Kids Fun Stuff - The Line Between Work and Play
If life were a bookshelf, then our memories could be found scribbled on pages and journals, cherished moments captured in photo albums and scrapbooks, treasured secrets and games boxed away for later, for when we need to relive those moments.
Out all of the boxes, I think the most special, yet least visited would be labeled: Kids Fun Stuff.
When you are little, everything is possible and every dream comes true and there is no Kids Fun Stuff box.
At this point, you're not even aware of the bookshelf and how it all works.
You live the charmed life of childhood.
Then you notice the Kids Fun Stuff box.
A faint line begins to appear, dividing what? You're not sure yet.
Then you're hit with the standardization, the endless homework, the tests, the scoring, the measuring up to, and all the expectations.
You turn to your Kids Fun Stuff box for comfort and refuge.
You fill it up with your hopes and dreams, your games and stories to remind you of your love of learning and your thirst for adventure.
As the line grows more noticeable, they take your imagination and folded it away, sticking it in your Kids Fun Stuff box for the "appropriate time.
" They pull out creativity, make it mandatory and now you are expected to crank it out like a factory.
And somewhere along the way, on some forgotten day in history, there was a funeral held where there were no attendants, no flowers, no marked gravestone.
This is the day your Kids Fun Stuff box is sealed away to become only a dim reminder of the past.
In fact, I dare say most of us are in denial that it ever occurred, but sadly it marked the day where life became a little less fun and we became a little more grown up.
Growing up boils down to maturity.
While for the most part that's a good thing, it also means you have to let go of certain things that were taken for granted.
There's something magical and kind of ironic about being a kid because you don't know how great it is until you're older and it's gone.
As a grown up, you enter a world where fun and work become enemies and, if you're lucky, each has its own designated time slot otherwise everything's pretty much just work.
For my children, I only wish that they never lose their love of learning.
My only hope is that their Kids Fun Stuff box will grow with them, always a guide of what is truly important in life and a constant bridge between work and play so that they may dream with all their heart, work with all their might and have the courage to succeed.
Out all of the boxes, I think the most special, yet least visited would be labeled: Kids Fun Stuff.
When you are little, everything is possible and every dream comes true and there is no Kids Fun Stuff box.
At this point, you're not even aware of the bookshelf and how it all works.
You live the charmed life of childhood.
Then you notice the Kids Fun Stuff box.
A faint line begins to appear, dividing what? You're not sure yet.
Then you're hit with the standardization, the endless homework, the tests, the scoring, the measuring up to, and all the expectations.
You turn to your Kids Fun Stuff box for comfort and refuge.
You fill it up with your hopes and dreams, your games and stories to remind you of your love of learning and your thirst for adventure.
As the line grows more noticeable, they take your imagination and folded it away, sticking it in your Kids Fun Stuff box for the "appropriate time.
" They pull out creativity, make it mandatory and now you are expected to crank it out like a factory.
And somewhere along the way, on some forgotten day in history, there was a funeral held where there were no attendants, no flowers, no marked gravestone.
This is the day your Kids Fun Stuff box is sealed away to become only a dim reminder of the past.
In fact, I dare say most of us are in denial that it ever occurred, but sadly it marked the day where life became a little less fun and we became a little more grown up.
Growing up boils down to maturity.
While for the most part that's a good thing, it also means you have to let go of certain things that were taken for granted.
There's something magical and kind of ironic about being a kid because you don't know how great it is until you're older and it's gone.
As a grown up, you enter a world where fun and work become enemies and, if you're lucky, each has its own designated time slot otherwise everything's pretty much just work.
For my children, I only wish that they never lose their love of learning.
My only hope is that their Kids Fun Stuff box will grow with them, always a guide of what is truly important in life and a constant bridge between work and play so that they may dream with all their heart, work with all their might and have the courage to succeed.
