What I remember most from own childhood and play was the sense of freedom. I was allowed to use anything I could collect, transport, or carry to play with. There were very few limitations placed on my imagination. These leaves represent my favorite time of the year growing up because although we would have to help rake the leaves when they fell to the ground, we had a good week of fun before we actually had to transport them to the burn pile. We would pile them up and jump in them, wow, I wish I had the energy to do that now. It was so empowering. Then we would use the leaves to make outlines of houses, schools, stores, garages and create an entire city of leaf buildings. We'd take our dolls and make beds in them. We'd park our bikes or trikes in the leaf garage.
The picture of the cardboard house represents the hours of play we used to get whenever my dad would bring home a big cardboard box. We made houses, trains, boats, cars, beds, chairs, tunnels, pretty much anything and everything we could climb on, crawl through, or hide in. It always felt so safe and cozy tucked away in my cardboard construction. It was mine. I made it, many times it was a community affair with neighbors helping out.
I had very few toys that were commercially store bought. We didn't have a lot of money, but I do remember having barbie dolls and spending many hours with my friends and their dolls, dressing them creating stories about what adventure they were going on that day. We made doll furniture out of cardboard boxes or empty containers, we used cloth from the ragbag to make clothes for the dolls.
All of these memories make me reflect on the difference between then and now. Today kids have so many toys and yet they seem to not be able to use them in various ways, or imagine stories and play scenarios that are as deep as I remember. My toddler granddaughter gravitates towards the toys that have the buttons to push that make sounds or light up something. They don't seem to keep her attention like the toys I remember. But this Christmas, when we were all in the midst of having her open up presents, she was way more interested in playing with the paper and the boxes than she was in playing with her new toys. I think in some ways we have failed our children by creating so many close-ended toys. Which is why I became a certified play coach. I go around to different places in the state and conduct play workshops using recycled collections of objects to get adults back into the swing of play so they can better understand some of the "challenging behaviors" we see when children are only given short amounts of time and are expected to give up part of their materials to share with other students. Many providers and teachers leave with a new perspective on a child's right to play and create and that it takes time and lots of materials to do it. It can't be rushed. We need to respect a child's right to investigate, create, build, and explore in their own time and on their own terms.
