THE IMPORTANCE OF FUN!! Jane Mitchell September 2010

This summer, we were lucky enough to have one of those well timed holidays which worked really well, where we all relaxed and were able to just enjoy each others company. A rare commodity! I saw my daughter in a fully relaxed state for the first time in 7 years – until then I would not necessarily have believed it was possible for her to shrug off all the stress and tension she normally carries, so this was a wonderful experience for me, and for my husband; who also was amazed to see me relax which was the natural consequence! In the day to day routine and stress involved with bringing up a family, where we all juggle work, school, additional needs of our children and trying to keep any space at all for ourselves it can be easy to lose sight of how to have fun. I do know of one family where the parents were so busy doing things for their children in terms of providing tutoring, sending them to clubs, advocating at school, being on the PTA, helping with homework, reading, etc etc, that they completely forgot about having fun with their children. Theirs was not a happy family despite all their endeavours. So this article is to remind us all the importance of this factor!

First of all – let’s take a look at what fun does for us. Fun lowers stress, releases tension and introduces feel good hormones into our system. Having fun with another person accelerates the bonding and attachment process and builds self esteem and confidence; as we enter the experience and delight in the company of another person, so they experience themselves as special, lovable, delightful individuals and mirror this information back to us, becoming beautiful themselves in the process. Maybe this is the origin of the saying that “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”?!

Of course, it’s not always as simple as all of that, and I can almost hear the readers who are thinking “yeah, right! You should try it in our house, every time we try and do something fun, the occasion is disrupted and ends up being even more stressful and disappointing!” Of course, we have been in that place ourselves. I well remember early days with our daughter when fun was overwhelming and scary for her. Her self esteem was non-existent and she was a bundle of anxieties and hypervigilance. For some children, having fun is a wholly alien experience, and they need to be introduced to it gently. I do not believe that planning fun-filled days at a theme park are the answer at this stage – too stimulating, too overwhelming, altogether too much!! Many children will go into meltdown faced with that kind of situation. In addition to which for some children opening up to others and feeling enjoyment in their company is just too scary. I believe that even the anticipation of fun was enough to make my daughter feel very vulnerable in the early days – I remember a particular occasion early on when we were planning her birthday with her, which was lovely for 10 minutes, until she felt overwhelmed and then all her rejecting behaviours came into play as she desperately slammed the door of attachment we had opened just a little crack. This was an experience we had time and again in the first few years - we would have a lovely 10 minutes, just walking, snuggling up,

talking, enjoying any simple activity (going for a drink and a cake in a small café has always been favorite!) then out of the blue slam! Bang went that door again. We learned to expect this and work with it, and our radar became better at assessing her internal state and knowing when we were at a critical point and needed to withdraw. I learned over the years and through reading Margot Sunderland’s excellent book “What Every Parent Needs to Know” and also Sue Gerhart’s very informative and readable book on how the human brain develops in an interactive environment with an attuned carer “Why Love matters” that whilst stress and prolonged exposure to cortisol has a very damaging effect on the brain, which can become habituated to that stressful state, making it both difficult and uncomfortable to experience positive experiences, that the natural plasticity of the brain means that it can be re-wired over time; every good experience helps to build a new neural pathway, and of course with time and repeated experience this process gets easier and I would venture to state my own belief that eventually there is a snowball effect, so that you reach a critical mass point, and what has been happening incrementally over time suddenly leaps forward and becomes obvious to others. Since this summer, everyone has noticed that our daughter is happier and more relaxed than they have ever seen her.

There is even more good news attached to this – positive experience is linked to production of dopamine and naturally occurring opiods – feel-good hormones linked to confidence and the ability to take risks (ie to risk being wrong) and explore learning and the environment. This leads to increased self- esteem and confidence in your own abilities. These last few weeks, I have seen my daughter change from someone who was too scared of failure to try, to someone who will “have a go” with encouragement most of the time safe in the knowledge that it is OK to get it wrong and try again. I am lucky that this has been picked up at school where she is always praised for trying irrespective of the outcome. I believe that this is evidence that her brain is well into the process of recovering from years of excess cortisol and beginning to get accommodated to more positive dopamine instead. I also link this to Dan Hughes model for building attachment – PLACE – in which you create an environment for the child which is Playful, Loving, Accepting, Curious and Empathic. I believe it is important to be playful whenever it is possible and appropriate in our interactions with our children.

