May
12
2014
Playground Days
Posted in Family Life 4 Comments
The picture said it all.
Two little brothers playing with bubbles.
The bubbles floated all around them.
They were hugging; laughing with pure joy.
Something so simple became pure entertainment.
It reminded me of the old refrigerator boxes that transformed into a house.
Weeks of play in a cardboard box.
Elegant doors that flapped open; windows that were adorned with marker drawn curtains.
The best toys were the ones that were concocted in your imagination.
Colanders became space helmets for your journey to the moon.
Two tin cans with a string between became a phone that would call anywhere in the world.
A blanket and two chairs became a fort that provided shelter and a lookout for invaders.
A laundry basket or plastic tub became a racecar.
With a brother or two behind you, twists and turns were inevitable.
Oatmeal containers became drums, graduating to pots and pans turned upside down.
Anything stack-able became a high tower, until it fell to the ground.
Imagination made anything possible.
Playground days.
Fleeting.
Precious.
Worth protecting.
A child’s play is a child’s work.
Important work in the business of life.
Figuring out how things work within the safe confines of the imagination.
Creatively exploring the world around them in the comforts of home.
I watched children play at a park as I was on my walk.
There were dragons and bad guys as the brave knight stood atop his slide fortress.
There were rescue attempts as they stepped carefully from one platform to the next.
I’ll protect you! he said calling out as he bravely walked across.
The world became manageable during that playtime.
Scary things were controlled.
Bravery was mastered.
There was a certain playground order that was very comforting
The children played.
The moms talked.
I don’t think the moms realized how fast these playground days were flying by.
Another mom was on her phone while her son bravely rescued the other children.
Moments missed that will not come back again.
Soon the days of dragons and bad guys will not be so manageable.
Soon the dragons will be real and the bad guys will need to be reckoned with.
Now is the time to practice.
There is no more important work than to help your children make sense of the world.
There is no more important work than to provide them with safe parameters to explore.
There is nothing more important that teaching them about God, the Creator.
Nothing is more important than that.
School has now become completely academic, even in kindergarten.
Gone is the playtime where the world can be explored.
In its place is testing and data that measures nothing.
It fails to take into account the immeasurable treasures that childhood is all about.
What a child learns in their playground days is incredibly valuable.
They learn how to be a child.
They have time to see faces in the clouds, fight the dragons, and live in a grand box house.
They have freedom to be a child.
Adulthood comes soon enough.
Too soon for a mother’s taste.
Forts under a blanket may become foxholes in a foreign land all too soon.
Childhood ends as we try to hold on to it like gossamer wings.
Why do we want to speed up this precious time?
Why do we want our children to become little adults?
Why do we allow technology to entertain them rather than the beauty of the outdoors?
Why do we over-commit, planning their lives to the second with organized activities?
There is something to be said about playground days.
The all-important time of childhood that allows them to be a child.
People were bringing their children to Jesus to have Him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, He was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to Me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it. And He took the children in His arms, put His hands on them and blessed them. (Mark 10:13-16)
How can we receive the kingdom like a little child if we don’t know how to be a little child?
How can we receive the kingdom with childlike wonder, if we never experienced wonder?
How can we bring our children to Jesus if we are too busy bringing them everywhere else?
How much of our push to grow up our children is really hindering them?
Get out the laundry basket and the colander, the refrigerator box, and the bubbles.
Go play!
Be a child with your child.
Watch him defend a blanket fort and rescue someone from the bad guys.
The beauty of childhood is its simplicity.
How dare we take that away from them.
I still seek the benefit of imagination. Also too is every opportunity to sit and observe God’s creation around me. To see the birds and squirrels in the yard at the bird feeder is so relaxing. Too much is about ‘us’ and what we do with manufactured things. I love how God provided all the diversion I need.
Al,
Manufactured things, as you say, bore much too quickly.
However, nature, imagination, and creativity are available in abundance. We just need to get still enough to notice.
Gina
Bravo
Michelle,
The simple days of childhood…a blessing we need to recapture!
Gina