My Connections to Play

 

 My childhood play was natural, fearless, adventurous and full of explorations. I remember the years when I was hooked on Enid Blyton's mystery stories and me and my friends will go into the woods nearby our homes to find our own mysteries. We had our secret hideout in the woods where all of my friends and myself gather up during the school holidays. We were so excited when we accidentally bumped into a small waterfall in the woods and went there everyday to play in the water. 

 Our parents were at work. My grandma used to take care of us. We didn't have any cellphones then. We just knew when it was time for lunch or just go back. My grandma never came looking for us and rushed us to go back home. We always went back home dirty after playing for hours in the woods and have a healthy home cooked food and we slept like a baby at night. Life was good then. I should thank this week's blog assignment for bringing this up for me to reminisce on my lovely childhood. It brought back wonderful memories for sure.

 Play today is definitely different from what I had back in my homeland which is Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. However, I am now currently living in Stavanger, Norway and I must say that the children here are living my childhood which was 25 years ago. The children here are so connected to the nature that everything they do even in school is about exploring it. My boys are going to the school here and they spend 75 % of their time in school, playing outside or exploring the nature. Even when they are home, they are always playing outside either cycling, playing in the playground or hiking into the woods. But back in my homeland, things have changed so much that children no longer play outside as much as I did before due to safety issues.
The nature of my play have had a tremendous positive impact in my life and childhood. I would say that it helped me to be confident about myself, create meaningful relationships with my friends, not scared to be adventurous but at the same time know my boundaries, trust my instincts and enjoyed appreciating this world from a child perspective.