Tuesday 7 September 2010

I love play

So I did my playtime. It was AWESOME. I loved it. The kids loved it. The parents loved it. My boss loved it. All round good day. I had sososo much fun and made lots of children smile and laugh and create and imagine and discover. I also spent a lot of time explaining to parents how easy and fun it is it to help their child create something from nothing, how good our arts and crafts section is, and how they should buy it all. Most of them bought something. One woman spent £80!! Our conversion rate was mind-bogglingly high.

I think my boss will be letting me do playtime again!

It always amuses me though how often I get asked if I have any children or any child care qualifications or whatever. It doesn't seem to occur to people that it's possible to naturally get along with children. I am not a childcare expert. I have no idea how to feed a baby or change a nappy. But I do know how to play. I don't understand why this surprises people.

It probably does help that I'm from a fairly large family. My brother is five years younger than me, I spent a lot of time looking after/playing with him when we were growing up. At family gatherings, I was generally left to entertain like five kids while the parents all got drunk. Now my oldest cousin has two children (who, by the way, I am going to see on Friday, which is incredibly exciting!). I've always been around small children and I've always loved play.

Having said that, I would absolutely love to have children one day, and would like that day to be sooner rather than later. I will probably one day study for some form of teacher/childcare qualifications. But I don't think either of these things are necessary to understand play.

No comments:

Post a Comment