Let your child enjoy some freeplay

Schools are about to close for vacations. It is that time of the year when there is no daily homework, no preparations, no timetables, in short, no structure. The children are free, we are free and do we dread it in someway? I guess, sometimes.

To me that is sad. But if I take the judgment out of it, I guess I can understand the situation well. We are scared of the unknown, of getting disappointed or of disappointing the child, we do not know how to fill the day in a fun way and there is a pressure of sorts. And this is where I stop to ask - How do we deal with this unsaid pressure? We make half-hearted plans, we lay down rules, we control, and then we fret. We try so much that we get tired, and eventually give up.

But have you noticed that the real fun begins right after this. When we get out of the scene as parents and the children have their own free, unsupervised time. They get bored, they complain, but since we are so tired by now, we do nothing.

Once that is clear, the children know that we are no longer running the show, they take charge of their fun. And for sure, they are better than us in this. Creativity flows. A jungle in the living room….a spread of toy food on the dining table, a car racing track from the bed down to the floor, drawing of a dinosaur (big, of course) on a sheet, paints splashed all over the table, a whole city made out of the regular building blocks (with ATMs okay?), a path made of all the cushions and pillows in the house to play a self-invented game.

Are you wondering where you are at this point, when all this mess is being created? Well remember, we are all tired and, so out of the picture…….and my, my, what a picture it is. If someone walks in at this point, they would look identical to a person who just spotted a tiger in the woods….
And that is correct, the tiger is really out of the woods now…

Trust me, if you knew cleaning all this would just take 2 hours max (or 1 hour if the child helps you) but the memories of such splendid days are going to survive forever - I guess we all would agree what a great bargain it is.

So I urge to all, who care to make life easy and exciting at the same time, to let your childrenbringhavoc this break-time. Let them be monkeys, princesses, warriors, adventurers, painters, chefs….whatever they want to be today, right now!

And some things will bother you. Please DO NOT just shove them aside, look at them and then look at the bargain.There is some real, serious fun happening; I mean cleaning can always wait a few days, right?

Let's join them, not as parents, but as playmates. How liberating it would be and who knows, it might take us back to our own summer vacation memories…. Aren’t those still with us!