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- Unstructured Play
Last week I wrote about not giving kids instructions all the time, letting them figure things out on their own. This week's essay is part II of the same theme, giving kids the time and space for unstructured play.
"When I was a child in the 1950s my friends and I played in mixed-aged neighbourhood groups almost every day after school until dark. We played all weekend and all summer long. We had time to explore in all sorts of ways, and also time to be bored and figure out how to overcome boredom, time to get into trouble and find our way out of it, time to day dream, time to immerse ourselves in hobbies, and time to read comics. What I learned through my play has been far more valuable to my adult life than what I learnt in school."
Peter Gray's childhood experience is very different from that of kids today. Many parents pack their child's schedule because they view downtime as wasted time. In order to maximise learning time, they fill every available slot in their child's schedule with tuition classes and extracurricular activities. Kids don't get the chance to be bored. They don't get to use their imagination to overcome boredom, nor develop the resilience to manage themselves without external stimulation.
Child-initiated, open-ended play
Child-initiated and open-ended is the opposite of adult-directed and highly-structured. It is a much better approach to play. Letting kids initiate play
provides them with the agency to decide how, when and what they want to play
allows them to exercise their imagination and creativity to make up their own games and come up with their own rules
helps them learn to debate, disagree and negotiate with other kids
develops leadership and collaboration skills
Slow down consciously, explore with patience
3 of my kids attend Forest School Singapore (FSS) every week. FSS's tagline 'Slow Down Consciously. Explore With Patience' is a good description of how kids learn at forest school. Instead of constant stimulation through activities directed by adults, FSS kids spend 3 hours every week hiking Dairy Farm Nature Reserve, exploring the natural environment around them, and initiating their own play. Starting a fire to roast marshmallows is a favourite activity. There is no curriculum or instructional teaching. The primary role of the coaches is to watch over the safety of the children.
"Coaches do their best to facilitate a safe space for freedom, choice and expression while holding space for conflicts and baggage some children will come with. Coaches practice the “Hands Behind, Lips Sealed” way to give space for independence, growth and self-empowerment so that our children can thrive on their own and as a group."
The photo at the top of this post is a good example of child-initiated, open-ended play. As I was writing last week's essay in a cafe in Barcelona, I left my five kids to their own devices. They spotted a utility structure next to the cafe and started playing there, using the metal tubes as balancing bars and the humps as obstacles to skip over. The two older ones started, and the three younger ones followed. They played like this for more than 30 minutes. It may not sound like much, but this simple act of inventing games to stave off boredom is how kids learn best - exercising creativity, making their own rules, playing with others.
It comes naturally to them. We just need to give them the time and space for it.
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Till the next issue!