Lockdown Survival Tip 1: Forget the Mess, Embrace the Space.
Whether you live in a tiny apartment or large house kids will make the most of the space they have on offer. Building forts, cubbies or hide-outs is a well loved pastime for many kids and while we are all in lockdown, these creative constructions are popping up on a regular basis. Before you know it, your living room is enveloped by every chair, pillow, doona, blanket, toy book and torch as a sacred and highly exclusive edifice is erected. Construction is treacherous with continuous topples due to dubious scaffolding; ongoing maintenance is a must! Once they are inside you hear them call “We are staying here all day and all night! Can you please bring us some food?”
I feel your sighs...your house is a bomb! You can't walk and are forced to crawl or climb around your living room. And when you finally sit someplace, it's stripped of all it's cushioning.
Breathe.....There is so much good happening here!
Imaginative play, creativity, engineering, teamwork and relationship building are all occurring in this wondrous moment in time. Imaginative play is so important for brain development. Through this kind of play children integrate their understanding of the world and how it functions. The construction in your living room may provide safety and protection, transport to another world, sail across the wild seas or bunker deep down into the earth. Imaginative play helps children conceptualise and structure abstract notions and makes intangible concepts tangible through a felt experience. The freedom that comes from imaginative play is a feeling that many adults have forgotten. In this experience your children are completely mindful and deeply engaged in meaningful production.
The creativity and engineering required to plan and build this messy masterpiece has integrated both left and right brain hemispheres. The right brain has contributed to the big picture vision, the meaning and the feeling of the experience while the left brain has provided logistics, problem solving skills, and used language to explain cause and effect relationships. Activities that integrate both hemispheres add value to narratives, emotions to experiences and nourish childhood development. “ In order to live balanced, meaningful, and creative lives full of connected relationships, it is crucial that our two hemispheres work together” (Siegel, D. & Payne Bryson, T., 2011).
If siblings are working together on this imaginative whole brain activity, a collaborative team relationship is being fostered. While ideas are being thrown about each child is considering the other's perspective and using empathy to understand the other's feelings. Even if one child dominates decision making, leadership skills are learned through trial and error and negotiation is necessary. There may be squabbles and disagreement but unless it gets physical let them resolve it themselves, solution focused mediation is a life skill.
So make yourself a cuppa, put your feet up (if even for a brief moment on a hard surface), forget the mess and embrace the space! Your little people are creating mental magic and developing in so many wonderful ways. Pack it up at the end of the day or if they are feeling really brave let them sleep in it and pack it up the next day...or the next. If you are super lucky you might just be invited inside their cosy cave to experience all the joys a cushion cubby can bring.
