You teach your child the value of fun when you demonstrate a positive attitude toward life.
-- Eileen Shiff

At the park, she ran to the playground and began climbing the monkey bars with ambitious abandon. When she reached the top, she shouted, “Look at me, mommy!” You clapped at her feat as you sat watching on the nearby bench. As you watched her move about the apparatus, moving freely and having the time of her life sliding down the slides over and over, you asked yourself where your own sense of fun went. When was the last time you had fun, the kind of fun that makes you belt out a good, hearty laugh? As a matter of fact, you think, what is fun? Have you become so serious and rigid about life that the only fun thing you do is watch your kid on the monkey bars? At that thought, you decide to get off the bench and join your baby on the slides, yelling, “Look at mommy! Woo Hoo!”

And once all the other parents got over the shock of seeing your big assets on the slides, they tuned in to your merriment and, now, you’re all taking turns going down the slides! And the kids love every moment of it!

When we grew up and got kids (or did we get kids then grow up?), we got so caught up in the business of making substantial lives for our families that we encased ourselves in tunnel vision – only able to see what to do to keep clothes on, a roof up, and food within. We didn’t include fun in the program, and if we did, it was planned for a week or 2 in late summer. What then do our children surmise from this? That we’re too busy to have fun; life is too busy, too serious, or too big to take time for what’s pleasurable; fun should be relegated to a particular time; adults aren’t fun; and having fun is just for kids. We’re teaching our children that having fun, relaxing, and enjoying life stops when one moves past the age of comfortably fitting in a slide at the playground, and we’re ultimately creating solemn kids who’ll live and lead in a less than amusing world.

Everything we do, our kids do. If we want to raise children who are always serious, who don’t know how to live freely and fully, and who will not know how to have as much fun as their bodies and minds will allow, stay on the bench, watching and clapping. Change their course. Run, jump, skip, and turn flips (visit your chiropractor first). Ride a bike, climb a tree, fly a handmade kite, kick a soccer ball, then run barefoot in a field of tulips and calla lilies! Laugh out loud; sing out loud; talk to yourself out loud! Be spontaneous! Who cares if people stare? Your joy may inspire them to live with a little more excitement. But know this, your kid will certainly delight in you zaniness and passion, and that’s what matters.

Sadiqqa © 2007