Tag: Play

     Connection…in simple terms, means a relationship between others, events, or things. We’re all born with an innate feeling of needing a connection with someone or something. It’s what we all thrive for, it’s what we need to survive.

     Popularized by the western philosopher, John Locke, the long debated “blank slate” theory suggests that babies come into the world with no mental content. In the section, What Babies Are Teaching Us in the book Babies Are Cosmic, author Dr. Neil Carmen, PhD, explains that this is no longer the case. Babies enter the world with a “full slate” of consciousness. They are aware, thinking beings capable of memory and learning, disguised in tiny bodies and lack of speech. He also shares a few quotes that resonated, in his Why We Need to Talk to Babies section:

     “Babies communicate through eye contact, facial expressions, changes in where they place their attention and states of consciousness, body movements and gestures, crying….” -Dr. Wendy McCarthy

     “So when we sit with children in their play or in their movements and have a curiosity about what it is they are working to show us and tell us. We may learn a lot about what their perspective was in early experiences before they had words to speak about it.” -Mary Jackson, author of The Consciousness of Infants

     “Memory does not begin at age 2, but stretches back to birth, newborns have led us to this truth…In crossing this boundary, it is the unborn who are teaching us.” -Dr. David Chamberlain

     Adults that expect to hear baby chatter are blindsided when they hear children as young as 2 and 3 talk about spiritual and philosophical concepts. If they listen closely they may be gifted with these recollections. These memories from children display knowledge beyond their years of experience. The wisdom, hidden gifts, and truths children share reveal and elicit wonder and healing for adults. These would answer the question on how to listen to children whether verbal or non-verbal. Dr. Carman also states that babies record their experiences in the implicit memory, which Dr. Dan Siegel talks about in his book The Whole-Brain Child. The implicit memory is what begins forming before we are born. So, connection starts in the womb.

    Once born into this world an attachment is already formed. An attachment is described as a strong emotional bond between a baby or a young child and a caring adult who is a part of the child’s every day life. Looking back at Dr. Wendy McCarthy’s quote and reading Secure Relationships by Alice Sterling Honig helps with reassuring this connection. She explains that making eye contact and looking into the child’s eyes helps nurture that connection, whether it’s mother, father, a family member, or another caregiver. Touch is special, as well, it is crucial. A loving touch is the secret ingredient that magically helps babies and young children feel emotionally secure. Dr. Neil Carman also mentions the term “love sensing,” which is the ability of a newborn to know whether they are truly desired, welcomed, and loved. Alice Sterling also writes about attachment and cognitive development and that loving and learning are deeply intertwined. Secure attachments seem to prepare children to be confident and independent learners, along with having strong social-emotional skills. Clinicians and researchers found that when children feel loved and worthy of being loved, solving cognitive tasks is more successful for them. This is where playing and learning first take place. Attachment is also the first social- emotional behavior system to develop. As the attachment evolves, exploration and curiosity emerge. Child-Teacher attachment is independent from child-parent attachment. In Extending the Dance, Helen Raikes and Carolyn Edwards go on to explain that teachers of secure children were more sensitive to their signals during play and show higher responsiveness compared to those without a secure attachment.

     According to Rudolph Steiner, the human being has 12 senses. The book, Waldorf Education: An Introduction for Parents, explains the first four as the foundation of a healthy development in the young for all the higher level skills – cognitive, social, and spiritual – in childhood and through out life. They are the sense of touch, which is the first to be awakened, the sense of life, our basic needs, the sense of self-movement (proprioceptive,) and the sense of balance (vestibular.) Even Peter Lorie discusses the many senses in his book Wonder Child. These are the foundation for connection and play. Play appears to be a natural motivation for young children and adults alike.

     In the book, Supporting Play: Birth through Age 8, Dorothy Justus Sluss explains that infants enter the world dependent on their senses and physical ability to develop as human beings. Their development is directly related to play and their play is directly related to their development. Even Piaget refers to the first two years as the sensorimotor stage. There’s a section in the book on communication theory which views play as necessary for communication purposes. Gregory Bateson believed that children create a context for play and a shift from reality to play is called a play frame. Catherine Garvey extended his findings and developed a framework for understanding the complexity involved in the child’s language. She noted that a lot of  child’s communication involved creating, clarifying, maintaining, and negotiating pretend play. William Carsaro built on Garvey’s work recognizing developmental differences in the use of communication during play. In Chapter 1, Valuing Play, Sluss writes about David Elkind first expressing his concern in 1981 in his book The Hurried Child. The value of play is global, universal. The elements that support play in most cultures are: in a healthy and safe place, schedules for basic needs met, an array of familiar peers, materials, and other culture, adult behaviors that support, but don’t disrupt, and an agreement between child and and adult that play may occur.  Sluss also asks, “What is play?” One of the first definitions of play was provided by the founder of Kindergarten, Friedrick Froebel, in 1887. He stated, “Play is the highest expression of human development in children for it alone is the free expression of what is in a child’s soul.” Since then there have been many other definitions. There are 6 characteristics of play: it is voluntary, it requires active involvement, it’s symbolic, it’s free of external rules, it focuses on action rather than outcomes, and it’s pleasurable. In Childhood and Society, Chapter 6: Toys and Reasons, Erik Erikson writes about Play, Work, and Growth.  A child’s play begins with and centers on his own body, which is termed as autocosmic play. This begins before we notice and consists of kinesthetic sensations, sensual perceptions, vocalizations, etc.  Learning is necessary in order to discover what potential play content can be admitted only to fantasy or only to autocosmic play; what content can be successfully represented only in the microcosmic world of toys and things and what content can be shared with others. The microsphere is learning alone and the macrosphere is sharing with others. As this is learned, each sphere is endowed with it’s own sense of reality and mastery. Erikson also writes what may have common meaning to all children in a community, may have a special meaning to some. Yet, all of it may have a unique meaning to individual children. To understand the unique meaning itself requires careful observation, not only of the plays content and form, but also words and visible effects, which is also known as play disruption. The antithesis of play disruption is play sanitation, play from which a child emerges refreshed as a sleeper from dreams which “worked.”

