Making Play with Nothing
The best incentive
The best incentive for creative play is the need to play with nothing. That’s right. When kids are bored, it’s often because they have too much. They don’t need to think for entertainment. It is provided to them. This makes them lazy. It makes them expect others to keep them entertained.
What every child needs for play is boredom and nothing. My friend Ruth told me story after story of how she and other children found things to do when they had nothing.
During and after WW2, Ruth and her family were displaced from Poland. For three-and-a-half years, they lived in five different refugee camps in Denmark with hundreds of other children. There was no school, so refugees developed their own school system. A schedule for each day helped keep boredom at bay.
Children made their own entertainment. A “softball” made of newspaper and covered in fabric worked well – until the newspaper exploded out of the fabric. Then more newspaper was found.
A favorite game they played was called Messer Stitch [knife stick]. One knife, parcels of land marked by drawing in the soil, and a toss of the knife decided who conquered the land.
They also played “Battleship” – each opponent had one piece of paper, folded in the shape of an airplane. They marked spots on a grid written on the paper. Other contestants guessed where the opponent’s battleships were located.
Seventy years after Ruth’s refugee camp experience, her eyes light up when she remembers those days. She doesn’t understand how children are so bored these days with all these toys and gadgets. She knows that the best toy a child can use is his imagination.
Taking it away
One of the best things a parent can do when a child says he is bored is remove his toys (and electronics). Forbid him to play with a particular toy. Suddenly, he finds many ways he can play without that item! Every child has an imagination; if he can’t think of something to do with a toy, then he’s not experienced the gift of pretending and making things up. He’s not pulled into his imagination.
When we remove something, it helps us appreciate what we had. When a child has to find his own entertainment, he discovers unearthed resources in his own imagination. Help him find his imagination. Let him learn to play with “nothing”.
≅ ≅ ≅ ≅ ≅ ≅ ≅ ≅ ≅ ≅
A note from Gert: if you want to read more about Ruth’s story, you can purchase her book at Amazon or through the publisher, Masthof Press I don’t own the copyright; you’re helping Ruth when you purchase her book. If you live local to the Grantsville, MD area, you can buy it at The Casselman or at Whispering Pines in Springs, PA.
Photo credit: Ketansinh Chauhan via pixabay.
