who, even if they
will allow children a fantasy life, feel they have to watch it, under-stand
what it means, judge it, make use of it. It was for just this reason that a
well-meaning and quite highly praised book, written about ten years ago,
called Fantasy and Feeling in Childhood, seemed and still seems to me deeply
mistaken. The gist of it (and there may well be many books like it) was that
if we, i.e., people who work in schools, paid enough attention to the
fantasy lives of children, we could learn to understand them and bend them
to our own purposes.
This would be a great mistake and a great wrong. Instead, we should be
content to watch and enjoy as much of children's fantasy lives as they will
let us see, and to take part in them, if the children ask us to and if we
can do so happily and unselfconsciously. Otherwise, we should leave them
alone. Children's fantasy is useful and important to them for many rea-sons,
but above all because it is theirs, the one part of their lives which is
wholly under their control. We must resist the temptation to make it ours.
We must also resist the equally great temptation to think that this part of
children's lives is less important than the parts where they are doing
something "serious" --- reading, or writing, or doing schoolwork, or
some-thing that we want them to do --- or to think that we can only allow
them time for fantasy after all the important work is done, as we might give
them a piece of candy after a meal. For children, play and fantasy are one
of the main courses of the meal. Children should be able to do them, not
just in what little tag ends of time remain after all the "important" work
is done, but when they are most full of energy and enthusiasm. We talk these
days of "quality time." Children need quality time for their fantasy and
play as much as for their reading or math. They need to play well as much as
they need to read well. Indeed, we would probably find if we looked into it
that children who are not good at playing, dreaming, fan-tasizing, are
usually not much good at reading either.
Shannon Buckley
Mom to Connor 3-15-97, Carsten born at home 4-27-99/5-19-00 and Quinn born
at home 8-08-02
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
was wondering if anyone else's child was like this. then I was reading the
Unschooling.com online news mag and found this. so I thought I'd share.
Serious Play
For a healthy and active fantasy life children need time, space, and
pri-vacy, or at least only as much companionship as they choose. Obviously
school, or any other large-group situation --- day care center, nursery
school, play group, etc. --- does not allow much of this. Perhaps worst of
all, they are usually under the eye and control of adults who, even if they
will allow children a fantasy life, feel they have to watch it, under-stand
what it means, judge it, make use of it. It was for just this reason that a
well-meaning and quite highly praised book, written about ten years ago,
called Fantasy and Feeling in Childhood, seemed and still seems to me deeply
mistaken. The gist of it (and there may well be many books like it) was that
if we, i.e., people who work in schools, paid enough attention to the
fantasy lives of children, we could learn to understand them and bend them
to our own purposes.
This would be a great mistake and a great wrong. Instead, we should be
content to watch and enjoy as much of children's fantasy lives as they will
let us see, and to take part in them, if the children ask us to and if we
can do so happily and unselfconsciously. Otherwise, we should leave them
alone. Children's fantasy is useful and important to them for many rea-sons,
but above all because it is theirs, the one part of their lives which is
wholly under their control. We must resist the temptation to make it ours.
We must also resist the equally great temptation to think that this part of
children's lives is less important than the parts where they are doing
something "serious" --- reading, or writing, or doing schoolwork, or
some-thing that we want them to do --- or to think that we can only allow
them time for fantasy after all the important work is done, as we might give
them a piece of candy after a meal. For children, play and fantasy are one
of the main courses of the meal. Children should be able to do them, not
just in what little tag ends of time remain after all the "important" work
is done, but when they are most full of energy and enthusiasm. We talk these
days of "quality time." Children need quality time for their fantasy and
play as much as for their reading or math. They need to play well as much as
they need to read well. Indeed, we would probably find if we looked into it
that children who are not good at playing, dreaming, fan-tasizing, are
usually not much good at reading either.
Shannon Buckley
Mom to Connor 3-15-97, Carsten born at home 4-27-99/5-19-00 and Quinn born
at home 8-08-02
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]