Week 4: My Connections to Play

“Playing should be fun! In our great eagerness to teach our children we studiously look for ‘educational’ toys, games with built-in lessons, books with a ‘message.’ Often these ‘tools’ are less interesting and stimulating than the child’s natural curiosity and playfulness. Play is by its very nature educational. And it should be pleasurable. When the fun goes out of play, most often so does the learning.” ~ Joanne E. Oppenheim

“Play builds the kind of free-and-easy, try-it-out, do-it-yourself character that our future needs.” ~ James L. Hymes Jr.

“It is in playing, and only in playing, that the individual child or adult is able to be creative and to use the whole personality, and it is only in being creative that the individual discovers the self.” ~ D.W. Winnicott

As a child, most of my play involved imagination and outdoor spaces. My brother was the main supporter of my play. He is 16 months older than me and for the first 6-7 years of our lives, we primarily played together rather than with friends. My father worked out of town and my mother was often busy with managing our household so most of our day would be spent outside making forts out of sticks and plants, making bricks from the clay dirt (we lived in Virginia), water, and ice cube trays, and making concoctions from honeysuckle and other native plants. While I’m sure we did other things, these are the things we did together that really seemed to resonate and matter.

I try to instill the love for this type of play into the children with whom I work and particularly with my own children. My husband and I emphasize the importance of imaginative, free-structured play. We also encourage our children to use items in unusual ways, such as my brother and I did when using ice cube trays for brick-making. However, I do see that in general, the state of play has become much more materialistic, focused on playing with a toy for its set function or playing a game on a screen. My hope is that with so many health initiatives focused on getting children and families to become more active and to do things together, play will shift back to free-form.

As an adult, I have had very little time to play. From the time that I was legally able to work, I have done so, often working multiple jobs at one time. Since having children six years ago, I have even less available time but I have made an effort to reclaim play and bring that kind of free joy back to my life. My husband, kids, and I take trips to rivers and creeks to search for tiny insects and creatures in the water and under rocks. We try to identify tracks in the mud on trails in the woods and imagine what animals may have made them. In those moments, I can feel the deep connection between my past and present life and the future that I have in my children.





My brother and I would record stories that we made up with each other.



This clay-type soil is amazing for building!

Relationship Reflection

Ever since I was a young child, the development of relationships has been very important to me, particularly the development of close family relationships. This has stayed with me as I have grown and as a professional, I have made relationships and partnerships a central theme to what I do and how I operate. 

In my personal life, my relationships with my children, parents, brother, and husband are of utmost importance. I also value my relationships with extended family, in-laws, close friends- most of whom are also co-workers, and the children and families in my programs. The relationships I that I forge are deep and long-lasting. 

My husband and daughter

My son

I love my children immensely. My children love me and expect that I will keep them safe and do what is best for them. They each have very unique personalities and individual ways to interact with me and I with them. While motherhood is much more difficult and all-consuming than I could have imagined, the relationship that I have with my children is the one that I value the most.

My relationship with my husband is one that has changed since we became parents. It has become more reciprocal; prior to other humans being involved, our relationship was very much one-sided. As parents, we really have formed a partnership. Without this partnership, we would not be effective parents. Instead, we would constantly be overruling each other's decisions or creating chaos with our lack of consistent rules, boundaries, and structure.

My ability to connect with others and create, foster, and maintain relationships and partnerships positively impacts my work as an early childhood professional. This allows me to form bonds with children and families, as well as my staff and co-workers, creating an environment that is formed around creating a caring community.