The Magic

“My kids are playing and not fighting…” [with this look of disbelief, relief and excitement mixed together] It’s the best; love when grown-ups get to experience it.

“It’s something about the environment…” [a parent sitting, looking around trying to figure out why it feels calm and the kids are all playing]

And there are many theories…

• Some think it’s the number of toys. It’s because there are so many. Others think it’s because there are so few that are carefully curated...

• It must be the sand! Then families recreate sandboxes in their homes and share how it’s EVERYWHERE and they just don’t focus in the same way. They’re off to the next thing. They don’t play as long...

• It must be the toys. But then they find they have some of the same toys at home or buy them for home, and then they don’t play with them.
  

So what is it? Why is it that kids will play for hours and hours and still not want to leave? Why do siblings play and play and get along with each other in the space? Here’s the secret…

Are ya ready? It’s fun to have a little suspense… :)

This is what I think it is - it’s the social environment.

I know, it’s not an exciting answer. But I really think that’s what it is.

Play is a social experience. And kids are smart.

They watch other kids. They get ideas from other kids. They mimic, they join in, and add on to the ideas of others. This is what play is - for kids. It’s thinking and testing. Quietly watching what others are doing and trying things. It’s coming up with an idea and then doing it.

And this social play is harder to create at home.

In North America, we seem to go out to be social. We leave the mess of our houses behind. We go to parks, playgrounds, indoor spaces, coffee shops, you name it. This way we don’t have to clean our houses or navigate schedules that never seem to align, just so we can spend an hour or two together. To be social within our own homes, I don’t think it happens as much as we’d like.

I can’t think of the last time we (our own family) had friends over to our house. And yet I love when it happens. When you keep inviting and schedules don’t work out, you eventually stop asking. With nap schedules, lessons or birthday parties on the go, it’s often easier to focus on getting your own family out the door and seeing who you might meet or run into at the schoolyard, park or different spaces.

And so when families are home, I think we’re looking for things to keep the kids busy. As grown-ups, there are things we need to get done around the house and we also need a bit of a breather. We build play structures in our backyards. Add a sandbox. Add a playhouse. Build mud kitchens. We basically re-create local neighbourhood playgrounds in our own backyards. And I get why, there’s that ease of opening the door and sending them out. We had a sandbox in our backyard too. And yet, it’s not the same kind of play that happens at the local park. It’s like we’re trying to replicate the play, but it’s never the same.

Because something is lost when we try to re-create play spaces at home. We lose the social aspect of play.

Now I’m not saying, don’t have art materials at home. Don’t build a sandbox or hang a swing from your tree. You don’t need toys. Because they are fun for kids. I am saying that the play will likely look different at home than out in a space like LYKKE Kids or at your local playground.

When kids are home with their parents or siblings, or having play dates with the same friend or small circle of friends, they’re engaging with someone they know well.

They likely know what will happen if they take that toy without asking. They’ll likely play the same things (when my son asks to play a game at home, my go-to’s are always saying yes to something short like Uno, Rummy-O, or dominos. Monopoly is my worst nightmare. I don’t like games that last forever. One of my reasons for creating LYKKE Kids was thinking about those kids out there who would love to meet someone else (kid or grown-up) who would love to play Monopoly with them. And at home or with a play date, they’re with someone who responds in the same ways. There’s no one to stretch them. When you enter a space with new people, it’s a whole new ball game.

There’s a great book written by researchers at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, called A Pedagogy of Play: Supporting playful learning in classrooms and schools. It “draws on cross-cultural, empirical research to explore what it means to embrace play as a core part of learning… written for teachers, school leaders, and professional development providers to support playful learning across content areas and age groups” (source of the quote). Anyways, in this book, they share the characteristics of play and how they support learning.

Leading practitioners, researchers and policy makers from around the world reviewed literature on learning, play, and neuroscience, and asked kids to share their views on play and learning. From this, the group created a framework from their findings that outlined five central characteristics of playful learning experiences. They are:

• Joyful

• Meaningful

• Actively engaging

• Iterative

• Socially interactive

The researchers remind us that we can learn on our own, but “something happens with others. We get a chance to see something from another perspective, to explain things, negotiate, and then reach a compromise. We learn to communicate and engage with others…” Play is socially interactive.

I can see that as adults too. If you’ve ever started a new job, think of how much you’ve learned from your colleagues - by watching them, having conversations with them… maybe not play, but definitely an example of learning being a social experience. And for kids, play is how kids learn. It’s not a made up thing. It is fact. There are decades, centuries of research to support it. Piaget’s Stages of the Development of the Child was published 100 years ago. There are so many studies and years and years of observations. Play isn’t just cute and something to keep kids busy. It’s how kids develop and grow.

And play is how kids get to feel capable.

When they make something on their own or think of an idea, it’s confidence building. Every week I get to hear kids say, “I did this!” “I made this…” “Look what I did…” “I did this on my own!” They feel so proud. To us we may see a cardboard creation, to them, they used a glue gun all by themselves. They chose the materials and they were the ones who decided what to make. There’s this energy that’s hard to describe - yet you know that feeling when your kid(s) are almost jumping up and down because they’re so happy. It’s joy.

And when you have a teacher design a social play environment for kids (which means it’s a learning environment), then the play is next level. It’s not just about the toys. Every single thing in the space - I could tell you exactly why it’s there. Why it’s placed in that exact spot. Why I chose to buy it because of what I noticed in the kids’ play. Why I think they’ll enjoy it. What I’d like to do next… To me, it’s not about buying toys or providing another “play place.”

It’s about kids.

Thoughtfully designing a space for kids.

“My kids are playing and not fighting…”

“We’ve been here for hours and they don’t want to leave. I don’t think I’ll be able to get them out of here…”

“It’s something about the environment…”

I think our kids are telling us something important.

They need this. They fundamentally need this.

They need to just play.

They need to be with other kids.

They need to feel surprised and excited.

They need to meet new people.

They need to be around grown-ups they don’t know and see that they are safe with them.

They need to feel challenged. To feel like they are mastering things. Figuring things out for themselves.

They need space from us. To feel independent and capable.

They need to make. To laugh. To watch. To learn.

They need social environments where they can work their magic.
And I feel super lucky to be able to watch them each day.