Children and leisure

When children have so much free time during the school holidays or in preschool, what to do? Practicing the art of idleness or arrange life filled with activities? The current company’s mission is to make productive time in the economic sense of the term, leisure has been colonized by a few goal-oriented activities, where the consumer is king. If we think back to our childhood, those long afternoons of games invented to escape boredom and bully us back to mind. I think a lot of leisure activities designed for children actually serve to “cure” boredom that memories of our childhood.

“S. wakes up every morning wondering what is the program of the day ” says a young freelance photographer in search of reportage? No, the mother of S., a girl of 26 months. “We may see us on Saturday from 10:30 to 11:30, for lunch we’re at a birthday dance on Wednesday and Friday, Tuesday and Monday Paint group pool”Conversation of a woman seeking to meet with her friend between work and leisure? No, is the mother of R. organizing a couple of hours of games for the little child who just turned 3 years old. “Poor thing, come back so tired from the day that I leave him quiet in front of the TV to relax and decompress a bit ‘”Says the wife of an engineering Fiat? No, is the mother of J. of almost 5 years.

In short, this talk I hear them often and I wonder why we can not, for our children, to practice the art sound of Idleness. So that the time is free time to laze there must be three characteristics: first, that the work we do is freely chosen, the second is that it must have no other purpose than the activity itself and above must have a playful component and enjoyable. If you look at younger children, this is clear, hyper-concentrated to spend time opening and closing a bottle, with a smile on my face and no other purpose than to screw and unscrew the cap of the ball. And then the parents complain that children are hyper active!