All moms know there are two types of playdates: those that make your life easier and those that make you want to pull your hair out while simultaneously gouging your eyeballs and stuffing cotton in your ears. Or something like that. There are the kids who come over and say please and thank you (and mean it) when you get them a snack or drop them off. And there are the kids who whine incessantly or complain that they are bored or a playdate with that child will inevitably end up with at least one kid in tears, yelling or a broken sprinkler. Every. Single. Time.
Frankly, I'm old. And crotchety. And I just don't have the same tolerance for yelling, whining, sprinkler breaking that I used to have. So I really limit those particular playdates to when I'm feeling particularly generous or guilty or I know I have plenty of wine on hand.
Fortunately Juliette's friend Hannah is quite possibly the best playdate on the face of this earth. Not only is she incredibly polite (especially for a six year old) but she also has a huge imagination and a roll with it personality. And the two girls are just two peas in a pod. I'm stingy with playdates, but I'm telling you, I'd be thrilled to have Hannah over every single day. She's that awesome. When she's over, I know the girls will be playing with dolls, playing school, playing dress up, walking on stilts, doing cartwheels, writing stories or their favorite -- building forts.
The schools where my kids go are some of the best in the state. We are lucky with all the programs made available to us -- art, music, PE, computers, iPads, drama, coding, robotics, the list goes on and on. As with most school districts, the big push in our district recently has been with technology. I sat in on a PTA meeting at Annalise's 7/8 school yesterday where we learned about all the fabulous things the district is doing with their 1 to 1 computer programs in fifth and seventh grades and all the cool kits and robotic stuff and all the technology they have and want to purchase. It's all fabulous. But it makes me wonder -- Is it necessary? Is all the STUFF really helping our kids grow and learn? I'm honestly asking. I'm not trying to be a smart ass (at least not at this particular moment) or even be critical. I actually want to know what service it provides that other materials can't provide. Is my daughter better off because she has her own computer which she uses every day in her class? Do kids need to learn how to code in the third grade? Maybe they do. I'd love to know what the benefits are in the long run. Unfortunately our kids are the guinea pigs with all this new technology. We won't know if so much exposure is good for them for many many years. My thirteen year old's screen time per day has increased exponentially in the past few months because she now uses a computer every day in school and for her homework after school. Is this good for her growing brain? I don't know. So in the meantime, we're going to keep things pretty basic at home.
This leads me right back to Hannah, the ideal playdate partner, and fort building. Yesterday Hannah was over after school. Zachary and his friend Cameron (also a lovely playdate partner) had gone for a bike ride. Annalise was doing her homework before going to four hours of dance. And Hannah and Juliette made a fort. It covered (actually covers -- it's still there) almost our entire family room. It required no adult assistance. It required no special materials. All it required were two six year old girls, several blankets, some heavy books and two big imaginations. But think of all the skills that were used to build said fort:
engineering
math
architecture
design
planning
teamwork
leadership
compromise
patience
stick-to-it-ness
flexibility
I'm sure many other things as well. And then when it was done, the girls laid in there for another hour, reading books and playing with dolls and stuffed animals. It was the kind of playing that kids of any era or culture would have understood. Just two six year olds enjoying a simple childhood, the fruits of their labor and the kind of friendship that lasts.
