After attending our small village carnival two things became immediately apparent: kids will have fun together no matter what they are wearing & Esteban doesn’t like musical chairs! Before I get to the importance of the latter I would like to share with you a few shots from the day.
Esteban & Luna were both pretty excited to try on their new clothes…
Luna had a good old laugh at Esteban when his outfit was complete.
In case you were wondering, I didn’t buy a costume but did have a little fun with Sabraina’s eyeliner.
Esteban is particularly into pretend cooking at the moment and wanted to take his vegetables with him to the carnival. Sorry buddy. Not this time.
It was the perfect blue day as we made our way from our new home down to the parade.
Team Stonehill ready for action…
I have to be honest, the parade itself didn’t excite me too much. We basically just walked as a group from the outskirts of the village to the town hall where all the kids were given sugared treats and told to play a game. This post is not about sugar, but I will ask you to ponder for one moment why we would knowingly brainwash our children to believe sugar is okay? More addictive than cocaine it is one of the leading causes of disease today.
Such a seemingly innocent game yet what was this strange energy I was feeling for the first time in ages?
We watched for a while as the game was played and Sabrina decided Esteban should have a go…
It was immediately evident that despite Sabrina’s presence next to him, he was not having a good time participating. Which was surprising. I chose to remove him after a few rounds because he looked as if he was about to burst into tears and I realised this was the first time he had been in competition with other children.
I was reminded in that moment of my own childhood instincts around competitive games: No matter how trivial they appeared I didn’t want to play. Yet I was forced to play… until it felt normal to me.
Call me crazy but are we not subtly imprinting our children with the idea that competition is normal?
We live in a seriously competitive world which is sorely lacking in humans who seek to help & collaborate with others, so why do we normalise the idea of competition from such an early age?
You may believe competition is an important aspect of our society, providing some kind of motivation. Personally I struggle to understand how this kind of motivation is useful. If our primary motivation is to beat others and be the best at something, we will end up living in a world with just a few victors at the top of a pyramid and lots of losers at the other end of the scale…
Hang on… that is exactly the kind of world we are living in!
See the problem?
Kids are very capable of having just as much fun playing games which encourage interaction and working together to achieve a common goal, so perhaps folks it is time for us to stop mindlessly repeating that which was done to us and make conscious decisions around the way our children come to understand the world.
As soon as the game was done Esteban was more than happy to re-join the group and he quickly zoned in on a colourful jester girl to chat with.
When he was done playing with his new friends (in a non competitive manner!) he went to check out his surroundings…
And howled at the mountains to let the world know he had arrived.
Please feel your way into this story with a conscious mind and if you have young kids, watch them and learn from the way they respond to things. They are here to help us and we are here only to safely facilitate their instinctive desire to have as much fun as possible in every moment.
Whenever we compete there must always be a loser. And losing isn’t fun!
I will never stop my children from competing if they feel like it and will never force them to compete if they don’t. I will simply live with an awareness of the bigger picture and always do my best to steer them towards games which encourage collaboration instead of competition.
My love to you all from France :)
@samstonehill?He was a London based filmmaker until he sold everything and set out on a barefoot journey around the world, currently based in the south of France.
He is travelling the world with his partner & two children and with no bank account he has been living on STEEM & crypto for over nine months.
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