Season 1, Episode 6: It’s All Child’s Play
LISTEN TO THE EPISODE:
On Today’s Episode:
What’s in a cardboard box that brings a happiness that money can’t buy? It’s imagination of course! A Buzz Lightyear doll is exactly what it appears to be. But a box? One day it’s a space ship, the next day it’s a shopping cart, and the day after that it’s a doll hotel.
Imaginative, unstructured play was the best! But today, it feels like the exciting exception and not the rule - despite the fact that Amazon now delivers us more cardboard boxes than ever!
I talk to a toy expert, two family educators, and my own group of friends to answer the question: where did all the free play go and can we bring it back?
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LOVE THE CONCEPT!
"I love the concept of looking back at the way things were and seeing how they are today, and how they may have changed. The first episode was wonderful, great stories, great insights! Can’t wait for more Liz!”
With Special Guests:
Akshata Hase - Akshata Hase is an assistant marketing manager at The Toy Association, where she supports The Genius of Play initiative, a national movement spearheaded by the Toy Association to raise awareness of play’s vital role in child development. She also manages the Toy Industry Hall of Fame and the Toy of the Year (TOTY) Awards that are presented annually to the top toys, games, and properties of the year.
One of her key roles at The Toy Association is building and implementing strategies focused on SEM, email marketing, and Google Ads for The Genius of Play which boosted site visits by 115% in a year. Akshata holds a Master of Science Degree in Digital Marketing from Baruch College and a bachelor’s degree in Architecture Mumbai University. She resides in New Jersey, enjoys trying new sports (archery, anyone?) and planning for the next game night with friends.
Maria Anderson Fahrner - Maria is passionate about sharing options for nurturing, mentoring, and informing families about the most optimal choices for a joyful and healthy lifestyle. She has been an educator for over three decades, and is a wife, mother, and grandmother to wonderful, striving human beings.
Maria holds a Master’s degree in Educational Leadership from UC Santa Cruz and San Jose State University, a multiple subject teaching credential from San Francisco State University, and a BA in history from UC Santa Barbara. She has over thirty years of experience in Early childhood and Elementary Education, including twenty-three years as the Independent Study founder and teacher of a homeschool program in Northern California. She has the Foundation year in Waldorf Teacher Training, and a certificate of completion in a five year course of Spacial Dynamics, which is a movement education course.
Maria is a family wellness consultant with a private practice, and she offers workshops and events in the community and online about parenting with intention. She is a co-host of the podcast "The Moms I Know" with educator and nutritionist, Sheila Walsh Dunton. She is also working on a parenting guidebook at this time.
She is a wellness advocate for essential oil use, alternative healthcare, and optimal nutrition. She offers support and education for people who are looking for alternatives for personal and family health goals. She networks with others who are sharing similar paths, and is continually striving and learning to increase her knowledge and converse with others. Maria and her husband currently live in Bozeman, MT and Soquel, CA, where they spend time with their three children and five grandchildren.
Resources:
I find it almost impossible to explain ALL of the ideas and influences that come up while researching every episode. So here are just some of my most used and referenced resources for this week’s episode.
Betsy Wetsy - If you’re like me and you were wondering what a Betsy Wetsy doll is (mentioned by Akshata in the first few minutes of the episode - look no further!
Playtime Is Over - When I was talking to Akshata with Genius of Play, she mentioned the study of Keiki Haginoya; I had also heard about his photography project in this article by the New York Times. I could also find some images via Google, but not now single source. Google it - it’s worth seeing!
The Genius of Play - This is the initiative that Akshata is a part of. It’s got some amazing resources on play for parents, teachers, and others. If anything in this episode made you feel like you want to know more about healthy play and healthy toys, start here!
Toy Timeline - This is the historical timeline that actually led me to the Genius of Play team; it’s a quick view of toys in history, and I found it while doing research.
The Moms I Know Podcast - This is Maria and Sheila’s podcast, referenced in the episode. They cover it all — health, holidays, play, the teenage years, taking care of yourself as a parent — anything you can think of, I swear!
Risky Play: Why Children Love and Need It - Sheila mentions this article in the podcast, so I wanted to take a closer look. It’s an excellent read - especially for anyone asking “but how is it possibly logical to introduce risk to our kids without worrying about harm!?” (at least - that was my take!)
