Do you let your kids be bored? I remember when I was a kid my Nanna used to always say ‘there’s no such thing as bored, just boring people’ and that told us! You know, I can’t ever remember being bored. My dad was terminally ill when I was young and so I’m sure my mum had her hands full. Yet, I certainly never felt neglected. Funny that, as a large proportion of us mums experience guilt and feelings that we’re not doing a good enough job, if we’re not micro managing our kids every second of the day. Always setting up activities for them and getting on our hands a knees to play with them if we’re asked to do so.
I know, I’ve felt it and probably still do if I’m honest. So, I was super happy to be challenged by petitsfilous.co.uk as part of the #PetitsFilousPlayFree to embrace free play for a week.
Petits Filous is fortified with Vitamin D for healthy bones, helping children to play free. A cool snack that can be enjoyed with Free Play, either al fresco with formats such as Petits Filous pouches to make eating away from home easier (it can be kept out the fridge for five hours and you don’t need a spoon) or at home with Petits Filous little pots (perfect for small hands and appetites!) or even Big Pots!
The challenge was simple. Instead of jumping in and directing Ava’s play, we had to simply step back and her work through their boredom and ‘Play Free’. The challenge for us would be not to allow her to reach for her tablet to fill her boredom. Free play doesn’t mean always leaving them to it and not being involved. You can get involved, but it’s important that the child decides what they want to do and how they want to do it.
It can be so tempting as a parent to put our thoughts, feelings and the knowledge we have of the world onto our children. However, in doing so we start to stifle their creativity.
So, we started our challenge and I mostly found it quite easy. As I work from home and Ava is an only child, she’s used to playing by herself and directing what she wants to do. I did start to make it clearer that she could decide what she did, rather than me always offering a few options.
I don’t particularly enjoy playing with dolls and the make believe play. I’m much better at teaching her through play. I think over the week I realised that it’s ok for me to feel that way and I shouldn’t force myself to do the things I don’t want to do. Neither of us will enjoy that. Instead we should focus on activities that we both enjoy, such as her Paw Patrol card games. Very quickly Ava learned that I enjoyed that more than the other activities and so that’s what she would ask to do.
I had a great session with child development expert Anita Cleare which I felt validated my actions, so it was super helpful. Anita pointed out that it was a great sign of development that Ava has started to understand the feelings of others. She was starting to put herself in my shoes and suggest an activity that she knew would get the more positive outcome. I also asked Anita about reading as Ava is in a French school and so they won’t teach her to read in English. I explained how she will sit and read her books to the dogs and gets the words pretty much bang on, just from memory. Anita told me this was a sign of the pre reading phase and that Ava will indicate when she’s ready to learn more.
We really enjoyed the challenge and while it wasn’t a huge departure for us, it was great to gain more validation and clarity. Both of which will help us all going forward. Do you feel guilty if you let your children play free? What are your favourite things to do with your kids?
Disclosure: “I’m working with Petits Filous and BritMums promoting the #PetitsFilousPlayFree campaign about the importance of free play.”