Vactioning Breeds Pretend Play

Our vacation has been one of the best things we have done in a long time. Specifically, for the children. Ken and I were growing more concerned as we saw a drastic decrease in Grace and Jack's imaginative play over the last term. It was our impression that perhaps they were being entertained with too much multimedia time, so we reduced their time to only one hour --- the choice of what screen they wanted to sit in front of for that hour (TV, Computer, or PS2) was their decision. After a few weeks of this strategy, we still weren't happy with the results.

Then came Christmas, and my need to stop schooling and relax for two weeks. The first few days were really difficult. The children had an honestly hard time trying to adjust to the disappearance of routine. We weren't homeschooling, there was no AWANA, no gymnastics, nothing for them to grasp and count on except for church. They frequently requested those markers of routine back, especially school, but after a few days, the requests began to ease back.

What I saw over the next two weeks was remarkable. Pretend play began to ooze out of the woodwork. Grace and Jack are often imaginative and pretend, but the play is short and fleeting. This play was different: The children started pretending in overdrive, talking in various voices, with all sorts of props, people and trains. For HOURS they would do this, scampering off to one of their rooms to pretend and make up games. It was interesting that it took the removal of routine for them to break out into this type of play. Their days are not structured hour by hour, but it must have been enough to squelch the art of full blown imaginative play.

I will be watching this next term very closely. I desperately want to KEEP that side of the children alive and fluent and free. It was a real joy to watch them play so well and so freely with anything for long periods of time without interruption.