Botticelli - Do you know who Sandro Botticelli is? And do you understand why this game is name after him? Maria mentioned this game in the podcast, saying that her family love to play it, and I had never heard of it! Check out the rules on Wikipedia.
Ravensburger Games - Maria mentioned these games in the episode. I wasn’t familiar with them, so I dug into their website. It looks like their is something for everyone!
Simplicity Parenting by Kim John Payne - In the episode, Maria recommends this book. I’ve not read it, but it sounds like it elaborates on many of the principals discussed in the episode. If you’re a parent looking for resources, this one may be for you!
The Was Is Could Be podcast is produced by Liz Russell at To Eat and To Love, LLC. Each episode is carefully edited by Joshua Rivers of Podcast Guy Media, LLC. Our theme music is made by Neil Cross and published by ImageCollect Publishing.
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Liz Narration: Right around Christmas time, my social media feed always fills up with pictures of kids unwrapping gifts, or standing in front of a big, beautiful tree. There are Christmas pajamas and sparkling lights, and big delighted smiles. And hilariously - almost ever caption tells a funny story about the littlest kid just loving a box or wrapping paper more than they ever love the gift they got.
This is my type of kid.
So what’s in a cardboard box that brings a happiness that money can’t buy?
I think we all know the answer. It’s imagination of course! A Buzz Lightyear doll is exactly what it appears to be. But a box? One day it’s a space ship, the next day it’s a shopping cart, and the day after that it’s a doll hotel.
Imaginative, unstructured play was the best! But today, it feels like the exciting exception and not the rule - despite the fact that Amazon now delivers us more cardboard boxes than ever!
So where did all the free play go and can we bring it back? This is Was Is Could be and this is the story of unstructured play.
[🎶 Theme Music 🎶 ]
Liz Narration: These cardboard box stories prove that you don’t need toys to play. But toys can give us some amazing insight into how kids are playning - so I decided to start with a little toy research, and I found the Toy Association. Which led me to the Genius of Play team and Akshata Hase.
Akshata Hase: I’m the assistant marketing manager here at the Toy Association and I'm part of the Genius of Play team. Uh, which is the Toy Associations initiative to help raise awareness about the, you know, essential role play in healthy child development among parents and caregivers. So that's a big part of my job here.
Liz Narration: I asked Akshata to start with the 50s and 60s because it’s often considered a golden age in child’s play and I really wanted to understand why.
Akshata Hase: 50s and 60s, I think I would say it was the golden period for play because, you know, all kids were expected to go outside and play. You know, for the most part the playtime for the 50s and 60s was unstructured. And you know, it did not involve a lot of props. You did not need much. Just play relied on imagination and energy and all moms had to say was “go outside and play” and the kids did the rest. You know, hide and seek, hopscotch, kick the can… what else, tree climbing, jumping the rope. You know, these were some of the games and play activities that kids would entertain themselves with. All of these activities, kept them healthy, help with their physical development and enhanced hand-eye coordination. And that's why we know that child obesity was also so rare in those days. They hadn’t very minimal access to television, no computers, no mobile phones, no iPads. You know, those kids really spent more time actually talking to one another and, you know, just using their imaginations and kids playing outside, socializing, solving problems that could arise, and play on their own was really typical of the 50s and 60s childhood.
And if you look a few years back, it's not difficult to see how toys have changed. Uh, you know, development in technology and culture overall has had a very massive impact on playgrounds across the entire world. To give you a few popular toy examples from the 50s and 60s: Chutes and Ladders, Monopoly, checkers… I think Betsy Wetsy was a very popular doll then… Etch-a-sketch, Lincoln logs, Tonka trucks, Barbie, GI Joe, and you know, the list can go on.
A lot of imaginative play and strategic play, you know, it helps foster social skills, you know, independence, creativity in problem solving and, you know, it helped kids build confidence, critical thinking and you know, a lot of skills that would solve them all these skills that help them throughout their lives. So I think that's a very important part of childhood.
