Parent Perspective - Getting the Magic Back...

Contribute by SMILE Director: Natalie Miller

“I’m bored”, “there’s nothing to do”, “I played with all my toys already” - have you ever heard this type of phrase? It can be frustrating to hear as a parent because you know that there are so many options and opportunities for your child, toys that you have carefully selected for them and that they enjoy. Why can’t they just go play?!

Sometimes children struggle with getting started in play by themselves. I’ve found that if I give them 5-10 minutes of connection with me through play, I can usually back off and they will continue the games themselves.

The other day, our son spent his screen time coding a gravity labyrinth, a maze game with a rolling ball. When screen time was over, he was struggling I thought of a way to extend his interest by building a real version of his gravity maze with magnetic tiles. We built the maze, but the magic wasn’t there. There were disagreements and he wasn’t having a great time. I realized I had made a mistake: instead of entering into his world with him, I had forced him into mine. I had given him my grown up ideas about how to play with his toys, and I had set the rules about the game instead of following his lead.

I backed up. I started using statements showing I was noticing him, like “ooh, you’re using the red tile there. It looks pretty next to the blue one you chose”, or “wow, you decided to build a taller wall there!”. When I use these statements I never ask a question, and I never say anything negative. I just verbalize what I see happening. The more I did this, the more our game changed. Cars came out and started driving on magnetic tile roads. Zoo animals got involved. Before we knew it my big ideas were transformed into his gigantic ideas! We had a whole world together, and it was so much more complex and interesting than what I had invented.

This was such a great reminder to me that children don’t need us to tell them what toys are for. They don’t need us to tell them how to play or build the “right” way. When we join children in the play that they invent, we enter into their world and we are able to share connection with them on a much deeper level.

After a few minutes in his world, I was able to step away and allow him to continue to play independently. Because we had set up such a rich environment together he was able to play by himself while I finished my tasks, and we both still felt like we had really connected and enjoyed each other, too.