Be Brave
So often parenting requires us to be brave, right? Just choosing to become parents is an act of bravery in and of itself. But who would have imagined we’d have to be brave in our play? Not me. And I was a K/1 teacher for almost 20 years! I suppose I just never thought about it until becoming a stay at home mom and a teacher at the Wonder Studio who was really spending a lot of time playing with children and thinking about the work of play. Let me share the experience that really opened my eyes to just how brave we need to be for our children during play…
My son received a puppet theater and some puppets. He was so excited! He knew what puppets were but had not had the opportunity to really engage in play with them. We only had one puppet prior to this; it was an alligator and it was great for chomping people and tickling bellies. We set the puppet theater up immediately once all the parts were removed from the box. We hung up the curtains, looked over the puppets, and chose ones to play with. The set came with people puppets with different eyes and expressions to change. Nathan ran to get the alligator, his tried and true familiar puppet. I chose a person puppet. We held those puppets up in the little window and then I started making up some dialogue with my puppet and my son took his alligator puppet to gobble me up. And then we hit the repeat button; over and over he continued to chomp on my puppet and I would scream out for help or cry or sometimes grab another person puppet to come to my rescue. This continued each time we would revisit the puppet theater to play.
I decided to order some additional animal puppets to add to our puppet collection, hoping they would encourage new storylines for us. When they arrived, my son was thrilled. I said something along the lines of “Let’s do something different today now that we have these new animals. Let’s create a new story for our puppets to act out.” Nathan was excited, he quickly chose his animals, then we popped behind the curtain all ready to go. I started making my puppet talk, but Nathan just sat still. It was then that I saw my son’s excitement turn to silence and a look of intimidation come across his face. “What’s the matter?” I asked. In a small voice he replied, “I don’t know what to say.” And it struck me like lighting. I immediately thought to myself, “Why would you know what to say? You’ve never been asked to make up a story with dialogue before!” I then replied, “You can say anything, we’re making up a story and there are no right or wrong words to use.”
A few weeks later, Shannon sent along the plans for the week for Wonder Studio. For our ending circle time the plans read Goldilocks Puppet Show. I found myself going from excited to see the plans, to silence, then feeling a sense of intimidation overwhelm me. I started thinking and panicking, “I don’t know how to do a puppet show…for children and (gulp) parents to see.”
This is exactly what Nathan felt at home with me. Now I was feeling it myself as an adult and it was awful. Long story short, I listened to Mr. Rogers on Spotify tell the Goldilocks story on repeat for days leading up to my first performance. I figured out how I would deliver my version to the class and rehearsed it in my head over and over until it was show time. And when it was over, I was a sweaty mess, but I had been brave…for my Wonder Studio children! I took that bravery home and we’ve since had many puppet shows, each one becoming more and more involved and less and less intimidating.
Thank you for listening to my story. I know I will still be a sweaty mess the next time Shannon’s plans read any title of a puppet show during circle time. But I promise to be brave and follow through. I encourage you to do the same.
You were brave to embark on this parenting journey and you’ll need that bravery to continue to show up in so many aspects of this lifelong journey, including playtime! Wishing you bravery and happiness in your playtime with your child!