Do you know, children today growing up in a world which is very vastly from the one [in which] their parents grew and playtime now is more structured than ever and for many children of the 1970s and earlier, unstructured play was often the norm. And this started to change in the 1980s which saw the rise of so-called — you must have heard the term — “helicopter parenting”. Most of the play is closely supervised by parents and other caregivers and organized activities like sports have taken the place of spontaneous, you know, those child-initiated activities. Also there's just less playtime overall. Here’s an interesting fact, like a University of Michigan study found that from 1979 to 1999 children on the whole lost 12 hours of free time a week, which included eight hours of unstructured play and outdoor activities. And that figure has just increased over the last decade as many schools, you know, have eliminated reset… recess in favor of more Academics.
There were games like marbles, hopscotch, hide and seek, you know, we know this, these games date back hundreds of years and the children of each generation adapted these games to their own circumstances. I'm sure we've seen this, this culture has disappeared almost overnight and this case, not just in America. I read this very interesting thing, uh, in the 1970s there was a Japanese photographer called Keiki Haginoya. And what he did was he took up a lifelong project to compile a photo documentary and he wanted to document children's play on the streets of Tokyo. And very sadly enough, he gave up the project in 1996 because he no longer noticed play and laughter and on the city streets, alleys, and he just noticed that it had vanished and he gave up the project in 1996, which is so sad. Uh, you know, we see similar things here like ice cream trucks — they are phasing out of neighborhoods because there are such few kids playing outside and parents are busier.
Unlike back in the 50s, you know, mothers today juggle a lot of responsibilities and careers and the amount of stress reported by parents, especially women, has been on the rise, which is… just hampers all the playtime. And the other factor, uh, contributing to the decline of play time, I would say is screen time. The increase in screen time. In terms of, I'm not the only one spending time staring at the device; we all are guilty. The Genius of Play team recently surveyed 2000 parents with school aged children, and this uh… what we did was actually, we explored the use of electronic devices and they're role in modern parenting and according to the survey, 69% admitted to being addicted to their devices. Parents spend almost as much one-on-one time with their phones as they do quality that time with their kids. I think it was about on an average of two hours daily, which is astonishing. And that’s playtime, you know, we see it has…the number of playtime hours has declined over the last few decades.
The world is becoming so complication that everybody's running in a rat race and you know, the playtime, the 15-minute, 20-minute recess time has also become very structured and, you know, uh, more than just unstructured — again free play — time to take a mental break has converted into physical activity, which is again focused on academics and, you know, everyone’s trying to get to the top and you know, that's why the more focus on academics and trying to substitute that recess time for more constructive and just not getting a mental break from the school time, the studies.
Liz Narration: Oh the rat race. What adult can’t agree with this - it’s the rat race that killed my own playful spirit. The race that I’m still basically running to this day.
And with social media adding to the competitive pressure of doing more better, it doesn’t feel like that rat race is going away anytime soon.
I wanted to understand — what’s the impact of this to our kids? If we don’t learn to prioritize play over the rat race, what risks will we face?
Maria Anderson Fahrner: I’m Maria Anderson Fahrner and I co-host the podcast, The Moms I Know along with Sheila Walsh Duntun. And we have decided to do our podcast because of the changes that we have noticed in childhood over the years. We're both credentialed teachers. I have my masters in elementary educational leadership and I have my ECE background as well as elementary school credential and then working in alternative education for over 30 years. And so I've been watching children and working with children and families for over, gosh, over 40 years now and have really seen lots of changes. And both Sheila and I have worked in the homeschool arena with families over this time. And so with our combined years of homeschooling our own children as well as working in public schools and charter schools and private schools, um, we've really seen a lot of the changes, especially with children in play.
Sheila Walsh Duntun: I'm Sheila and Maria, you just did a great introduction of every of our podcast and I am a credentialed high school teacher and homeschooling mom and now actually a homeschool teacher. You know, my oldest is 17. Um, and just within, you know, that period, I have seen the changes in childhood just with the advent of social media and how prevalent technology is in childhood. And so Maria and I really, um, firmly believe that we are guardians of childhood. And in doing our podcast we are informing parents, informing moms that parenting is a responsibility and it's really important to pay attention with intention. And so that's really what we try to do in all aspects of our podcast is bringing up the importance of this, of raising the next generation.
