Smallsteps fears were unfounded.
It seems that Daddy was right and girls love playing with Lego. After the girls had left I asked her if she was surprised that it went so well and she said she was. I think the biggest surprise was,
Daddy was right for once.
It is apparently quite rare.
It was pretty cool to watch the girls create from the prompts, and while they are all the same age, there were vast differences in creative ability. One of the girls (who made the crocodile above) really had a sense of style with her creations, as the rest kind of just plonked things together, giving little thought to the overall and eventual look. Smallsteps was surprised to find out that this girl spends a lot of time playing with Lego.
She is now excited to have her around again.
And the ice cream buffet went down a treat. It reminded me more of the kids parties when I was a kid, where the cake was a four liter tub of ice cream turned upside down, and then decorated with candy. Incredibly easy, colorful and kids loved it. Similarly, they were pretty chuffed by the selection today and while their eyes were bigger than their stomachs, I am not sure how well they are going to sleep tonight.
I just tipped the Lego onto our dining room table and then my wife did the talking, giving them the prompt of an animal and a ten minute timer, and then asking them what they would like to build for the second one - which was a house.
And we need more than ten minutes!
It was pretty cool to see how they really got into it, spreading the Lego around, trying things, commenting on other people's and just enjoying being creative. There were no phones, no screens, no tears and no complaints about anything at all.
Creativity is a gift.
We are all born with it, but we tend to lose it as we get older, as we narrow our perspectives through experience. And, this seems to be happening even faster than before now, with many kids of this age unable to play without being told what to do, what to play, what the rules are. When I was a kid, we made up our own games, made up our own rules, created our world, because there were no prompts, other than boredom.
Boredom is good.
Today was a birthday party, so not the time to bore kids. However, children should be bored more, and not have anything but their imagination to save themselves. The problem with all the on-demand content with constant access, means that whenever they get that feeling of discomfort boredom brings, their imagination only reaches as far as a screen to save them. And when the imagination isn't stretched, it tightens and atrophies.
It isn't hard to encourage a little more creativity in kids.
But are parents willing?
Taraz
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