Dear Nursery Families,
Wishing You Stillness in Worried Times
"Stillness. One of the doors
into the temple."
~Mary Oliver
Among the many other challenges and worries parents are facing right now, balancing work obligations and childcare is high on many families’ list of stresses. This is compounded by being suddenly thrust into, not only caring for children all day, but also feeling the pressures of homeschooling them. I can attest that, even for older children, distance learning requires a significant amount of adult support. We are keeping each of these balls in the air, all while we grapple with the anxiety of financial security in a highly fragile economy and fear for our health and the health of our loved ones. These are profound and layered concerns and there is no way for us not to feel the impact in every cell in our being. We all need stillness in our days, adults and children, and that is especially hard to find right now, when we are flooded with so many questions and competing tasks.
Stemming from the sudden closure of schools, many emails and articles are circulating (including some we have sent you ourselves!) offering lists of activities and projects to keep our children busy and engaged while they are home. These can certainly be helpful, particularly as everyone is feeling increasingly cooped up and stretched thin, and we’ve likely already cycled through our own list of rainy day activities several times over. But they can also add to the feeling that we are drowning in a sea of “to-do’s,” and they can at times contribute to rather than alleviate our parenting stress, as we may feel guilty for each activity we’re not able to squeeze in, among the many demands on our time.
However, all of these lists and links are also indicative of a cultural shift in our larger understanding of childhood, a shift that is now triggering an abrupt head-to-head collision with the realities of having our children home with us all day.
Many parents, over the past several decades, have come to see their function in their child’s life as one that researcher, Annette Lareau, terms “concerted cultivation.” We place a great deal of emphasis on our responsibility to directly foster and facilitate our children’s learning and development, by planning and guiding their activities and heavily scaffolding their every interaction and effort. This view of parenting has not always been prevalent and continues to vary significantly across cultures.
Surely adult engagement in children's learning has clear benefits, and on the best of days, one of the gifts of the current situation may be the opportunity it presents for families to be together and to play together. But there are also important benefits to independent or “solo” play, and our ordinary 21st century lives do not present many chances for children to practice entertaining themselves. Children are understandably at a loss when we ask them to wait while we finish a work phone call or make dinner, because they are so rarely alone with their own thoughts and ideas.
Yet, as parenting author, Olivia Briggs, says:
“Numerous studies have shown that solo play can increase confidence, independence, and creativity, and children who play alone are more patient. Solo play is also great for the imagination, enhancing problem-solving abilities, and for preparation for school.”
The good news is that it is possible for children to build these skills. It won’t happen overnight. They will likely need us to help them start their play schemes at the beginning, and it will take time for them to build up from short periods of independence to longer periods. But as children become more comfortable and confident playing on their own, they actually learn to find great pleasure in having the space and the time to follow their own ideas and create their own unencumbered worlds. Once they get the hang of it, it can be hard to pull children away from their play, as they start to realize the full scope of their imagination and of the materials around them.
It is important to keep in mind that children may be feeling especially emotionally insecure right now, as so much in their lives has changed for reasons that feel confusing and frightening. This is not a time to stretch their need for our comfort and reassurance in the interest of building independence. But the situation does present an opportunity to help children discover their own minds and their own potential as explorers, which will be beneficial to their growth and will also allow us at least a few more minutes each day to take care of our adult obligations. Additionally, play is the central way in which young children process their own worry. So there is also a crucial therapeutic value to providing lots of opportunities for play, while we all navigate this experience together.
Psychologist, Dr. Vanessa Lapointe, suggests that when our children tell us they are bored, we should respond enthusiastically, “I love bored!” She says:
“Children need to sit in their own boredom for the world to become quiet enough that they can hear themselves. It is only when we are surrounded by nothing that something comes alive on the inside. The constant stimulation of today's reality makes arriving at that place of stillness really challenging for a lot of kids...Children need to sit in the nothingness of boredom in order to arrive at an understanding of who they are. And just as important, children need to sit in the nothingness of boredom to awaken their own internal drive to be.”
Tonight, instead of a list of links and recipes, we are sharing some words of wisdom from Jean Schreiber on how to manageably encourage your child’s independent play skills, along with a list of suggested materials from our Atelierisita, Sari Anchipolovsky, that lend themselves well to imaginative solo play.
As we come to the end of two very overwhelming weeks, I wish us all a few minutes of stillness and boredom. For your child and for you.
Shabbat shalom,
Alicia