Maria Anderson Fahrner: And so one of the phrases that we like to use is, you know, “guardians of childhood” and we really believe firmly that children, their job is to play. And there's a lot of research that backs this up, a lot of different styles of schooling and education, which really validate this, but it's also changed so much. And there was a quote and unfortunately, I don't know who said this, but that childhood has changed more in the last 50 years than in the last 50,000. And so, you know, we've actually seen that change. And so we like to do podcast episodes around all areas of family wellness, and especially really protecting this time of childhood.
Liz Narration: Sheila and Maria caught my eye when I found some of their podcast episodes and blog posts focusing on outdoor play, which is some of my favorite type of play and something that I thought had real potential here.
Maria Anderson Fahrner: Parenting is a really hard job. And I think, you know, Sheila and I talk about that a lot in our podcast. It's hard work. We need support. And it used to be that we did have nuclear family around us. And nowadays, you know, so many people are parenting in isolation and we don't have the guidance. We don't have the expertise, we don't have degrees in raising children. Most of us, you know, we just are doing the best we can. And so I think that we really need to be looking at this much more closely.
You know, as for children it's so important that they go through those stages of play and whether you have children or not, you know, we're looking at the future of society and if the future. If our future is, you know, children who aren't in their bodies, who can't relate to other people who, you know, are having difficulty with tasks because they haven't worked through their infant and early childhood reflexes, you know, we're really looking at a very changing dynamic in our whole social structure.
Liz Narration: I asked Maria and Sheila to expand on this a bit further. Why are we missing these key stages of play? What’s changed? Sheila explained a bit more by comparing the childhood of now to the childhood that people used to experience.
Sheila Walsh Duntun: We were able to go out on our own, be in the streets until the lights came in. We were playing with neighbors, we were testing limits. And that's totally changed now because instead of testing limits, parents, and I'm sure you've heard the term “helicopter parenting”, you know, it's like that's coming in and the parents are setting the limits. And I think there's definitely a balance there that, um, you know, there needs to be awareness for sure. But we also need to get away from the fear in parenting because when we parent from a place of fear, we're not empowering our children.
And so there is um…author Peter Gray, he wrote a article in, um, in Psychology Today that really, that speaks to me because it's, when I look at this list of things that childhoods, um, childhood needs, these are all things that I did and I know Maria did that we did in our childhood. And those are great heights, rapid speeds, dangerous tools, dangerous elements, rough and tumble, and getting lost. And those are things like that to me is like, that's the list of childhood. That's what we done. And I believe in doing so that has created, um, resilience, has created courage, has created all of these things that we want our children to have. But yet parents today, I believe — not under any intention, they don't think they're doing this — but they're taking that away. And when we take that away, we are taking away our children's chance to be aware of their body. You know, how much like climbing trees and everything like that body awareness… we’re taking away their creativity and setting up, um, play lands and scavenger hunts and building forts and everything. And we're, we're taking away their ability to create their own safeness because we are making it safe for them. And I think it's, it saddens me honestly, that children are not being able to be children, you know, because of the fear of parents. And it's definitely a fine line. It's not permissive parenting by any means. It's parenting with like a cup of awareness. Like making sure that you have that cup of awareness that's filled so that you're aware what your children are doing, but you are looking from a little bit of distance to give them that confidence.
Sheila Walsh Duntun: Well you see it every day at the park. If you, you know, when you go to the park, you see the parent who is, um, constantly following their child, like less than a foot or two feet away following that child, making sure they don't fall, making sure that they're not climbing up the slide or they're not, you know, they're there… “be careful, be careful” and you know, constantly saying, “be careful” instead of saying, maybe “you should be aware with that” or “I got you. If you need me, I'm here if you need me.” So you can see how saying “I’m here if you need me” is saying “I believe in you, I have confidence in you.” And I think when we think back, when I think back to my childhood, I don't remember my mom telling me to be careful so much, but she was there, but I don't remember her there. And I think that's what we want. We, we want to be there but not really, um, know that we're there for, from their perspective.
Maria Anderson Fahrner: One of the things that I've really noticed is that even when television really became mainstream, we started seeing a shift then. And so what I noticed was children's attention spans were getting shorter. Their creativity was a bit diminished. Their play was much more focused on things that they had seen and heard instead of on their own imaginations. They had a harder time sitting still and focusing for extended periods of time on projects. And so, you know, that was something that I started seeing early on with my work with children was the influence of, of television. And then it just started increasing and then the video games sort of took hold.
