It can be a bit of a struggle for some of us when our children want to play.  As adults, it comes naturally to a few of us, while for others it feels a bit awkward and performative.  If you fall into the “I don’t know how to” category, perhaps this blog might come in useful.

Go to your child’s level, not your own.

We can sometimes adopt the mindset that play needs to have a message, an educational end-point or be a learning experience. However, children have an inherent curiosity and drive to experience life at its fullest - if we just let them. 

Be led by them. It may not make sense or seem to follow coherent thought (from an adult perspective), but they are exploring, trying, naturally learning.

Play is a ‘must do’ not an ‘optional extra’.

Play often gets relegated in the business of life. It gets tacked on to our already full to-do list, and if it happens, it can be done with a sense of routine, distraction and guilt about what else we ‘should’ be doing. This needs to change. Play is so vitally important for our relationships and the growth of the child.

It is not time wasted, it is time invested.

Time fully engaged with your child is infinitely more valuable than yet another thankless task.

With adulthood comes responsibly and a forgetfulness of what childhood is like (or should be like).

We become self-conscious and relegate play to childishness and not for us. We need to let go and remember how good it feels to go on an inner adventure of imagination. Share what you loved as a child and do it together. You are never too old, and in fact, reconnecting with things that gave you joy may be fundamental in opening doors to your own self-care.

Every day doesn’t need to be drudgery.

Yes, there are things that need to be done - chores, personal hygiene, places to go and people to see, but play can be incorporated into all of these aspects. Be creative; in these times you CAN make a song and dance about things! This can also have the additional benefit of making those struggles and tasks that are normally revisited far more appealing. 

Role play it. 

Yes, I hear some of you groan about play-acting. Personally, I’m a big fan of theatre and acting when someone else does it. Having to play shops or whatever character that is produced from my child’s fertile brain? Less so. For some parents, it will be easy, and for some others it requires digging deep and going with the flow. Try hard to not control the storyline (it truly does bring out the most latent control-freak in all of us!) and enter into the role in a non-judgemental way. This can be a fantastic way for your child to work out their place in the world in a healthy way. Resist the temptation, yet again, to manipulate and change it to a ‘teachable moment’.

Play is the best way for a child to develop, if we just allow them to do it. Being invited into their world is a privilege, even if we are distracted by a million and one other things.