My kids love to play together. For the most part. Does a single day go by without somebody getting upset over what or how they are playing? No. But a day also never goes by without them coming right back to it. And they do come right back to it. Almost like a language of their own, they summon each other back to the game with a simple question – “Still playing?”
You see, my kids are almost always playing, but not board games, cards games, or video games. They play in a world of pure imagination. With no pieces to set up or game board to keep track of they can pick up their game anywhere. And they do. Driving in the car on the way to church I’ll hear “Still playing?” from the back seat. While they are supposed to be getting dressed in the morning I’ll hear “Still playing?” from their bedrooms. While they just got done screaming at each other and giving assurances that the other one is the worst brother/sister in the world, they will extend an olive branch of “Still playing?”
This has been going on for at least two years at this point, and over that time I think they have hit the reset button on their game a handful of times. The current imaginary milieu has been in place for probably two or three months now. My son is a baby named Nicky, his sisters are aunts who have taken him in after his parents died. Or maybe they are his older cousins? I’m sure sure of the specific details, but I do know the characters are heavily influenced by binge watching Full House and that Nicky’s parents are dead. I know this because I overheard their character development session when this version of their game was starting.
“I’ll be the baby,” my son volunteered. “
“Yes, and your parents died in a car accident,” his older sister established. I mean, kind of a dark turn to take right out of the gate when you’re playing with a 5 year-old, but kudos to her using “Yes, and.” I see sparsely attended improv troupe performances in her future.
So parentless baby Nicky and his vaguely related elders have taken up semi-permanent in home home. Outside a few forced family game nights, I’d say that it has taken up about 90% of their play time. Eat, sleep, school, pretend, repeat. Can’t stop, won’t stop. Sounds fun, but my son has been playing the baby so much he is wearing holes in the knees of his pants from crawling. Ya know, when you’re a parent you expect worn-out pants from play, but I guess I assumed it would come from sports in the back yard or general falling down because they have the coordination of an overly excited Muppet. I never thought I’d have to replace my son’s pants because he’d be so committed to his character. Daniel Day-Lewis ain’t got shit on my son.
I love that they have such active imaginations. To this point we have not bought any of them a video game, and we really don’t plan to. The electronic toys we have gotten them mostly sit unused. Part of that is because the batteries have died and I’m pretty sure they’ve lost the chargers, but part of it is they just don’t feel the need to go to them for entertainment. Maybe this year for Christmas I’ll give them imaginary video games. Wrap an empty box and let their imaginations fill it in. Hook style. Bangarang free Christmas presents. I have a funny feeling they would exit their imaginary realm and snap back to the real world with great vengeance and furious anger.
But do they need to be snapped back into reality? Part of me thinks so. I think play can also be a great way to learn real, tangible skills and knowledge. Maybe that is because pretty much all the games I played as a kid were focused on knowledge, skill, or competition. Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit, Scattergories, and Taboo were mainstays in my house as a kid. My Catch Phrase prowess is the stuff of legend. Tell me you’re from the Midwest without telling you’re from the Midwest: I got yelled at more for running afoul of proper Euchre strategy than for breaking actual rules household. Get home a half hour past curfew – just call next time. Trump your partner’s ace – hell hath no fury.
This is not to say we didn’t play pretend. When my brother and I played wiffle ball in the backyard we would pretend to be real major leaguers, complete with mimicked batting stances. I mean, if my son thinks its hard to stay in his baby character, I’d like to see him hit left-handed as Mickey Tettleton.
Not that I need to provide my kids with a duplicate of my childhood, but I do think there is educational value to trivia and knowledge-based games. I learned a lot just from hearing the questions and answers of games. I also think a healthy sense of competition and drive to win is a good thing, and thing that my kids just don’t have. Actually, it isn’t so much that they don’t have a competitive drive to win, but that they have a total aversion to losing. My 7 year-old daughter refuses to play any game that isn’t a co-operative game where all the players are trying to beat the game. Any game where the players are playing each other, she’s out. She’d rather not play at all than run the risk of playing and losing.
Which is another huge benefit of game play – learning to lose. If you can’t lose at Sorry when you’re 7, how are you going to handle losing at something that really matters later in life? I played a lot of sports growing up, and the only score of any game that I remember is losing a football game when I was in the 6th grade. The score was 52-6. I have no idea of any of the scores of any game I’ve ever won. What can be learned from losing in make believe? Based on how my kids play, how to deal with the deaths of your imaginary parents. I’m not sure that grief counseling counts as a game. At least not one that I want to play for family game night.
I don’t think my kids are gaining much useful knowledge by taking their imaginary puppies for pretend visits to the vet while they drop off their orphaned little brother at make believe day care. And I get it, it is still good for their brains, and good for their emotional development. However, my kids are probably the least empathetic people I’ve ever met. For kids who constantly inhabit an imaginary world, they couldn’t possibly imagine somebody else’s perspective or feelings. If they aren’t developing their EQ, I think they could at least pick up some facts.
I do think it helps them cope with each other though. I love that that they can fall right back into play after any kind of screaming match or fit any of them happen to throw at each other. The question of “Still playing?” serves as a panacea for whatever issues there are between them. Perhaps that is the lesson they are learning from their play? That play itself is the lesson. They need to learn to play anything together so that they can live together. They’re using play to form bonds and building a foundation of knowing that whatever else happens that can always come back to each other. You never know where your kids are going to end up in life, but whatever they end up doing, I hope they’re still playing.
I Think Therefore I Dad 