Hello and welcome back to the Simplicity Diaries with me, Kim John Payne. Gosh, so glad you could join us again this week and carve out this little space for these funny little podcasts. This week I've been talking to some parents about the steps, in fact three steps, to independent play.
The question often comes up for parents of how much should I play with my child? How much and how long should I play with them? Is it healthy? I really want them to be able to play independently, but I'm not sure quite what to do in this situation. It's a very understandable question and we want our children to be able to play independently. And I think the reason a lot of us have this instinct that it's a good thing that they do this is that when they play independently, a child can kind of level down, so to speak.
They can sink down into deep creative play. And deep creative play, I would say, is perhaps more needed now than it ever has before with all that's going on in the world and all the children have to assimilate and all the sort of sensory and social complexities that surround them. Because play is, I don't know, it's digestion.
It's being able to take the world around me and at times rather random and perhaps even fragmented images and experiences of the day, going here and going there, getting in the car and doing this and then that. It's many different things that a child has to cope with in their day so that when they settle down to play, it's a time where they can pull it all together. It's a time when they can play it out.
Many of us know when our children have scary experiences or real fun experiences or anything in between, when they settle down to play, they often start to either draw it, play it, speak it, dress in costumes like it. It's the way they make sense of the world. And I think most of us have got a pretty good instinct about this and we value it and good for us.
Right. So here's one way to help a child move into that deeper creative play and be able to do that independently without needing to have us beside them. And the reason I think having us beside them the whole time is one way, but it's only one way is that I think the problem with it, if that's what we do a lot, is that children when they're talking to us, interacting with us, that's good.
That's social play and that's lovely and it's connecting, but it keeps them in that chatty realm, if you know what I mean, it keeps them in that relational realm and they don't sink down, down, down into that deep, digestive play. So one way to achieve this. When a child is wanting to be started off in play, in another podcast I called this siphoning play, but we're just taking another step in this now, is to move from being in the house to in the neighbourhood to then in the town.
It's like three concentric circles. We're moving a little further away, but we're still connected. We're still there.
Now, let's back up. In the house means we're sitting right beside a child, you know, we're helping them organize their project, their construction material, their toys, their whatever it is where we're in the house, we're right there with them in their house, metaphorically, of course, we're in the house, but metaphorically close to their play intention. And we're helping them often just gather stuff together.
But they're also chatting to us and so on. And we're interacting with it's quite interactive and it's lovely. Then after a few minutes, five, 10 minutes, give or take, hopefully not much longer and perhaps even shorter once they get used to this, we move to being in the neighbourhood.
Now, in the neighbourhood has got to do with being able to just sit back on the sofa a little bit and not and just start dialing back the amount of words, start dialing back even the amount of syllables. So it just ends with, oh, right. Oh, look.
Yeah. Gosh. All that, you know, so that we start pulling back and if a child wants to talk to us, that's perfectly fine and they'll keep up their lovely little their lovely little chirps and cheeps.
But if we start to dial back how much we talk, you can almost sense a child starting to pull their connection down into their play. And once they start moving into that creative space, we can go from the neighbourhood to the town. And what I mean by that is that we might just quietly move off and and we might start folding some clothes.
We might start doing a little tidy up. By the way, if we do a tidy up, make it make it slow. Don't make it don't bring too much movement turbulence into into the room.
Not busy, busy going round and round. Just slow it down just a just a little bit. Not not so that it's weird, you know, but just a little bit slow it down.
It's a great time for getting supper ready, getting that prepped. It's a great time for a little tidy up. But not not a phone.
The I don't know, you know, it's just the moment we look at a phone, our children sense our attention is no longer in the town. It's over the hills and far away. And they'll pop right out of their creative play and and want to interact again.
So if if if you want your child to stay in deep creative play, avoid phones, avoid laptops, because our children were no longer in the town. We've gone. And that will almost sound a little alarm bell for them.
And they'll pop right up and right out. And then we've got to start all over again. So this is a way to to, yes, have independent play on one hand, but also still have that lovely connection on the other, because the connection was a close was in the house.
But we're still connected when we're in the neighborhood and we're still connected when we're in the town. Now, if a child gets to a point where something frustrating has happened or they really want to show you something, then pop back. But if possible, stay in the neighborhood.
You might need to get come in close again and sort out a frustration with some scissors that won't cut properly or, you know, whatever it is. That's fine. But as quickly as possible, move into the neighborhood or if possible, stay in the neighborhood and just come on over and they want to show you what they've done.
And oh, that's lovely. That's that's fine, too. But don't get in there.
Don't don't sort of move in and start filling the space with with too many words. All right. So that is the three steps to independent play, but also connected play as well.
Oh, as always, I hope that's helpful. And of course, if anyone wants to connect with me, if you would like to speak personally about some of the conundrums that are coming up in your family, don't hesitate to go right to the Simplicity Parenting website, connect, click on connect or consult, I think it is with Kim, and that will lead you right to the page to request a consultation in my little family coaching practice. OK, that's it for now.
Bye bye.
