“You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.” Plato
When I think back to my childhood the sand box is one of the my first memories of playing outside. I remember going with my dad and younger brother to pick out the wood to build the box and then helping my dad hammer it together. My brother and I spent hours playing in the sand box making mud pies and building sand castles.
Behind the house that I grew up was a "forest" or what we considered a foster. There were a lot of trees and alley ways so you could connect to another neighborhood. We saw wild life back there - deer, racoons and skunks, built forts, had scecret meetings, dug for treasures, and carved into the trees.
A lot of my play experiences involoved the out doors. I remember always being outside, going for walks, riding bikes, playing in the back or front yard. Our neighbor hood had a lot of kids that were around the same age as my brother and we were always playing with them. My mom and dad always encouraged us to go outside. As we grew older playing outside started to include building a garden box and planting flowers and vegetables.
Now that I have a 2 year old see parents being more cautious with their children (even my own parents with their granddaughter). I don't see a lot of children playing outside anymore. The children I work with when you ask them what they did over the weekend I hear a lot of I played video games or went to the movies. I don't hear a lot about them doing things outside. I am not sure if this has to do with people feeling unsafe by not sending their children out side but it is very different from how I was raised.
I would like to think that as an adult my love for playing outdoors has helped me to raise my daughter in the way that I was raised. My husband and I enjoy doing things outdoors with her. I still remember one of the first times by dad babysat my daughter when she was about 1 years old and I came home and asked my dad what they did today. He said we watched TV, read books, colored, played with toys...I said you didn't go outside it was beautiful out today (which meant there was no rain). He looked at me and said not it was cold. I told him that is why she has a jacket and hat. If you are going to watch her she needs to go outside for at least 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes in the afternoon - even if it is you pushing her in her stroller.
My hope is for my daughter to grow up loving to be out doors and not wanting to sit at home in front of the TV or playing video games. I hope that children are given the opportunity to being able to play outside and the busy lives their parents lead do not lead to children not being able to play.
“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”
-George Bernard Shaw
Your childhood sounds so exciting! Fullt interacting with nature... I grew up in a desert and still managed to come up with secret hiding spaces to build a girls club. I can imagine all the possibilities and fun you must of had with a forest for a backyard! I can see where your appreciation for nature was fostered. I really enjoyed reading your post!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing!
-Dina
Your childhood sounds very similar to my own in regard to the emphasis my parents put on spending time outside as opposed to watching tv or playing video games. The addition of the sand box as a toy that was important in your childhood brought back memories of all the time my sister and I spent in the sandbox my dad had built for us in our backyard just as your dad did. I had totally forgot about that! Although my parents were financially able to provide us with things to just "keep us busy", they tended to provide us with materials, like balls or bikes or chalk, and then allowed us to create our own uses for them. Thinking back, I think my favorite thing my parents gave my sister and I to play with was an old video camera on a tripod. We would spend hours upon hours making videos on every topic you could imagine, all based on our interests and inciting our imagination and creativity.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your experiences!
-Alyson