One of our beloved parents commented to his child the other day while he was leaving for work,”Have fun!” Immediately, I thought, this place is not Disneyland or some street fair. This is school.
Of course I was delighted to think that parents think all the things we do are fun, the kids love it and they have a great time, but we are not an entertainment center. We’re a school.
Watching facebook, and listening to a lot of parents and what they plan to do over the weekend, and watching family, I think a lot of parents think they have to “entertain” children.
Quite frankly, I never thought about entertaining my children. Their job was to entertain me!
And the more I thought about this, the more preoccupied I became with the idea that children really can’t entertain themselves because they really don’t know how to play either with toys or with each other, so I guess the next best thing is to drag, pull, take, carry, and place children in “fun zones” so they can be entertained.
Let’s see…there are movies, pizza places with games, bowling and golf for kids, indoor swimming, games, indoor playgrounds, ice skating…there are a host of things to take children to, and that’s always a fun thing, but you know, it probably should be a special occasion gig, because too often makes it seem like a right rather than a gift.
The very idea that every day the kids are home they have to be taken someplace, have something bought for them is really not a good thing, considering that most children never say thank you or appreciate all this money and work spent on them.
Few children really know how to play these days. They can operate any video game, and they can watch TV until their mind falls into their laps, but give them a box of blocks, and the fun stops.
Playing with real toys, not video games and TV, offer children the exploration they need to put the pieces together as an adult. It’s early math; it’s writing; it’s communication, engineering, and problem solving. Children who never play with problem solving toys don’t get a lot of reading and math concepts. It doesn’t being with a first text book. It begins at home in the toy box.
It’s time to re-evaluate the toy box. What’s in it? There should be a set of some kind of blocks including Lego. There should a be make believe toys like dress-up and kitchen toys. There should be books, puzzles and quiet time toys, and there should be art supplies so that a child can invent.
It doesn’t have to be grand or expensive, but it has to be available.
Little kids need to play, and play for little kids should not be a steady stream of video games and entertainment from an outside source. No wonder kids can’t hold a pencil or offer a complete sentence!