Going back to Wonder Child, by David Lorie, he explains what his book is about. “This book is designed to show that we are living in the presence of a new kind of child. A child that lives in a state of wonder, which is our natural state, and which we are still capable of recognizing if we know where to look. For we have only forgotten it, lost along the way somewhere.” He goes on to write that if we consider the presence of ourselves in our world, our environment, as something completely connected, then we are affected by everything. It is only the strength of the mind and our determination to be separate that disconnects us. In Chapter 3, Child Power and Hidden Emotions, he talks about consciousness. Just because a child cannot use words yet, cannot tell us how they feel, does not mean that the child is somehow under-developed or delayed. In Eye Talk a child talks to us through the eyes, through a willingness to receive us and everything we put into the child. This can be referred back to and connected with attachment. In The Earthing of the Child, …”it is not really that the child “learns” through mental intake, but that his or her whole being is absorbed into a connection with the Earth.”

  Richard Louv wrote an amazing book, Last Child in the Woods that really captures the true essence of connecting with nature. For children, nature comes in many forms. A child finds freedom, fantasy, and privacy. It inspires creativity in a child,  demanding visualization and the full use of all the senses. These are some of the utilitarian values of nature, but at a deeper level, she gives herself to children (and adults,) without a reflection of culture. Nature is reflected in our capacity for wonder. As humans we often see ourselves separate from nature, but we are actually part of that wilderness. In chapter 2 Why the Young (and the Rest of Us) Need Nature, Louv goes on to write about the many researchers that talk about ecological consciousness and our connection to our evolution on Earth. There is a wide circle of researchers that believe that the loss of natural habitat, or the disconnection from nature has enormous implications for human health at an almost cellular level. Playtime, especially unstructured, imaginative, exploratory play is increasingly recognized as an essential component of whole child development. A benefit for play in natural settings is that children and adults are more active when they are outside. There are emotional benefits, as well. Green space fosters social interaction and promotes social support. Nature can also offer a nurturing solitude. Children live through their senses and need nature for the healthy development of them, for learning, and creativity. This need is revealed in two ways: by an examination of what happens to the senses when they lose connection to nature and by witnessing the sensory magic that occurs when we are exposed to even the smallest direct experience of a natural setting. There is a long and extensive list in the back of his book to help reconnect with nature, also. Connect with Nature by Anna Carlile and Bringing the Outside In by Sandra Duncan, Ed.D and Jody Martin are two great books that are very helpful, as well.

     Freeing the Human Spirit, by Michael Spence, has a small section on Intuition in the School that can help teachers connect with children. He states that it is a complete denial of the soul/spiritual nature of the child or young person if we think we can decide what it is we intend them to become and then plan the education to achieve that end. Nor can we arrive at a proper form of education by listening to the common opinion, or by sensing what is felt by the majority to be right or wrong.  There is a great deal that is hidden in the child as they stand before the teacher. How the child will develop, what will transpire as their life’s work and what will come into expression only in later years are not visible to the ordinary senses of the teacher. To see this the teacher has to develop her intuition. In Empowered by Empathy, Rose Rosetree writes about the different types of intuition. There’s physical intuition – informs you about what’s going on in another’s body, emotional intuition – listening to tone of voice and observing body language, emotional oneness – feeling other’s emotions as your own, (an Empath, such as myself,) and intellectual shape shifting – the talent for sharing another’s thought process.  When teachers can develop one or more of these, they have the ability to connect with children on a deeper level. Also, to help children develop these.  In her Connect to Protect, Rosetree writes that according to research and at the Journal of the American Medical Association, children feeling connected to parents, or other adults was 5 times as important as spending time. Your child will prosper if you have the humility to just come as you are. Even preschoolers can be shown that everyone has an inside and outside. Self-knowledge is especially valuable for children. Helping them to learn to appreciate how quiet experiences of inner learning are the basis of what shows outwardly. In chapter 6, The Me-We Connection of The Whole-Brain Child, Empathy + Insight, according to Dan Seigel  is Mindsight. Mindsight is understanding our own mind as well as understanding the mind of another. The We is offering experiences that lead to connection. The essence,  happiness, and fulfillment result from being connected to others while still maintaining a unique identity. A few books I recommend in also helping teachers are Really Seeing Children by Deb Curtis and From Teaching to Thinking by Ann Pelo and Margie Carter. These are really helpful. Spirit Whisperers: Teachers Who Nourish a Child’s Spirit by Chick Moorman is a wonderful one, as well. He writes the 6 Principles of Spirit Whispers as Suspended Judgement, Conscious Creation, Inner Knowing, Personal Responsibility, Personal Power, and Oneness.

    In conclusion, I’ve always felt that connection is the key, it’s the heart of everything.  When you feel connected to someone, a child, anyone, it helps with compassion, understanding,  and empathy. You get to know who that person truly is. It helps with all learning, cognitive, social-emotional, intuitive, etc. Connecting with ourselves and with nature is the root of all knowledge, it brings us back to find out who we truly are.

Everything is connected…