My Connections to Play

   Quotes about PLAY

        I remember when I was a child, all I did was play! When I would come home from school and after my homework I would play, on the weekends I would play and during school closings/holidays I would play. If the weather was nice I would play outside until it was time for dinner and if I had some extra time after dinner then I would play before bed. Barbie dolls were my favorite toy to play with. I had all things Barbie! I had the Barbie Dream House, Barbie limo, cars & trucks, Barbie clothes and accessories, collectable barbies and a Barbie traveling case to keep my dolls in. Whenever I would play with my barbies, I would make up stories about their lives and I would act out the stories while playing. When my friends would come over, we would share our Barbie collection with one another and collaborate stories to act out. Our imagination would run wild with the stories we would act out. Sometimes we would make up our own stories and other times we would act out scenes from movies or things we seen our parents do. Not only would I act out stories but I would also make clothes for my barbies. My grandmother was a seamstress and I would imitate her by making clothes for my dolls. It is interesting that all of my dress making for my dolls had paid off into a current business I have making evening and wedding gowns for women.

          When I would play outside, I loved playing Hide and Seek and Tag. I always seemed to find the best hiding spots because I would rarely be found. I wasn’t a big fan of riding bikes but I enjoyed skating while holding on to the back of my cousin’s bike. Around my neighborhood I would often go exploring with my friends. We would act as if we were going on an adventure while hiking through the wooded areas. I even remember going through this “Harriet the Spy” phase. Harriet the Spy was a movie about a precocious preteen who would spy on everyone including her friends and neighbors. I would go around spying on everyone in my neighborhood and my friends would spy with me. We would jot down things we saw in mini notebooks and collected things we found. It was so much fun to just explore our environment freely. Our neighborhood was not always the safest but it seemed like the elders in the neighborhood would protect us and everyone stuck together to raise the children in the community.

Since my mom was an Early Childhood Professional, play was encouraged in my household. My mom would often join in with me while I played with my Barbie dolls.  She would follow my lead and act out the stories that I created for the dolls. When I reflect back on that time in my life, I just remember how enthused and engaged my mother was in my play. Our family was big on board and card games. We would often play Monopoly, Clue, Sorry, Uno, Goldfish and Pokeno. Pokeno was our family favorite. We would have a family game night every Friday just about and we would play Pokeno for pennies and sometimes quarters. I would rack up in pennies to put in my piggy bank because I was pretty good at playing the game. Another family favorite was Spades. Spades was typically the adult’s game but my mom taught me how to play so I play it now as an adult.

In today’s society, children live for technology. With ipads, tablets, tvs and video games, children has lost the art of open play. Children are not given the freedom to explore and create the way they did when I was younger. I remember cartoons were a luxury to enjoy on Saturday mornings only or if you had cable with the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon then it was still limited to just the weekends. Some children as young as 9 months are sat in front of the tv and some toddlers can operate an Iphone better than I can. Many children play video games and that is about the most play they actually participate in. Some kids do not go outside like we used to and that is primarily because the neighborhoods are not as safe as they used to be. I feel that play is focused a bit more in the early childhood field but once a child enters grade school, it is not encouraged much. I hope that people see the value in play and encourage it more for the next generation to benefit from.

 

References

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