So, you know, we're looking at starting in 1950s up to the 60s. You know, when I really started observing was more like in the 70s, but that's when television, you know, we had lots of programming for children and then the video games crept in and things really changed at that point. And I'm gonna make a generalization here too, but the, the video games were really geared for the boys. So, you know, we were seeing things there as well with attention spans and with behavior that we just hadn't seen before. Because, you know, for the last, you know, forever, children have just been playing in nature and with objects and out of their creativity. Now all of a sudden we had these other things that were directing children and showing them other ways of playing. And also, you know, just even the… even focusing on a two dimensional screen, basically the brain, uh, connections stop. So even if you're watching something that's supposedly educational, the brain is not developing at that time.
So we were really seeing a change there and then it's just continued to speed up. And now we have their social media, we have computers in the classroom, we have, you know, all sorts of entertainment. And so children, and… even 10 years ago, we were hearing statistics like children were on-screen seven to eight hours a day. And now with that, the computer being used in the classroom, that's even more. So we have it for schoolwork, we have it for entertainment, we have it for social media, for connection, for maps, for, you know, for everything, for news. And so that's kind of a brief little synopsis of what we've really been seeing. So that change in motor skills, change in focus, change in creativity.
Liz Narration: Ok but so what’s the impact? You mentioned kids not having some of the basics. You mention reflex development. Tell me more about that.
Maria Anderson Fahrner: Well their… their bodies aren't developing in really healthy ways. And so, you know, first of all you have that body awareness piece and even just, you know, being able to use all of their, their muscles and, and the way that they should. And so, you know, we're seeing a huge rise in motor skills challenges. And so, you know, occupational therapists are, are being needed more and more. We're seeing, um, all kinds of learning challenges. And some of them are, are physical, some of them are developmental in terms of, you know, uh, cognitive skills. And so as children play those, those primary reflexes drop away. And if those don't drop away, then we have these, you know, little human beings who are kind of locked into patterns that are not completely free. So you know, there’s all of the things that we did, the crawling, the climbing, the, the repetitive patterning types of play, those are things that help our brains develop. They help our bodies develop and they help us be ready for the more academic types of things that can come later on. You know, we don't have to rush it. And that's another thing is we're rushing the academic realm so much these days. You know, kindergarten now is what more like first grade and it used to be the “child's garden” — the place where they would play. And so you know, I'm also a real advocate for like Waldorf education. Sheila and I are both, you know, proponents of homeschooling where children can be learning on a, a more gentle timetable and you can really have appropriate activities for your children.
Also when children are playing cooperatively together with objects from nature with, with, you know, playground equipment that is not so prescribed, but it's open-ended, you see the children working together. And so, you know, the creative play is actually fostering that social interaction that is so important. And I think that's another thing that we're seeing with, you know, uh, employers are looking at young people coming in that don't have those social skills. They don't know how to problem-solve together in a group…the critical skills, and I mean like there's wonderful young people coming into the workplace and there's amazing families out there doing such an incredible job. And so I just, I want to commend all of those people and we're also seeing trends. And so, you know, the trends are so visible all around us of people really relying on these gadgets instead of the, the social interaction that's happening. So I love that we're talking about these things and we're helping to wake people up to the flip side of some of the technology or the, the choices that we make. And one of the things that Sheila and I talk about in our podcast is that we're helping parents make choices, make healthy choices for their entire family, for each member of the family, for all of the stages of childhood as well as for the parents. And so it's a, it's a cooperative type of thing. And so we're, we're looking at family life a little bit differently than say 50 years ago when it was a little more, you know, mom and dad were the “authorities”. And I think it's important that parents, you know, as parents, we know what we're doing and our children know that we know what we're doing, but we also have to have dialogue and we have to really work with all of the individual needs.
