Karin Neuschütz - Childrens Creative Play

One beautiful summer day, my children were playing. Then playing turned into fighting over their things, so we went on a trip to find raspberries instead. We left all their toys behind, took a pail, and set out.

When we reached the raspberry patch, they became content. They stuffed themselves full of berries, and began to play together again.

My oldest child found an old dry tree branch in a ditch. Look, a factory! Come and see all the pipes. Whats inside them?

Raspberry juice of course! said my younger child.

Then they got stones to use as trucks and they transported the raspberries, which they crushed and pretended to pour into the twigs on the tree branch. Other little sticks became workers, rushing here and there. They laughed and showed me their remarkable factory, as proud as if theyd invented something revolutionary.

In fact, that was exactly what theyd done.

Their raspberry factory had been created out of virtually nothing. As children have done throughout history, they had made very simple little models of people. Little pieces of wood or stone become alive and walk around the simplest of dolls.

Children often have such strong imaginations and ability to play that they prefer simple, natural things to fancy toys. They pretend to be the mother of a pillow wrapped in a scarf; they tie string around crinkled-up newspaper and drag it around like a dog. Parents who have invested a lot in their childrens toys can feel somewhat disillusioned. My children once adopted a piece of wood, named it Harvey and lovingly tucked it into a pram. The cloth doll Id sewn for them was mercilessly dumped out of the pram, onto the floor. Harvey got all the attention.

Parents need to remember that children dont play to make their parents happy. They dont play with toys theyve been given to show their gratitude; they play because they have to play, because theyre built to. Play is one of the main ways that children grow and develop. Play prepares children for adult life. They get little tasters of the adult world: pretending to be a mother or father; travelling, shopping, building a factory.

So as a parent, I know I mustnt feel hurt when my cloth doll lies forgotten on the floor, while wooden Harvey is dressed up in the dolls sweater. Instead, I should feel happy that their imagination is powerful enough to resist my influence.

One day, after a while, Harvey was thrown into the fireplace. My daughter saw me putting other pieces of wood on the fire, and in that moment, Harvey became a regular piece of wood as well. And in he went.

Oh, Harvey burnt up, she noted calmly. But hell come back soon, she comforted herself.

Im sure he will, I said, mentally calculating that there are lots of pieces of wood or pillows that can become dolls. But my daughter looked around for her soft cloth doll; apparently, she now needed it again.

Why do children so often choose such strange objects to use in their play? Why dont they just take the beautiful, ready-made things that we give them? Perhaps simply because children yearn to use their own lively imagination. They want to create by themselves; they dont want to just consume. If they have different materials available paper, crayons, empty boxes, fabric, blankets, pieces of wood and leather, pillows and if they can use some pieces of furniture as building material, they can always build a raspberry-juice factory. If theyre given toys where characteristic gestures and features are only gently suggested, their own imaginations can add what is missing.

Ultimately, as well see in this book, nourishing childrens imaginations during childhood can influence their lives as adults: both in how they accomplish tasks, and how they relate to their fellow human beings.

As soon as children learn something new, they start to play with their new ability, practising and testing it. And as they develop, they tackle increasingly difficult tasks. Children who have just learned to walk start to take little dance steps; children who can talk start to sing and rattle off nonsense words; children who can dress themselves start to dress up or put clothes on backwards, just for fun.

A three-year-old girl who has recently understood that she is I pretends she is someone else a little squeaking mouse, or a baby. She is testing the limits of her own I by changing roles.

As soon as children get used to their home and learn what rugs and furniture are for, they cant wait to transform them, recreating the everyday into an adventure: the rug becomes an island, the floor an ocean, the chair a rowboat. The curtains are drawn and day becomes night. The shades go up and its morning already.

Children practise all skills through rhythmic repetition. It is through play that children enter into life. And all the time their eyes follow grown-ups in their activities for one day they will also grow big.

The consciousness of five and six-year-old children expands to the point where they can appreciate the bigger picture. They are interested in why we do the things we do, and they become more purposeful in their own activity. Everything they encounter in life is worked through in play. Whole worlds appear: schools, hospitals, families, theatres. Children at this age start to imagine what adults do, what life is all about.

Until the age of seven, children use a huge amount of energy just to control and come to terms with their bodies. Around seven this energy is then released, and can be used for imagination instead. Childrens memories develop; they can think more rationally, and think about the future. They are more aware of time. As they start school, they play games with rules and practise coordinating with other children.

Nine and ten-year-olds are collectors. They want to understand how the world is organised, so they construct machines, draw houses in cross-section, develop factories and communication systems. They develop their own interests, becoming specialists and collecting facts. As they start to feel more grown up, they criticise adults more readily, often showing less respect and getting into trouble. Its at this point that children effectively stop playing.

To summarise, the imagination-forces in young children are hard at work developing their physical bodies, growing and shaping the organism.

Their imagination is released as they turn six or seven and become more comfortable with their body. These forces can now be transformed into soul activities, creativity and sensitivity.

Out of this living imagination comes teenagers mental abilities, their clarity of thought and powerful ideas.

Thats a useful overview of how children play at different ages. But there are children who cant play, who dont want to or dont have the energy to play, or who just rush and run around without being happy with what they are doing. How can we help them?

I believe that we always have to start with ourselves when we are trying to discover the reasons for a childs disharmony. Our own state of being is the well from which children draw inspiration and joy of living. They hover near us in all that they do; they want to be like us in every way. To guide our children we must therefore start by attending to ourselves. If the people around a child are happy and active, the child is likely to be too.

Taking the time to slowly and peacefully make a doll for a child can be a nice way to get close to him or her. As I sit and sew, I think about the child whose doll this will be. The child certainly senses the love and care that I sew into the doll.

In this book I describe my own experiences of how children play at different ages, of how they are affected by their surroundings and by the people around them. My views have slowly come through work with my own and others children. I have learned a lot from my own childhood memories and through studies of child psychology and pedagogy mainly works by Rudolf Steiner and many of his followers. I have picked up many things from todays Steiner-Waldorf schools, and have tried to synthesise it all into a uniform whole.