LET THEM PLAY

My children study in a Waldorf/Steiner school. This is the only school they know. This is a school that doesn't advocate television and computers for children at least until the age of 12 when cognitive thinking and the capacity for more abstract thinking begin to surface. Before that, children are encouraged to play. What you are seeing in the photo is a ship. My son, Santiago, built it when he was about 5 or 6 years old. I let my children do what they will with the furniture. The only rule is to put everything back when they are done. This is imagination at work. He used pieces of cloth, clothespins, cushions, a stepstool and a small wooden ladder. He spent a good many hours creating and playing in his little ship. Santiago didn't watch any television until he was 9 years old. I wanted to wait until he was 12 but his father said one movie on his 9th birthday wouldn't harm him. Because it was just the one film, it lived with him for so long. He was singing the songs for weeks on end. It was the sweetest thing. He didn't see another film until a year later. Mary Poppins, I think it was. Some people have implied that I deprive them, but look at the beautiful ship in the photo and the work that went into it. There is no trace of deprivation there. Our world has become so challenging; their world will be even more complex. They will need to face these challenges with their most creative selves. That is the first thing television and media kill. First of all, you can be sure you are watching someone else's world view--someone's take on love or hate, for example. If you are not yet of the age where you can discern, you simply take in, take in, take in. If you do this several hours a day, everyday, those places in you that ought to grow and develop over time simply stagnate--the biggest of them is your imagination. I want my children to grow up equipped to face everything. If we feed them with images and concepts from the outside rather than have them develop from within--from themselves--they will have very little to draw from when the world, in all its complexity, begins to close in. But if we encourage them to play, create and imagine, these capacities will remain intact, grow into fullness, and arm them to create appropriate, out-of-the-box solutions to the most complicated problems later in life. Turn off the television, unplug the computers and let your children play! Let them run and climb, turn your chairs upside down and allow them to see what our jaded eyes no longer see.  Let them see a ship where we only see furniture. Let them. A child who is able to see everything will never lose hope because he will always see a window and a field beyond, where everyone else will see a crumbling wall. Play is the greatest gift we can give a child. A child who truly plays is the greatest gift to the world.