Socializing your young children, sometimes, you shouldn’t, set things up, just allow them to be in an interactive environment, and allow things to develop on their own, naturally, translated…
In recent years, the “Children-Parents at Play” became, a new trend. With the heart of finding playmates for our young, we’d, set up the teams, even through the online communication interactions, to “hook up”, not on how whether or not we all knew one another, today we go out on a picnic as a group, tomorrow, a game with the whole group, the days set up by FB passed quickly and in bliss. Unfortunately, I’m one of those, lazy adults, as I imagined setting up the larger groups, I already felt bad, then, turned my head to my young, they had “no I won’t go” written all over their, faces already; and so, you don’t want to, and I get my time off, and I’d, deleted that page, and, rid myself of all those, worries.
Naturally, as I thumbed across the ads on playing together, I’d still felt ashamed of all of us, mother and sons, for not going out with others. But, as a member of the annoyed by interaction syndrome, we’d much rather, keep each other warm ourselves, and, persisted in the beliefs of, “Geeky, Weirdo, Lazybones”—until May of last year, my young nieces was born, and that warm infant stole her older cousins’ hearts, and from then on, every chance my children got, they’d, begged me to take them over to their aunt’s, it don’t matter if there was a typhoon, they still, wanted to go there. Toward this strong connection of them as cousins, my sister-in-law and I, naturally, enjoyed seeing it, after all, the three young kids are kings of their own might, they got along, they’d, slaughtered one another, the two of us, mothers, although we’re, sisters-in-law, but we are, best friends, every time we got together, time flew too quickly when we were, having fun.
illustration from UDN.com
Before the summer was over, I took my children to visit their, dearest, youngest cousin. As goodbye time came, the three kids started, hugging, kissing, and, my older children also, promised that they shall be back during the New Year’s vacation. On the way home, the children all sat sorrowfully in the backseat, “so sad, we can’t visit them every week now.”
I was stunned by their claims. Immediately, realized, that I had, taken them by train to Taipei by the week, the two of us adults, led the three young children, playing their toys, telling stories, and, did art, we also shopped and made the meals together, fixing up the environment—the set time, the enriching activities, , the two adults three children combination, isn’t this, a play group on its own?
In the past, my meaning of “play along” is only forcing our selves to get into the groups, forcing my children to relate to others’ children, it was, a fatiguing, and, draining socialization process. And yet, as my youngest sister-in-law had a daughter, from the cares I developed for my best friend, our children’s caring toward their youngest cousin, in the time, the five of us, played together along. Even though, by a stricter definition, the “play groups” won’t fit us, so what? Everybody has her/his own shoes that fitted. What others believed to be good, may not be what I need, and, rather than chasing what the world expects us to be, why not, find your own comfortable ways, to relate to your own children, and help them socialize with others too. There’s no best-fitting playmates in the world, the variations of parents and children, will have their own ways of connecting with one another.
And so, this, is still, on the importance of letting children socialize with each other, like for this mother, she was anxious at the start of setting up a group for her own young to socialize in, and in reality, children started, relating to one another on their own, that still just showed, how as parents, we sometimes, worry, way too much, that we should just, let go, and allow our children to find their own ways.
cousins get together and play…
