A couple of days ago, I was home on my day off. I had a couple of tasks on my to-do list that were going to require some focus to get through, and I got started on them as soon as I had sent the last of my kids out the door for school. As I often do on my days off, I also had some laundry going. I pulled out my computer, settled in, and got to work.
Just as I was picking up some momentum, the washer and dryer buzzers went off. I contemplated just letting the laundry sit, but knowing my task at hand would take some time, I decided to pause to take care of the laundry, so as not to get behind there. I switched the loads, put away the clean clothes, and sat back down at my computer.
This cycle continued for several hours….gain some momentum on my work, get interrupted by laundry. When all was said and done, I had completed both my to-do list and my laundry, but not without a lot of frustration and annoyance at those buzzers constantly calling to me from my laundry room.
I couldn’t help but draw a parallel to play. How often do we give children long, uninterrupted stretches of play, either at home or at school? At the school I currently work at, there are virtually no scheduled periods of free play time. Play comes after work, and often for only a few minutes at at time. But imagine how frustrating it is for children to be given some time play, only to have it cut off prematurely, before they’ve really had time to dig in and get to business! Could some of the behavior issues we experience in schools be due to children not having adequate time to play?
We need to start viewing play differently than just “fluff”. In the infamous words of Maria Montessori, “Play is the work of children”. When we are able to grasp how important it is, we are far less likely to minimize the time we give our children to play and we are far less likely to interrupt them to do other tasks that will have less benefit for them.
During play, children are learning critical life skills–communication, cooperation, creativity, imagination, self-awareness, self-regulation, critical thinking, and problem solving. Add into that the academic learning that can so easily be embedded into play–math, science, literacy, writing, art–and it becomes very plain to see how important play is. We need to guard it carefully for our children!
