Remembering to Play
July 16th, 2008
I have been a little anxious about Soren and Rainer not having learned to swim yet, at three and five, when Aodán and Xander could at these ages. It seems like one of the automatics, good parents get their kids into swimming lessons. But I never get my stuff together enough to sign up for lessons in advance, and am unsure where would be good, and, truthfully, dread, having to figure out what to do with older boys so I can take younger boys to a pool for lessons. Except for music lessons, the activities we do tend to have to be to everyone’s benefit. So, this week, enjoying my parents’ swimming pool, I have felt compelled to do swimming-lesson-like activities, trying to get them to float on their backs with me supporting them and to put their faces in the water which they hate, but because I am asking, they are willing to try. And then when I finish up these activities, they have fun grabbing onto the side of the pool, as they call it, spiderman style, and scooting around. And it turns into laughing and playing with Aodán and Xander, and they are so busy shrieking with delight that they don’t even notice when their faces go under water, and they are kicking and letting their legs float up and pretty much doing the things I thought I was teaching them to do.
Apparently this is a lesson I have to get over and over. My kids will do what they need to do when they are ready to do it. It was true two years ago when Aodán got on a bike without training wheels for the first time ever at the shameful-to-me-age of nine, and just started riding. Because he was ready and he wanted to do it. Also? There’s this difference between when it feels like play and when it feels like diligent striving, that contrary to my Puritan goggles, the learning by playing just seems to be more effective. Finally, I seem to slam into this lesson whenever I am paying more attention to what, in my head, a good mother would be doing for her kids, and less attention to, you know, my kids.
July 16th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
I wish play was included in regular schooling more. You’re absolutely right. By you “teaching” them, though, it’s certainly not hurting.
July 17th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
I think that lesson is ingrained in me because of the way my parents brought me up - they were never worried about what I knew or didn’t know, and never seemed to pay attention to teaching us things until were asking to learn them. For the child it is a wonderful way to learn, following your own interests and not hung up on achieving certain things on an ordered timetable, but I think maybe for the parents it is a bit uncomfortable, and you have to consciously not get worried about how well your child reads in comparison to others, or swims etc. Even though this was my childhood model, and I believe it and mostly am comfortable with it, I still get the pangs of do my kids know what they “should” and do I need mold them a little more?
July 17th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
It’s funny, though, Robert, that when I ask my kids about their days at school all I ever hear about is the playing part, math is just what fills the time between recesses. I try to keep in mind that the “play” cello, viola, violin, they don’t “work” the instruments. I’ve loved Edmund Sprunger’s book for giving me ideas for keeping practice time playful.
Timothea, I think one of the things I love most about being with you and your kids is your loving acceptance of them as they are. And I love how it seems to spread out to those around you, and I never feel like you are comparing or competing.
It’s been funny this week whenever any little comparison/competition starts creeping into the conversation, someone will say “We’re all working on tone and intonation.” So I know I that this is one of the themes I’ve been working at and working at, but I had this eye-opening realization of how many people I know are carrying around as adults some sort of hole from feeling “less than” in their childhoods, either from parents or teachers, and wondering, even about the effects of that sort of comparative thinking in areas where we excelled — if you think that that is what matters to people, or that it is a less meaningful achievement than other sorts achievement, you feel like a fraud, or like you aren’t really loved for yourself.
That’s probably a blog entry in and of itself, only I find I still have some sorting out to do, and it’s not a comfortable subject, especially since I feel like it’s other people’s stories as much as my own that I am thinking about.
July 17th, 2008 at 8:34 pm
Every time I start to doubt my decision to try unschooling with Daryl this year I’m going to pull up this post and read it. Thank you for articulating so many of my beliefs about the way people learn! I keep envisioning Anne Lamott looking into her son’s friend’s shoes to see how her kid’s feet measured up and how she suddenly got how INSANE that was.
oh, and I’m totally jealous of Timothea’s childhood.
July 18th, 2008 at 5:33 am
Staying in this motel in Gladstone this week, has given my kids some great pool time. I remember crying on the side of the pool while my parents tried to entice, cajole, and force me in. I didn’t like that.
My daughter, fully ensconced in her PFD, loves the water and is loving to swim. She won’t practice putting her face in the water, but she makes feeble 3 y.o. attempts at holding her breath. She loves to blow water out her mouth like I taught her the other day (just in case she gets water there). Although she’s usually about two breaths late. LOL.
We have friends who taught their son to swim at age one. Down here in Milwaukie at some cool, trendy, infant swimming place. But of course they are big boaters.
I remember growing up and taking swimming lessons at Buckman, David Douglas, Rockwood, Tigard - wherever we lived at the time. My mother said it was some Oregon law because of all the rivers and lakes. I don’t know if that’s true, but swimming is a good skill.
I like how you learned - aren’t kids the best teachers!?
July 19th, 2008 at 5:40 am
For four days, while staying in this motel in Gladstone, I’ve been trying to get my 3yo daughter to hold her nose and put her face in the water. She would have none of it.
Last night, there were four kids in the pool - all below the age of six. They were “swimming”, jumping, playing in the water. Before I knew it, S wanted to jump in the water too. (with me catching her, of course)
After getting water up her nose once - she took my advice and held her nose. In no time, she was jumping in and each time I let her go in a little deeper. Pretty soon, her whole head was going under water and she kept saying: “Let’s do it again Dad!”
You’re right - play, is better than didactic.
July 22nd, 2008 at 7:05 am
Mara,
Eli turned five today (!), and this post just suits recent circumstances so well, I had to comment.
On swimming: We went to the pool with Lara and Saya last week. Saya has been taking swimming lessons. Eli can go underwater in a shallow pool, no problem, but has never learned swimming skills, per se. I was swimming from the age of 2, and really want him to learn. So I asked him, “Do you want to go to swimming lessons, or want mom and dad to teach you?” To which he replied, “Neither.” And after that, he applied himself to the task of teaching himself to swim! He accepted my suggestions (bubble, kick your legs like a motor to make us move thru the water, straighten your arms to fly like the Iron Giant, etc.) altered them to fit his agenda, and improvised on them as he saw fit. He made great progress in the 2.5 hours we were there, combined with shallow-water playtime as well. (Saya and Lara actually left much earlier.) And I learned that my son has the will to teach himself, and that my suggestions are welcome, but directions are not necessary. Praise and well-timed excitement helped, too.
On the other side of the coin…
On riding the two-wheeler: My husband has been on a campaign to get Eli riding without training wheels. He has seen his friends doing it, we have heard the tricks (take off the pedals), and we did that. But Eli himself has no interest in doing it. So this learning curve is completely different from the swimming one…we can’t keep him going on it at all. Maybe it really is about not “practicing” or “teaching”, so much as offering up our suggestions and experience and allowing our children’s innate creativity, desire and curiousity help them teach themselves. Will keep you posted on these projects….