“All The Worlds A-Play”

“Play Hard” is one of the most important things learned as a child – and a skill grown-ups oftentimes need to rekindle!

— By Janet Ringle-Bartels & Julie Windham

            Play.
            Although on the surface it seems to be a simple word, it has such a strong impact on a child’s development.  But how can play be important?  After all, it’s just for fun! But that is the whole idea of development.
            The child is learning and developing a variety of skills while being involved in activities that motivate them.  Yes, that is play.  Remember your childhood memories of playing for hours with your imagination?  Remember when you built stilts that allowed you to tower over your friends, those cardboard boxes that magically turned into your secret “hideouts,” the times that you dressed up and became the greatest super hero or when you sang for ever with that instrument you made?  Children learn through exploration and discovery.  Play is the learning “stuff” of childhood because that is their “tool for learning” – a tool which hopefully is transported into adulthood.  Adults who played well as a child no doubt know how to play (or relax and have fun) throughout their lives, and are no doubt practicing good team- and social-bonding skills.
            Play has so many aspects.  It is pleasurable, spontaneous, requires involvement of others, but also supports the child’s individual growth and sense of self as they discover and create in ways that are meaningful to them.  Play influences thinking and language development, influences social development, and influences physical and motor development.
            During play, children develop thinking by making choices, directing their activity, controlling the content and process of their play and problem solving any challenge that arises.  They also develop creativity as they pretend and imagine objects and situations as representing something completely different.  They plan and they reason, and these skills lead to higher-level thinking abilities; in turn, the words and the language to describe these new ideas grow and change.
            When a child plays, he or she is social and learns to share, to relate to others, and learns to consider others’ feelings, needs and their roles in life.  The child learns to take turns, to respond to social rules and to explore their own feelings in an emotionally safe environment.
            And don’t forget the influence of play on motor development.  Practicing movements and movement patterns helps develop motor skills that become controlled, accurate and rapid.  The child gains mastery over how their body moves through space, how they can affect heir world, and how their eyes and hands can work together with smaller objects.
            Therefore, play is so much more than it appears on the surface, and so important for you child’s development.  It can also become a bridge for you and your child as you do activities together.  Whether you join your child in something as familiar as burying toes in he sand or as complex as going on a Nature Hike, you have the opportunity to join and promote the development and learning process of your child within a safe and secure environment.  When you join them in their play (set aside your agenda for awhile) you accept them for who they are, where hey are and value them as unique individuals and learners.
            So, how do you play?
            Well, first o back in time a bit and remember what was fun for you as a child.  Do those crazy, “senseless” things again.  With your child, imagine a box to be a house, car, fort, tent, a giant’s shoe, or a cave.  Explore the box by going in it, on it, fly it, push or pull it, shout in it, whisper in it, lift it, spin it, or shake, rumble and roll in it.
            Talk with your child as you play.  Paint the world, paint your face or paint the sidewalk.  Discuss whatever you do, imagine it a new way, take turns and/or play without using words.  Show off, act it out, explore your emotions.  Talk about “what ifs”; be the bear that is afraid of little animals.  Or, play the old familiar games of hid and see, tag, I spy, or “Mother May I?”  It is the old and familiar, the activities that can’t be bought at the local store or the ones that need no batteries, that become the most fun, interactive and create a lifetime of memories as we watch our children grow.
            So, as you approach the summer, our advice can be summed up in the phrase, “Do the BEACH.”

Be Together – Eye to eye, face to face, idea to idea, and feelings to feelings.
Explore your child’s interests and passions.
Assume nothing and everything.  Rocks can talk.  Water can sing.  Sand can be oozed, dripped, rolled, shaped and cut.  Books can be bug tents.  Bubbles can represent people, planes or ideas.
Create opportunities.  The beach is full of opportunities ranging from simple problem-solving to planning a sequence of ideas, to acting out and retelling stories and events.
Have FUN! And PLAY!
           

Open doors in TC

In June 2003, Children’s Therapy Corner opened another set of doors that lead to quality and compassionate therapeutic treatment and services for children and their families. This time the doors are a little further than “just down the road.” They are located at 804 South Garfield, Suite A, in Traverse City.

Services and programs currently offered in Traverse City include speech-language, physical, occupational therapeutic evaluations and individual therapies, an early intervention program for young children with autism spectrum disorders called the P.L.A.Y. Project, group programming for children and parent enrichment classes. Soon the team in Traverse City is expected to expand with music therapy.

