With our recent snowstorms and high winds, we have adamantly practiced the art of masterly inactivity. If you are familiar with Charlotte Mason and her philosophy on education, she was really about wholesome learning. Along with learning, her main focus was that children learn best through nature. Which you all know we have adopted this into a full lifestyle for our family.
Another method of learning I recently discovered and am a big fan of is Masterly Inactivity. When you look up the definition it sort of sounds like mastering laziness. It's not at all that. Sloths are one of my favorite energy-efficient animals alive but that's not the characteristics we are shooting for here. Today's youth and families are spending a tremendous about of time shuttling kids back and forth to extracurricular activities. Seven-hour school days and then several times a week, practice until dinner time. This is creating a generation of soon-to-be adults who won't know how to handle nothingness. Parents are leaving limited time for children to actually play and discover themselves and who they are. Enter Masterly inactivity. We feel as parents the need to fill every time slot, every day. I knew a child who was playing for two different teams in soccer and then also playing little league travel baseball. Is this type of manic behavior really for the children or to stroke the parent's ego?
Nonstructured playtime is crucial to child development. This creates an environment for learning and problem solving as well as self-preservation. What I mean by self-preservation is that they realize the less they fight and the better they play, the more uninterrupted playtime they get without me directing and parenting. I try not to intervene in their arguments so that they learn to handle confrontations on their own. Of course, emotions can go haywire and feelings get hurt, sometimes I do step in to help resolve the situation. This is such an amazing concept to teach our children and it can look many different ways. Free play can be them outside playing all day or playing in their rooms without constant supervision. We live in a trailer so somedays I close my doors to my room and let them have full reign over their toys and do whatever they want. Sometimes they get out the legos or teaching aids and create an entire game with their imagination. Maybe they go outside and decorate a chipmunk home, Or simply just color.
Free-range kiddies are what I like to call kids who get a chance to experience this behavior. Somehow I can see the difference between children who get this opportunity and those who are deprived of it. Free-range kids just thrive better in social environments. So let us try to not schedule every spare minute for our children and learn to be still for a moment.