All My Children

Pinning the Tail on Eeyore

Draw a large picture of Eeyore on a piece of stiff card or plywood. Colour him grey. Draw his tail separately on paper, or make it of string or wool or plaited raffia, with a tassel at the end.

Hang the picture on the wall and mark on it where the tail should go. Blindfold the players in turn, and give them the tail plus a drawing pin. As each pins the tail on Eeyore, mark round the pinpoint with a ring and put the player’s initials. The winner is the one who places the tail most accurately. Continue Reading »

Most adults find it easier to involve themselves directly in complex and adult games, like chess or baseball, than in play on simpler levels, such as stacking blocks or riding a hobbyhorse or toy car. Although the terms “play” and “game” are often used interchangeably, they are not identical in meaning. Rather, they refer to broadly distinguishable stages of development, with “play” relating to an earlier stage, “game” to a more mature one. Generally speaking, “play” refers to the young child’s activities characterized by freedom from all but personally imposed rules (which, unless the child is compulsive, can be changed at will); by freewheeling fantasy involvement; and by the absence of any goals outside the activity itself. Continue Reading »

Play Is Voluntary

Whichever age group you visit, you might easily identify when children are playing; it seems so evident. When children are playing, they usually appear to be fully engaged and focused on their activity. It is typically an activity that they have chosen. Often, children will select an activity because they want to “hang out” with the other children who are participating. Therefore, the voluntary nature of play exists in relation to a particular context. Continue Reading »

1. Find opportunities to share the ideas with your child. It is tempting to be dictatorial, but far better to discuss or suggest. “Have your ever considered that . . . ?” is a good way to start. The discussions should be informal. Look for natural opportunities. This will require you to be always alert and ready. Teens are usually more responsive in relaxed, spontaneous situations, and so be on your guard to seize opportunities as they arise. Continue Reading »

Parents who do not consider that the child’s pleasure may not be parallel or equal to their own can create serious problems for him. An example of this can be observed in roughhousing play between parents and children. Children usually enjoy such play, but only up to a point. Most infants and small children enjoy being thrown up into the air and caught, if this is done with moderation and great care, and not for too long. Such limited play reassures them that they can safely lose contact for a moment with their parent without danger; further, it gives them confidence that their parents can turn potentially dangerous situations into safe ones. Continue Reading »

Few other types of play can quite compare with doll play for eliciting deep parental involvement. Still, there are many other aspects of children’s play which can affect a parent deeply, through recollections and other feelings it activates, particularly when a child’s play reminds the parent of having played with the same toy, or having played in similar fashion. Also, the older the child gets, the more easily do play activities echo not only the parent’s own childhood experiences, but also his present hobbies or recreations. For example, the teenager who can play a serious game of chess has an experience very similar to his parent’s in doing so. Continue Reading »

On the other hand, such parallel investment in play can work well for a time and then backfire through adult motives. The following story is an illustration of the point, and it involves a partly happy but much more unhappy memory that haunted a highly successful man all his life. The man’s father was very much involved in stamp collecting, so the youngster needed little urging to become an avid stamp collector too. Continue Reading »

Learning to read, so basic to all academic achievements, illustrates not only these parallels, but their importance if intellectual subjects are to be learned well and to attain deep personal meaning. The child who through playing games of progressively greater complexity has mastered the knack of controlling to some measure the largely chaotic tendencies of his unconscious and that of harnessing its energies for largely conscious and reality-oriented purposes will find it relatively easy to apply the same skills to the learning of reading. Continue Reading »

Christmas is not the only children’s holiday which symbolically celebrates childbirth, fertility, and the rebirth of nature; May Day, which is hardly celebrated anymore in the United States, with its dance around the Maypole also used to be an occasion for festivities enjoyed particularly by children and youth, although with the active participation of the entire community. It was truly a day when “young and old came forth to play.” Continue Reading »

Depending on what being Jewish means to you, your guidance to your child can be as specific as you prefer. Ultimately, what you’ll probably do is assess your child’s needs and determine how Jewishness fits into that picture. I want to supplement your ideas with a few suggestions that have occurred to me in speaking with Jewish parents. Continue Reading »