My Connection to Play

“You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.”
― Plato

“Have regular hours for work and play; make each day both useful and pleasant, and prove that you understand the worth of time by employing it well. Then youth will bring few regrets, and life will become a beautiful success.” - Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

I lived in a small village with my families till I was 10 years old, and all the close relatives staying in the same village or the close villages. At that time in the small village, the adults did not have serious request or high expectations to the children, and the school teachers distribute few homework to the students as well. So, as a student and a child, I felt very free and few pressure from the adults about the academic issue. 

The traditional play I loved so much when I was young was: playing shuttlecock,skipping rope and hopscotch during the break in the school. When I was young, there was no place to buy real shuttlecock, I made it by myself. I found one or two copper cashes and cut suitable length of the nylon rope to make a shuttlecock for myself. 

During the weekend and holidays, I will go to the riverside, climb trees to fetch apples or other fruit, swim in the shallow spring(it's like take a bath there), sit in the rice field watching the floating clouds shaping differently, go to fetch wild grass for the pigs etc..

     

Now I am living in Beijing for more than 13 years now, my son was born here. As I observed the children play, they have to choose play center or the small space in the living compound or play in the classrooms or in the parks. It's such a pity that I feel like they are away from nature. Being away from nature is very bad for the children since their sensory can not be developed fully or they lose the connection with real life. I do hope the adults and authorities will provide more natural places for the children to play.

Play is so important in my life. It develops my imagination, my physical health, my knowledge to myself, to the world and others when I was young, and till now as an adult, I still love play. It makes me feel ease and colorful of my life, and it is like the lubricant to make myself more complete as a human being.

Relationship Reflection

Human Beings are born to be social creature, we live in the relationships with other human beings. No one can live without others' support and service.

Relationships with others take me many benefits and support my life in every aspect like my family life, my friendship with others, and my career development. I like to talk about 3 people in my life relating to family life, friendship and work here to reflect the relationships with them and the relationships support my life.

First and most importantly is my relationship with my son. His born changes my life totally. He is 31 months now, and attach to me a lot. I am his game partner, mother, friend, princess, teacher and student. He is my teacher, my heart, my son, my mentor who help me to reflect my own growing path, healing my hurts during my growing up and develop healthy and love relationship with family members. Every day I do my best to find time play games with him, focus on him and let him feel my love in many ways, like eye contact, kiss him, hug him, and say to him I love him. I care for him and now he cares a lot about me.

About friendship, I have a good friend whose name is Libby Long, we have friends for more than 15 years, she means a lot to me. We meet each other from time to time, talking about our own life, sharing everything with each other, we sometimes stay over in each other's home. She supports me with my confusions about my relationship with my husband and others, my emotion, and always let me feel I am strong and capable. The special thing of this friendship is trust, we trust each other and don't care to share our weakness and ugly, we always think about each other.

About work relationship, I love to talk about my relationship with Dancy, who is my assistant, my good friend and best work partner in the work. I am so lucky to have her with me. She is very considerable and support my work a lot. She never bargain that she does too much, never complain. She is always with big smile to everyone and everyone like her since she is sweet and lovely. From my side, I support her work a lot, give her suggestions about how to deal with different people and balance different task, always tell her don't make herself too much tired, and if anything I can help with, don't hesitate to come to me. But I seldom pass the line to do things for her which is her responsibility.

For keeping the healthy and positive relationships with people, there are some challenges. Everyone is with different temperament, and have different needs from time to time, it is difficult to get their needs properly. Sometimes life change, the friends we have will leave us, or if we live in a different place, it's difficult to see each other and the friendship might be lost.Also with family members like my brother, I love him and care him a lot, but I feel I cannot help him a lot since I am far away from him. And sometimes in life, it's difficult to balance the time to the people in relationships with me.

I am an active communicator with others, for past 10 years, my main work is to communicate with different people as a marketing person or organizer or coordinator. I like to talk to people, and I love to learn different kinds of things, all these contribute to my passion to be an effective early childhood professional.