Comments on: Play is children’s work

By: Tiny Coconut

Tiny Coconut — Tue, 21 Jun 2005 18:54:00 +0000

Your post made me smile. This is precisely the sort of childhood my children are enjoying–a cul-de-sac, long stretches of relative freedom, the chance to get bored and use that to create deep, rich fantasy games. It’s when I peek out my front window to watch a gang of more than a dozen kids, ranging in age from 10 to 3, gamboling up and down the street, screaming at the tops of their lungs, getting into scraps and figuring their way out of them…that’s when I somewhat paradoxically feel as if I’m doing my very best parenting.

By: LisaV

LisaV — Tue, 21 Jun 2005 18:10:05 +0000

Do you let Noah roam? I let my kids in bits and pieces and frankly feel no anxiety about it . But I see the disapproval from some of my fellow moms that I let my 11 year old and 7 year old go to the park -2 blocks away- by themselves. I feel like they need some time away from my scrutiny on occassion.

By: LisaV

LisaV — Tue, 21 Jun 2005 18:01:41 +0000

Very nice.

I think of things like this when things that are of little importance to my life, like algebra, calc, trig,etc. and they are being shoved down kid’s throats. I don’t see writing and art and numerous other things that I find valuable being elevated in the same way. I really have to remember to let my girls know their interests are valid and worth pursuing, because society often doesn’t show that in high school and college. I am grateful that I have found a k-8 school that values their “work” that is motivated by their own interests.

By: bj

bj — Tue, 21 Jun 2005 17:32:09 +0000

I wonder if the world has really changed so much, or if we remember wrongly (change probably, the world is always changing). I also have strong memories of roaming wild without parental interference, and a world that children created separately from their parents. In India, we actually use to travel between towns, on the bus, by ourselves (with older cousins). In the US, we’d go to the grocery store by ourselves, when we were 5 years old. And, the summers were spent freely wandering the grounds of the student housing complex we lived in.

But, are you able to replicate this for Noah (and Madison)? How does homeschooling play into it? I’ve always thought that homeschooling brings the child into the limits of the family and parental desires. Do you find that not to be the case? Do you find that by homeschooling you can allow Noah his own separate existence?