These last few years were busy settling in, growing and developing therapeutic staff, conducting P.L.A.Y. Project home visits, and meeting with the members of the northern Michigan community who have a direct impact on programming for children with special needs and their families. Julie Windham, a speech-language therapist at CTC is the coordinator of clinical services in Traverse City.

A visitor once commented with delight about a small handprint 3 feet from the sidewalk on our front door. His thought was to wipe it off. We hesitated, enjoyed all the gifts and joy that little handprint implied, and waited some time before it eventually was covered with another child’s handprint.

Anytime you are in the Traverse City area please stop in and say hello.

Keeping the Balance: Partnering with Community

This is an excerpt from David Wetherow's "Keeping the Balance." As a center whose focus and goals include: reaching beyond ‘services,’ extending our ‘community,’ and developing our ‘family,’ Children's Therapy Corner feels these ideas echo our sentiment and help us to remember who we are...

If it is true that the quality of our child’s life (and the quality of his family’s life) will be greatly enhanced by the presence of a large circle of people who know him, love him, aren’t afraid to touch him or to be touched by him, and know that they will be part of his future and he will be part of their future, forever...

If it is true that our child’s opportunities will be greatly enhanced by long-term, thoughtful, on-purpose connections with many ‘civilians’ – people whose lives are anchored in the larger world, in the broader cultural, economic, congregational, cultural and social environment...

If it is true that our child’s development can be greatly enhanced by loving and enduring connections to other children and adults who help us define our identity and shape our language, our understanding, expectations, hopes, social expression, etc....

Then it is important to focus at least as much of our effort, thinking, learning, and personal action in the direction of ‘the boundary with community’ as we invest in ‘the boundary with the service system’.

What does this mean?

Working on ‘the boundary with community’ doesn’t mean excursions to McDonalds. It means an intentional pattern of invitation, conversation, deep listening, dreaming together, reflection, sometimes repentance and forgiveness, and always celebration.

Working on ‘the boundary with community’ doesn’t mean recruiting community members into the world of disability. It means remembering (another form of conversation) that we are all part of a larger world, and that a great community systematically identifies, mobilizes and celebrates the gifts of every one of its members.

It doesn’t mean just yearning for connection. It means taking the difficult step of asking for involvement. It means coming to terms, together, with the fact that friendship is woven of threads of joy and threads of sorrow.

As we navigate the boundary with the community (Faye calls it a shoreline), we make a discovery. Beyond the ‘sweet places’ of friendship and extended family life, there are other places in the community that can be particularly welcoming and fruitful. Think about the places where people feel most deeply valued and deeply ‘at home’ – their churches, synagogues and mosques, places where a shared culture or a shared passion for justice, the environment, or creating beauty draw people beyond the usual boundaries of age, economic status, and disability.

Our friend John McKnight has shared some ways of helping us recognize some of the sweet places in our communities. John reminds us to look for places…
• Where people come together by consent, rather than by control; where relationships are centered on affiliation, instead of exchange;
• Where people are always identifying, inviting and mobilizing one another’s gifts;
• Where the culture shows up in the form of stories, rather than data;
• And where ‘we hear people singing’ because people are making music, rather than consuming music, making art rather than consuming art.

This is the kind of place Children's Therapy Corner strives to be. A "sweet place" of extended family, friendship, services and resources. Meeting therapeutic needs of children and their families in an environment that is an extension of home. Children’s Therapy Corner is a place where a team of pediatric therapists are devoted to helping children grow and learn, and a place where families find people who believe in their dreams for their children and never lose sight of the daily miracles of development. We at Children’s Therapy Corner believe that makes for a very special place. For more information on "Keeping the Balance" and other community focused articles and ideas see www.communityworks.info.

Director's Corner

Oh, the Places We’ll Go!

By Janet Ringle-Bartels
CTC Director/Owner

To ‘see’ things differently. To take risks. To believe when all others question and doubt. To dream and expect the unexpected. Do you all realize that you are heroes? One of the greatest benefits of being at Children’s Therapy Corner is being part of your lives and having the opportunity to talk to you, the families. You encourage us to go beyond, to search for new and different answers, new methods to help your children. To think out of the box!

As therapists, we may be the ones who spent some specialized time in Universities to help your children, but you are the professionals that live the daily life and know what we can only assume. It is in partnership that we gain so much more TOGETHER.

We anticipate that this partnership will enhance your child’s development. To FOCUS on a dream, PLAN the route (with detours expected), and REACH a destiny together with support and awareness of the community in which you live. It may be a challenging Dream, but with a vision, and determination based on a great cause: Oh The Places We’ll Go!