Sheila Walsh Duntun: Yeah, I'm a believer in play school in the early years. I believe that fosters creativity. It fosters movement. It's, um, it fosters childhood. Uh, and so I think, you know, when you were talking earlier, um, one place where we see this as well as the car rides, you know, where in the car we used to remember just staring out and daydreaming and being creative, family songs. It was a family time. But now in the car rides, what are we doing? We're seeing people plugin immediately, right when they get get in, even from going, you know, a couple miles there, they're being plugged in just for that little bit of time. And it's not just the children because children are seeing their parents do the exact same thing and it's, and it's a disconnect. And so I was just talking to my friend yesterday who's a librarian in a local elementary school and she said, she is saying that she has seen children come in with not, um, with not, uh, having eye contact. You know, I'm really struggling to get eye contact because that's not been a value in, in that family or something like that where it's, you know, communication as, as we… through childhood, through play, we learned, communicate. We learn to problem solve. So if we're sending our children to grammar school without those initial skills, then we're setting them up for failure. You know, if they're not able to communicate and have body sense, then, you know, we're putting a lot of pressure on our teachers.
Liz Narration: Sheila and Maria were really speaking to me here. My childhood was filled with free time, especially outdoors. And my girlfriends from high school all agreed - free play was included in some of our most precious memories.
Liz’s Friend 1: I can't really remember like a specific time that was my favorite but that my sister and I made this entire area of the woods like into a little town that we called the “Town of Woods” and we like separated off like there was like a store, a post office, just like everything. And we had like our own little houses. Hers of course was bigger than mine cause she was my bigger sister, go figure. But yeah, and we just would go out and play for hours and like anything we could find, we would like bring, and bring it to like the store if that's where it belonged or, and we would invite people and only certain people got invited to the “Town of Woods” to experience it. But… I mean we would do things like we would find like a screen off a window. I don't know if there was like a junk yard where we used to live… I don't know why we had all this random stuff. It was an old mobile home park, something. Yeah, there were a lot of trailers like near me. Yeah. But we would find like a screen off of a window and we would go and we'd put it like in a little creek that was flowing and we'd catch all the leaves. So it was like filtered water for the town. IT was like cleaner water…like just the most random things. But we would be out there like all day, every day and we would go in for lunch and then we would go back out to the “Town of Woods”.
I don't know, it was just how we lived life.
Liz’s Friend 2: I remember we used to ride bikes around our house and make like paths and stuff. Well my favorite memory can we have some sick home video footage of this - we built a fire and made a ramp and jumped over the fire.
Liz: Nikki, the most scared person. And you did that. It was awesome. Um, would you let Lou do that?
Liz’s Friend 2: I think so, yeah.
Liz: I always loved forts. I still kind of wish it was acceptable to build for it's in your house and then watch TV in them.
Liz’s Friend 1: Even though you were a fort bully?then know your portfolio.
Liz: I was not a fort bully. I was a very hierarchical in the way I related to the people,
Liz’s Friends: the people.
Liz: I had people build forts for me. But that's how construction contracting works today. So I think if anything I was preparing for the real world.
Liz’s Friend 3: So Liz and I were, it was right before dinner, I think it was like afternoon time and we had a boat, a rowboar, and we put it in a seasonal pond that is only present in the spring because of the snow melt. And Liz was very adamant that she would get in the boat, but she could not get wet and…
Liz: I had to be home for dinner.
Liz’s Friend 3: I'm not sure what we were singing or chanting…
Liz: L is for the way you look…. we were doing this.
Liz’s Friend 3: I remember that we were rocking back and forth, standing up, trying to rock and make waves. And Liz was very little and I think I got a little too aggressive. But we started rocking it very intensely to the point where we flipped. And Liz immediately went into shock, started panicking, screaming, not breathing, that she was going to drowned. And I was standing there while watching her flail, literally almost drowning. And then I told her, Liz, you can stand. And she stood up in the water, was probably to her knees, but we were still fully submerged, soaked. So then she was panicked after she almost drowned that she survived her drowning but was not going to survive her parents when she returned home for dinner, wet. So we found the same exact outfit, which was a soccer uniform and soccer shorts and I just gave her my copy of that same outfit
Liz Narration: I asked my interviewees to share some of their favorite memories as well.
Akshata Hase: Yeah, sure. Uh you know, off the top of my, I can think Uno. You know, Uno was a big hit with family and friends. It still is. And I remember, you know, carrying a pack of Uno cards. It was, it was like must on family vacations and I think another sweet memory, like I said, like family having family-bonding time. I think my dad taught me to play chess. So I think like that memory, it's a very, very sweet one - playing a game of chess every night with my dad. Uh yeah, those are my favorite memories from my childhood.
