What is play?

As adults, who are we to decide what play is and isn't for children... we don't "play" anymore... not really.

The boys were playing outside today, where they can play freely. We have a secure, gated back garden, and we live in a bungalow so I have a constant view, or hearing range of them, even when I'm inside catching up on chores. I can see them from three different rooms of the house, hear them from every open window, and through the open door.

Today, I was hoovering and saw them out on the drive up the side of the house, (still within the secure gated garden) sitting in their little fishing chairs which they'd taken down there to sit in the shade of the house, with a skipping rope each and a plastic cup from their mud kitchen supplies. They were throwing the cups on the floor and then going to fetch them, just to do it all over again, and the adult in me leaned over to shout out of the window to stop throwing them around because that's not what they're for and they were likely to break them. Before I could shout though, The Cub broke out into giggles as Bear did it again, pretending to take a drink from the cup, making a face and shouting "Ick", and then throwing the cup away. The Cub copied, then, they both got up, fetched their cups, only to do it all over again, both giggling away with each other.

I stopped myself from shouting out to them to stop and just watched them. It turns out, they were fishing for electric eels, using their skipping ropes as the fishing lines, and their cups as their drinks. I have no idea what their drinks were "ick", I never asked, but clearly something wasn't right, and they kept throwing them away.

There had been no adult input into their game - when I'd left them out there, they were chasing bubbles around the garden. Said bubble machine was just blowing bubbles for itself by this point. It made absolutely no sense to me as an adult, but to them, they were having a blast. They were playing nicely together, and they weren't hurting anything. Yes, maybe the cups would have gotten broken and had to end up in the bin, but the majority of their mud kitchen equipment was old stuff from in the house that would have ended up in a charity bag or in the bin if it hadn't gone out there anyway. It didn't owe anyone anything!

So, I left them to it, and when they did finish up their game, they put their skipping ropes and cups away, folded their fishing chairs and put them back in the porch, and moved on to something else and were running around the garden with sticks by the time I went back out there.

My point being; just because it doesn't look like something recognisable to us, doesn't mean that it isn't perfectly relatable and meaningful for them.

Let them play!

Mama Bear x