Mica May

The Beautiful Game

Hide and Seek

Why so beautiful?

Because through hide and seek so much can be achieved. It is as perfect as a game can be which is why little children love it so much.

The most sophisticated tools you will need; are a scarf or small blanket, or your hands, otherwise any available furniture or trees, bushes, walls, if outside, will suffice.

With older children, actually hiding and finding are necessary, but here I will talk about Hide and Seek with babies and young children.

We have all seen the delight on a baby’s face when someone plays “Peek-a-Boo”. This is the most fundamental form of “Hide and Seek”.

The adult plays for the child’s delight, but rarely thinks about why it makes the baby laugh so much.

What is a Play Coach?

Evidently there are several things it could be, in US the .com address for playcoach will take you to a company who take people to matches and games in a coach. There is also someone who teaches adults how to play for their own well being, (www.theplaycoach.com) this is nearer to what I do.

I’m an ex-play therapist who has worked with children and whole families for over thirteen years. Although the various job titles I have held and some aspects of the work I do have changed; helping families to improve their relationships has been a constant. 

I teach parents who are unable, for whatever reason, to spend as much time as they’d like with their children, to Play “better”.

What I mean by Play Better is to be able to play with your children, in a non-directive way. This is very positive for children’s emotional well being and creativity and improves the relationship between parent and child enormously

Let The Children Play

In addition to my business working with parents to enable them to Play more Effectively with their children I have a grand vision.
It's still involved with play; I want to increase the availability of 'Playing Out Space' there is available to our children.
Listening to the radio the other day, I heard an expert say that in the last 10-20 years there has been a 90% reduction in the amount of outdoor space available for children to play in, in the UK (he may have said England). This is a horrifying statistic.
So not only are parents too scared to allow their children to Play Out because of the dangers of traffic and strangers (I'm sure I will discuss 'stranger danger' further in a future posting), not only are children glued to the TV or computer, not only are they no longer interested in playing sport. Even if they wanted to, it is becoming extremely difficult for them to do so, because there simply isn't anywhere for them to play.

Playblog

In this my first posting, I'm really just throwing ideas around with myself to see what I should write about.

I work with families using play to help them improve the quality of their relationships.

I believe that families should be fun not torture. Increasing the amount of play in people's lives and enabling them to understand more about how it helps and that it is in fact essential for us to reach our full potential, are some of my aims.

There will always be times when a playful approach is not the ideal one, but in the vast majority of cases, managing to maintain a light touch and using play to help us do that can help reduce the stress of being a parent.