Diary - Uninterrupted Play and Empathy

Fri, 03 Aug 2012 04:00:00 +0000

Aug 3rd

At the farm expo, we found out about this organization that does a lot of events to let kids reconnect with nature. Unfortunately, they don’t have an outdoor space that we can visit, what they have is a well designed indoor playroom with 4 main spaces, an open space with lots of train tracks, a mock supermarket, a huge web that spans an entire room and finally an arts & crafts room. Each room has a towering structure for kids to climb almost to the ceiling!

Sounds exciting right? Well, L didn’t even bother with the 2 rooms in the back! He was completely absorbed in the trains, playing with them on the tracks, taking them up the tower and back down, walked to the other tower in the mock supermarket and took the trains up there. Back and forth, again and again for the entire hour!

While I was sitting there watching L play, I saw other parents talked to their kids while they were playing, trying to get them to drop whatever they were playing and be interested in what the parents wanted to show them! I thought to myself, if it wasn’t for my knowledge in the Reggio Emilia Approach and reading up on the importance of uninterrupted playtime from RIE, I probably would’ve tried to talk to L to get him to check out the whole venue too! That’s my personal style of doing things, I like to explore the whole place first before deciding what to spend more time on.

While L was playing with the trains, a little baby was upset and started crying. Something amazing happened! Sarah’s younger daughter, Chi, was playing with balloons. She stopped and watched the baby cry, then she walked over and gave the baby her balloon! People around me often says “you gotta keep an eye on your babies, they have no sense of anything yet!” If that’s true , how could a 1 year old baby shows empathy?! Chi gave something she liked and was playing with to another baby! I’ve seen way too many parents forced their children to share or apologize, and these are the same people who think babies have no sense of anything. Perhaps if they would open their eyes and pay a bit more attention, they would see that babies are so much more capable!

Finally, when it was time to go, L found a doll on his way out. He picked it up and poked it in its eyes and touch its mouth. I smiled. Back at home, we were having a hard time telling L to stop poking his baby sister in her eyes! Suddenly I realized, he was just learning about eyes… by sticking his finger into one! This is a good example of why we adults always need to take a step back, don’t make any assumptions, and replicate the things they want to do so they can learn what they want to learn.

Trains on Nick Wang

Diary - Uninterrupted Play and Empathy