Of course, there are very many of us who (quite rightly) have huge concerns about our children’s academic achievement and what this might mean in terms of their future prospects, career and ability to be self sufficient. It is my belief, however, that it is vital to first address the child’s stress levels. A very stressed child will be using all their survival strategies to help them cope in a hostile world (as they perceive it). This does not allow them to learn easily. When you are focused on survival, the human drive to learn does not come into play – this idea was postulated by Abraham Maslow and formalized into a hierarchy of human needs – the base line is that we need to survive, then to have shelter, to belong,

which triggers the need for self esteem, which is where learning comes in. This makes me wonder whether some of my daughter’s learning difficulties stem from her focus on survival and consequent neglect of the early developmental tasks and ideas explored through play which help to build intellect and reason. If I am right, then her increased attachment and security should lead to a sea change in her ability to take on new knowledge and adapt to new situations, especially if we continue to allow her self directed play and exploration of the themes of childhood. In our daughter’s case she still needs to play with dolls and prams at ten years old – so we have bought some full sized second hand equipment to enable her to do this. Whatever the outcome, it is my belief, and one that was stated by Daniel Goleman in his book “Emotional Intelligence” that the best predictor for a successful and confident adult is a happy, confident and emotionally literate child.

So what can we do to aid this process? Well firstly here’s the good news. It does not have to be a costly process! We have been poor as church mice since adopting, so we rely on natural resources, which also has the benefit of feeding childrens imaginations – walks in woods, climbing, paddling in streams, splashing in rain puddles. Make sure you do the simple things – read together (pick beautiful or fun books to make the experience fun for you too, some of the Julia Donaldson books are perfect snuggling and attachment building books as they give the opportunity for closeness as well as introducing rhythm and a gentle tone of voice known to promote attachment). We always used to chase our daughter upstairs to her bath with snappy fingers, coming to get her – she loved it! Playing peek a boo or hide and seek is not only fun but incorporates an important developmental task – that of object constancy. Cook together. Eat together. Snuggle and watch videos or TV programmes, don’t be upset if your child breaks contact and goes off to do something else after a little while, maybe that’s just enough for them at that point. Explore theraplay – incorporating games with trust building exercises. (http://www.theraplay.org/4436.html for information). One important thing to remember is that some children need to play at much younger games than their developmental age indicates. I believe it is important to allow this to happen. In rediscovering younger games children may be able to recapture essential parts of learning for intellectual development. To give an example, when we were away this year, our 10 year old spent some time unloading and reloading a full sized car trailer and manoevering it around the garden (fortunately our hosts were very accepting!). This was like the two year old activity of enclosing and transporting, putting objects into bags, trains etc and moving them around. This was her favorite activity for two days, then she stopped. At two, when she should have had access to these sorts of toys, she was in a very unstable physical and emotional environment, and probably did not explore this form of learning. I believe that facilitating her revisiting of these kinds of activities may provide the foundations for intellectual growth, even at this later stage.

As you start to have fun, it gets easier to recreate the experience. I spent some time after our holiday reflecting on what had enabled the experience to be so positive and tried to reintroduce those elements in home activities throughout the summer. Be guided by your child! Observe them – when do they seem to be happiest? Do they ever “lose” themselves in the moment – completely absorbed in a task? When are they most relaxed? These are the experiences to try and recreate.

Of course, family life is not all fun. We all have days when we do not react in a positive or appropriate way with our children. However, this process of rupture in relationships is equally as important as anything else – the crucial element is that you repair the rupture afterwards. This can mean that the idea of unconditional love is embedded; a wonderful gift for anyone to receive!

I wish you all many happy playful interactions with your own children!