Do You Find It Hard to “Play”?
Does anyone else struggle with “playtime”? When my kids were tiny, I didn’t find it difficult to play with them. Tickling, peek-a-boo, anything to get them to giggle and laugh. It always seemed so easy. “Playing” when they were babies was so simple and took almost no time at all.
As they started to grow older, playtime changed. Instead of just changing my voice to elicit a giggle, I had to change the whole world. Make believe, making up new names, new people, new worlds. Trying to think up new stories and new situations for dolls and Legos and cars is not an easy task. I can write computer code to make something that doesn’t exist suddenly exist and work, but I can’t seem to easily find a reason the Barbie needs to suddenly walk on her hands all day while her home turns into a party for dogs that ride Hot Wheels.
I always wanted to play with my kids. I tried as hard as I could, but it never seemed to come easily to me as it did to my husband. I could ride a bike with them or read them a book, but so many of the games they wanted to make up and worlds they want to pretend to be in did not come easily to me. Sometimes I felt like such a failure when I couldn’t easily get into that type of play that they loved so much.
However, my kids have started into a new age group of playtime. Video games.
Yes, I know. Limits and more outside play and screen time is not great and all of that. Yet, we have a family XBox and a family VR (Virtual Reality) set. My kids play video games and on the VR and even do some Roblox. Yep, they do. And you know what? So do I.
Right now, I’m literally writing this blog post while playing Roblox with my kids. My son keeps asking if I’m “chatting” in the game. Nope. Mom is multitasking. That’s what I do. I think that’s one of my greatest skills.
But I’m doing it. I’m playing with my kids. We are running around in different worlds, trying new games, taking on challenges, and laughing our heads off. It’s fantastic. Finally, I can play.
So I leave this week’s post at that. I need to get back to the game, and back to my kids.
How will you play this week?