My Connections to Play

We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing ~George Bernard Shaw

Play is the only way the highest intelligence of humankind can unfold ~Joseph Chilton Pearce

These are both quotes that I always had hanging in my office when I was a Center Director for Early Childhood.  Play is so critical to every aspect of life, young, middle age and old.  Play keep us alive, active, stimulates our brains, and especially helps to develop children in a way in which is crucial.  When children don’t play; they lose focus and therefore can not learn properly.

I remember as a child playing, and playing, and playing.  I played with my cousins, my neighborhood friends, and my friends at school.  I even played (GASP) alone with toys and games that did not require to be plugged in or charged.  Some toys that I remember fondly as a young child are pictured below!

My Little Pony was my favorite childhood toy and the best thing is that it is making a comeback and my daughter loves it (even my 2 boys will play with them)

My favorite childhood game and again- we now have this game for my kids. It is just so much fun and I used to play it for hours when I was younger! My kids love it just as much as I did.

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My family definitely played a huge role in supporting my play during my childhood.  My grandmother was fortunate enough to stay home so all of us cousins (15 of us) were always at her house.  Many of us took the bus to her house after school everyday and spent many of our summer days at our grandparents house.  We would play endlessly together.  Our families really knew the importance of making sure we spent time together PLAYING! We rode bikes, we ran to the playground, we played hide and seek and just created amazing memories.  We always slept over each others houses and would stay up all night long (well at least it seemed).Our parents always made sure we had time to be together and be kids.  I feel as though my school supported play as well because we played tag in the school yard, kick ball, games of cooties (gasp again) and we chased each other until we fell down and scraped our knees.  We did these things because the teachers knew it was healthy for us and they were not worried about our parents filing a law suite because I scraped my knee playing tag!

I could write 20 pages about what is wrong with play these days.  It is not the children that are to blame for it either.  I hear so many people say stuff like “well kids are just different these days, not the same, they don’t act the same, they are lazy”  They were not born that way.  We, as a society, have allowed them to become this way.  Children don’t play outside anymore because we created all these games for them to be addicted to.  Children don’t ride bikes for 8 hours at a time with their friends because parents don’t tell them to.  Parents let them have video games, let them sit on the couch and society says its OK (most of the time).  Society, schools and parents have let competitive sports take over kids lives.  We have forgotten how to say “NO” and “enough is enough”.  Kids do not have time to be kids because they are at the soccer field, baseball field, football field and dance studio every single night of the week and weekends.  I played sports, danced and was a cheerleader when I was growing up.  However, I still had plenty of time to be with my cousins and friends.  We were not expected to practice and play games 6 out of 7 days a week like most sports are today (at least not in my community).  My kids play one sport at a time and it still takes over our lives.  I think the other issue is family time and it seems as though more parents were available to their kids back when I was growing up as opposed to today where parents seem to have to work way more to make more money to keep up with having the best gadgets, being in all the best sports and so on.  I think that if parents did not work so much their kids would have more time with family and friends.  In my opinion we have let materialism take over our lives.

I may have caused a debate with this blog and I respect anyone’s comments and if you do not agree with me 🙂

Relationships

Forming and maintaining positive relationships is something that is critical to living a healthy life.  One needs people that they can trust and lean on in times of need.  A spouse needs his/her spouse, a child needs his/her parent,  a child needs his/her teacher, a teacher needs the support of a parent and vice versa.  Relationships are everywhere and to be blunt, they are unavoidable and so we all need to make the best of them, right? 

Although I am not currently in a career, I have always found it so  important to have strong and positive relationships with my co-workers.  When you are at work you are spending the vast majority of your life with people who it is in your best interest to get along with.  I do not mean that to sound funny but it is true.  When I was an administrator in a childcare center, it was a very stressful job and I tell ya, if I did not have strong relationship with my co-directors from the other centers I seriously would have lost my marbles most days! Your work relationships can truly make or break your job and your love for your profession.  I loved my job because I was passionate about it but boy did my colleagues really make a huge difference in me wanting to continue to do my best every single day.  We pushed each other to do our best and we were supportive of each other when things just did not go as we planned.  There were plenty of times when I called my colleagues on the phone and could just cry and let it all out.  They did not judge me; they would either listen or cry with me!  Co-workers truly have a special that I believe no other people have (especially when you have the same values and beliefs).

On a more personal level, my husband fits in with the theme of this post very well because when I made the very difficult decision to leave my passion and my career just one year ago he absolutely was my number one cheerleader! With out his support I would have never had the courage to resign from my job and leave behind an income that was significant to our family lifestyle.  However I was not happy anymore at my job and money has no power over our happiness.  Support, encouragement, and having someone who is on my team when it comes to my happiness and my families happiness is my number one priority in life.  It has not been easy since I left my job as we have had to really make financial sacrifices and deal with some realistic challenges.  But again our support and love for each other has kept us grounded.

Which brings me to my previous job, my relationship with my job and my husband.  My job was very stressful, I worked 50-60 hours a week, I was under a lot of pressure working for the largest, corporate run childcare company in the country.  My work stress was causing stress in my personal life, at home, with my friends, and with my co-workers (we were all very stressed out).  I will not go into details about private company related issues but as far as how relationships can affect my life as a professional persons work was a big deal.  I was no longer doing a good job at my passion because the stress was getting the best of me.  I was no longer available for my teachers, my families at the center, or the children like they deserved.  I knew that it was time for me to take a break.  I needed to find a way to re-group myself so that I could still be passionate about the field and not completely ruin all of my professional relationships.  That brought me here and now I am finishing my masters degree (long overdue) and building new relationships with people from all over the world, learning how to be a better professional and leader in the field, and keeping my passion alive.