Friday, October 24, 2014

Stop working - start playing

Morning jigsaws
My blog buddies and I are writing posts this week on "What children want". Funnily enough, when I
saw the title, the answer I got from my subconscious without hesitation was "to play".

What children want is to play.

There's plenty of evidence out there that playing is brilliant for our children's development. Problem solving, critical thinking, imagination, self expression - these are all skills our children develop through play. There's a great article on Imaginative Play here which is worth a read. And it's not just the fluffy, creative side that's stimulated by play (as hugely important as this is). Beau Lotto's TED talk on science as play is another great example of the importance of playful curiosity.

"What children want is to play."

The importance of play and allowing our kids to be creative and playful in all of their learning is something that we've been increasingly aware of in our family as we considered and then committed to home education over the last year. We want our kids to stay in love with learning, to stay curious and to keep exploring the amazing and diverse world we inhabit. Learning together as a family has been so enriching and fun so far, and long may it continue.

I've wondered to myself this week - when is it that we get all serious about life? Many of us lose that sense of playfulness somewhere along the way to adulthood. Maybe it's the strain of exams, or the pressure of a finding and keeping a job to support our family.. whatever it is, at some point we seem to lose that natural sense of "play" and settle for the daily grind.

This may not be something we choose to do - sometimes life's circumstances force us to grow up too soon. When I spent time in South Africa recently with Ten Thousand Homes, many of the kids the charity spent time with had lost their parents to HIV Aids and had been forced to look after their younger siblings in child-headed households. We gave these kids a "day of royalty" on the TTH base where they could step outside of their responsibilities for a few hours and just play and have fun. It was a moving, tiring and memorable day.

When do we consign our dreams and passions to the trash can and start being all "grown up"? What dreams have you put down as too childish? Are there areas in your life that have got too serious? Maybe life's circumstances knocked the fun and playfulness out of your life.

An area where I got far too serious for far too long was in my songwriting. As a teenager and then at University I tried to write deep, meaningful and world changing songs, but if I'm honest most of the time I'd get halfway through one, beat myself up for it not being perfect and crumple the paper tearfully into the bin (sometimes literally).

"..are there areas in your life that have got too serious?"

After completing my serious Engineering degree I spent six months travelling with my guitar in South Africa, America and Canada, and wrote an epic amount of songs - somehow recovering my sense of playfulness. I had nothing to lose, plenty of time to fill, and to my surprise produced some really good tunes! This playful and productive period culminated in my first album "Songs for the Kitchen" (copies available on request, in fact I reprised my favourite song from the album as recently as last weekend at an event I played at).

Funnily enough, upon returning from my round the world trip and starting "real" work, my songwriting dried up, and in the next decade I only produced about half a dozen songs. I'd gotten far too serious.

One day last year I stumbled across a book in Waterstones called The Frustrated Songwriter's Handbook. The book practically jumped off it's shelf and hit me in the face (I think this was a God-moment).  Guess what the book encourages? Yes you guessed it - playfulness in songwriting as a means to break out from self-imposed rules, shackles and general writers' block.

Earlier this year, while my beautiful family were away visiting relatives, I spent an "immersion" day songwriting.
Immersion songwriting

No expectations.
No seriousness.
Just fun - and ideally 20 songs.

I jammed and created and recorded from 7am to 7pm, on the piano, guitar, mandolin and banjo. I just played and played, ending up with 16 quirky and.. dare I say it.. great songs!

More output than the entire last 13 years put together, and whilst some were genuinely bonkers (a banjo based sea shanty, a mandolin-powered ode to our allotment), others were surprising beautiful and inspired - songs to treasure for each of my kids and for my wife.

I was staggered at what could happen when I stopped taking myself so seriously and just let myself play.

So what do you need to stop working so hard at this week? Where do you need to be more playful?

Let your hair down, take off your self imposed shackles.

Stop working.

Start playing.

"I was staggered at what could happen when I stopped taking myself so seriously and just let myself play."
*************

Thanks for taking the time to read Stop Working - Start Playing. If you've enjoyed it please share it with your friends on social media! Why not subscribe to The Potting Shed Podcast on iTunes for the audio version and much more (direct RSS feed is here). 

I'd love to hear from you, so feel free to comment below or email me at stricklandmusings@gmail.com 

If you want to stay up to date please sign up to my mailing list, and do check out my book Life Space on Amazon.

The Dad Network
My Random Musings

15 comments:

Unknown said...

I work from home and find that work does interfere sometimes, yet I also strongly believe that children need to play to grow emotionally and socially. I need to remember to don tools and play more with them.

Luke Strickland said...

Thanks Janette - you're right, it's important to stay playful with our kids. Thanks so much for dropping by!

Annie said...

So true, children so need time to play, they love it when we just chill with them too. And yes us adults need that too! We were designed to be creative but it gets knocked out of us sometimes! Great post, thanks for sharing. #BigFatLinky.

Luke Strickland said...

Thanks Annie! Appreciate your thoughts :)

Unknown said...

Hi Luke. Creativity isn't as values as it should be in our society. Look at schools, creativity is not really encouraged that much. Yet we always do our best work when we are allowing ourselves the freedom to be ourselves. Like you and your song writing though it can be tough to find space. Both my boys have to be woken early for school so that they have time to play otherwise they get upset that the day feels all about work! Another great post. thanks. Kirsten

Luke Strickland said...

I completely agree Kirsten - and yet I think creativity and right brain thinking will increasingly be needed in future... This is one of the reasons why we chose to home educate our kids, to enable us to focus on that a bit more. Always appreciate your insightful comments! Luke

Unknown said...

Thanks for sharing that link on imaginative play. I have never denied that I struggle with imaginative play and have even written about it as part of blogging about my sons speech and language delay son will be checking out this link later.

#stopping by from anythinggoes linky

Tracey Abrahams said...

I think we all need to take time out to play and let our imaginations take over. I think we are programed frim an early age to believe that the best way to achieve things is to follow set patterns, methods, and procedures. By just chilling and letting our imaginations run free we become far more creative, as you showed with your music. #AnythingGoes

mumturnedmom said...

It is often hard to find time to be playful, and with increasingly busy lives, some days my kids don't get much of a chance either. It really is so important though x #anythinggoes

Random Musings said...

This is so true. When you try too hard to create something, it makes it nearly impossible. Its all about being relaxed and having fun with it. Great post as always :)
Thanks for linking up to #AnythingGoes
Debbie

Luke Strickland said...

I hope you find it a useful link Janine, appreciate you taking the time to comment :)

Luke Strickland said...

Couldn't agree more Tracey! Thanks for dropping by!

Luke Strickland said...

Yes Sara, it raises the question about how much we're able to let our kids play and be creative during their education doesn't it?

Luke Strickland said...

Thanks Debbie! See you next time...

Martyn Kitney said...

This is another fab post. Forcing play is never as fun. Sometimes you just need to play. It's always worked well for us. Music wise I haven't sat and played for ages and really need to. I think sometimes with hectic lives it's difficult to find time for spontaneous play. Something I need to correct. Thanks for linking up with us on the #bigfatlinky hope to see you there this week