Sheila Walsh Duntun: Growing up it was, it was funny, my dad was a police officer and so time with him was, um, you know, not as common and so it was really special when he's like, let's play some cards, let's play checkers. Like when he took the time to play the games, I remember that made me feel really special. And so it's something that, bringing to my children, games have been really important. And so we always come up with new card games and even, I have to share this is that, um, we, we have extended family in town where we live and we do have family game night at least kind of once a month or at least every other month.
Maria Anderson Fahrner: Two of my aunts were teachers and I grew up in a family where, um, you know, they were, it was very intellectual and yet it was also very playful. And so when we would be together on family vacations, they would play… we would all play this game called Botticelli. But it was like a supercharged 20 questions type of thing where you had to go back through history and it was a word game and that was very fun. But then also grandparents were playing cards and so as very young children we would be watching. And then when we got old enough to be invited to play, that was so exciting. So I always enjoyed that. And then the board games with my parents. My mom was a Chinese checkers wiz and I don't think she ever let us win on purpose. And so I remember that. And then all the different board games, you know, Clue was a favorite back in when I was a child. And so we enjoyed playing that one and Monopoly. But when my kids were little, there's wonderful Ravensburger children’s. Ravensburger I think is the, the maker. There are these German board games and they're made for very young children. And so those can be really fun for the early years. And so our children played a lot of those and we would play just different types of word games and card games. And then in the car we would do all those kinds of I Spy, or you know, just seeing the license plates and things like that. And then as a child myself, other than the board games and the family types of games, I loved being outdoors and my parents gave us a great deal of freedom outside and you know, afterschool it was just go outside and play. And I grew up in Northern California and there were even in a, just a suburban backyard, there were hedge rows and there were trees to climb and there were little nooks and crannies in the yard. And I just imagined all sorts of spaces. And so I spent a great deal of time outside just in my own little imaginary world. And then I had an older brother, I have an older brother and a younger sister and sometimes we played together and then of course the neighborhood friends. And we would play Kick the Can in the summertime until dark and Hide and Seek and the different types of games outside. We had a big front lawn and we would always be on that playing ball games and running games and races. And I just don't ever remember being bored as a child. If, if there was nothing to do, I'd always find a book and curl up. And if I was outside, I'd just be in, in a world of my own. And so I think that idea of letting children have that time to figure out things on their own is really important.
Liz Narration: I totally agree but how do we give our children these same experiences in this world of competition, social media, and just constant activity?
Sheila Walsh Duntun: when I think a free play, I think of student-led. I think of outside. I think biking. I think of playing trampoline. I did, I just think being, being free and being out kind of of parental supervision and you know, removed. Parental supervision is still there. But it's removed a bit. And so I think free play is blocks. I think free play is like animal figurines. I'm thinking of stuff that my children did that was considered free play. And it's, um, it's creative. It's like you kind of looking in, you know, from the, um, from the other room and hearing them make talk, make believe, you know, making up stories. And so when we hear our children making up stories, well that's the basis right, of kind of language arts and, and then, and then they start to write those stories there or they copyright those stories. So, um, I believe and that's where we see play is the foundation of, of learning.
I also think, you know, it's the exposure piece and I believe like learning together, you know. Parents, um, can really go far by really learning together. And the best place to do that I believe is like in the natural world, you know, camping, going on, trips to, uh, national parks, state parks, like really taking advantage of that because I believe that's where we can, you know, be, be out there, see our kids explore. But also, when we go to like, say like a city park or a County park or something, there are, there, there's ingrained kind of safety sort of stuff. Like it's been designed to be for people to see. So when we’re trying to get ourselves out there, when we're trying to kind of maybe push ourselves by by doing, going to places that have been established, I think that is um, can, can really go far and really create some really great family memories. And one thing Maria and I talk about is um, family culture. How do you strengthen family culture? By shared experiences. And so really kind of working at this, looking at it together, like having family fun together. How do we, as a family do we play together asking yourself that
We touched on it but I think we need to get away from parenting in fear. And I think we need to embrace our family culture. We need to take time to establish our family culture and realize, you know, what is it that our family values? And I think that part of that needs to be play. I think part of that needs to be natural world, nature. And I'm just talking like for a society as a whole. Like I believe that we can encourage parents, families to be with their children in a way, you know. Like, like Maria and I, we say be intentioned, you know? And so I think if we can raise the vibration on parenting as, um, as an important and fun and amazing, an amazing, I think we can get that because I have teenagers now and I'm seeing how I paid attention when they were, when they were younger through, through play and through being there and, and through constantly, trying new things that as teenagers, we're connected. And I think we don't see that by being disconnected. The effects that's going to have in 10 to 20 years. And I think, um, that's really important. And, uh, it's why I'm, why I'm doing this work.
And, and I think of that, you know, I think play is a great family value. You know, I think it needs to, but it needs to be cultivated. And you know, we start in the younger year has been, and we haven't really talked about like kind of the tweenage when, when they start to a little bit individuate. But that's a great time to bring up those board games as a family family card night. You know, we have family poker night once in a while we have family and I have a 10 year old who's doing poker. You know what I mean? It's just like you can do cards, Dominoes and um, that's actually one thing I remember from my childhood is that the games like the, the checkers, the chess, the cards, the dominoes played with the family. Like that's, that made me so happy.
Maria Anderson Fahrner: And children don't need much. Uh, one of my favorite books is called Simplicity Parenting by Kim John Payne, I believe. And it's talking about how, you know, kids don't need a lot of stuff. They need a few simple beautiful toys. And you know, Sheila and I are huge advocates of, you know, things natural, but you know, a few wooden blocks, a few open-ended kinds of dolls, some musical instruments, you know, and one thing my daughter does, even with her infants, it's sweet. She gives them sort of independent time where they're on their little blanket. She knows that they're safe, that they've got time where we're not hovering over them and they're learning and that, you know, that gets stronger and stronger as they grow up. And you know, they're toddlers and, and they can play independently because they're using their imaginations and we're not always directing it.
Sheila Walsh Duntun: I want to offer up that, you know, oftentimes as parents we think we have that we have that not enoughness or we are not an expert. And the thing is, is when you become a parent, you are automatically an expert because nobody is going to love your children more than you. And that makes you an expert immediately. And so I think in parenting we need to, um, you know, intrinsically we need to, um, really understand that that's, that's the most important thing is that parent-child bond. And we just, we both are advocates of play and we think that just, you know, cultivates like we've said, like a strong family culture and it cultivates that parent-child relationship. And that's exactly what, you know, that's what we just, we want to preach that and just share, share that.
Akshata Hase: That's exactly why the Toy Association started the Genius of Play initiative. You know, uh, because we seen a decline in play time. Uh, our mission is to provide families with all the information and inspiration they need to make play an important part of their child's play. And our website, um, to, you know, www.geniusofplay.org, uh, I social media channels, you know, parents can find useful facts, tips, expert advice and how toys and play can help kids build confidence and other skills that will follow them throughout their lives. And we also have a lot of play ideas on how to keep playtime fun and fresh. So that's, that's what the Toy Association is really striving towards with this initiative.
We have a lot of play ideas on our website which is categorized by age, prep time. And we also have play ideas for kids with special needs now on our website. One advice I would have for parents to schedule play like you would other activities to make sure that it's time for it. For today's busy parents, finding time to spend with their child is key and we know that children do need time to play alone and with other children without adult intervention. But you know, playtime with parents is also very important and you know, everyday events like walking to school and making dinner, running an errand are all opportunities for parents to be playful. Uh, to give an example, you can play I Spy when you take your kids to the grocery store and you know, you don't really have to overthink play. Let the child decide what they want to play and come up with ideas. You know, you just become a part of their world and let them take the lead. Ask them questions, play along just to be silly with them and have fun is what I would say. And like I mentioned before, you could have family game nights, engage in outdoor activities whenever it's possible.
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Liz Narration: So should we bring free play back - absolutely! And how we can do it doesn’t have to be rocket science. Yes, parenting is HARD but play can be as simple. It can be as a cardboard box - we just have to make room for it. And I know that’s not easy but the experts seem to agree - it will be worth it.