Sticking with Your Friends

“Put the stick down!” “Be careful with that stick!” We give these warnings to our kids all the time. What would happen if we didn't?

In her picture book Not a Stick, Antoinette Porter makes us keenly aware of our words, pointing out (see what I did there?!) that sticks are conduits by which kids develop their capacity for creativity and imagination. “It’s not a stick!” the pig responds; it’s a fishing pole, a horse, a magic wand, a sword for fighting dragons. The pig is pictured alone, though. Kids using sticks as swords to fight each other—that’s a different story!

When kids pretend their sticks are weapons, they risk hurting each other, there’s no way around it, and the risk goes up the more aggressive the play. But the spatial awareness this teaches is invaluable: How close can I get without hurting my friend? How close is too uncomfortable for me? And the social skills needed for safe stick play are learned by doing: practicing saying "stop!" when it's too much, and stopping when they’re asked to. These are important early lessons in consent! If adults intervene, we're keeping children from learning for themselves.

Children also turn sticks into tools to investigate the natural world. They use them to measure the depth of a puddle, balance on a log, dig a river. Stick play brings out children’s inner scientists: children form questions and hypotheses and test them—Can I get this stick to stand up on its own? Can this stick reach that branch? Do I need a longer stick? A shorter one? A thicker or thinner one? They change variables and repeat trials and store the results in memory. When kids do these experiments in pairs or in a group, their neurons fire more brightly (they'll get "lab partners" later in school for the same reason).

Yet here, too, and especially with those longer branches, they run the risk of injury to others, and accidents happen. Young children’s black-and-white thinking makes it hard for them to recover: the one hurt gets upset and accusatory, the one who caused it (if there was only one, sometimes it's both!) feels victimized. To learn to brush off accidents the way adults can, children need to experience them, and then work through the ambiguity of no one being at fault. Of course, the first order of business has to be attending to a severe injury—but still, we can wait to step in. Children often have outsize reactions to smaller hurts, especially in the presence of an adult. And by waiting you might just see another child doing the investigating and showing compassion.

What if it's not just other kids in the path of danger? That’s when it's really hard not to say something! One day in the park heading over to the meadow, I watched the kids swinging their sticks as they walked down the stairs—where someone was sitting in the way. I held my tongue, held my breath. . . . The kids, animatedly chatting, brought the sticks closer to their bodies. All on their own, they judged what space they had and did what they needed to keep everyone safe, without one word of warning!

Let Them Make It Harder for Themselves!

We’re crossing the meadow. It has rained, and in a dip in the landscape there’s a long and wide puddle, mushy with mud and dead leaves, with water enough to submerge a shoe. The puddle doesn’t extend that far on either side. A. sees the dry ground and walks to the other side. L. doesn’t move. Instead, over a good 15 minutes, L. takes up a challenge he has set for himself: to go through rather than around, to build a bridge on which to cross. He makes it harder, makes it take longer, to get to where we’re going—because that’s no longer the goal. He says to himself, “Think, think, think.” The gears are whirring so loud I can hear them!

Click on the photo below for a slideshow of the sequence of events as L. makes one attempt and another. He runs up the hill to get a heavy log, rolling and pushing it down. A. sits on the other side, patiently waiting. When L. asks for help A. runs to him back around the puddle, and the project becomes cooperative. A. contributes innovative ideas and L. incorporates them into his experiment, which, ultimately, fails. They kick the log idly. Energy expended, project concluded, frustration self-managed, they walk around the puddle and continue across the meadow. Because L. has a wet shoe and muddy pants, they start a conversation about how their families do the laundry.

But L. has made an extraordinary effort. He has pushed the limits of his imagination, and he has used his burgeoning cognitive ability to think hypothetically, to project a possible outcome. He’s also strengthening his physical muscles—and because physical efforts strengthen neural pathways, the brain and body are feeding each other’s development.

Engaged in a self-initiated, self-directed task, children’s deep desire to reach their own goal will push them farther than we might think possible. Intrinsic motivation for success with tasks they don’t want to do begins with experience pursuing things they do! To support the development of perseverance we can, as much as possible, provide children with the time and space for them to pursue whatever sparks their curiosity, the way they want to, and as long as it takes—even if there’s an easier way.

Dealing with Discomfort, Together

It’s said that there’s no such thing as “bad” weather. Especially for children: if they’re in a rich environment for play and dressed appropriately, children can stay outside for hours. Same goes for adults—it just takes some rewiring of our conditioning! Bringing children out to play in rain, snow, and cold not only keeps their natural wiring intact; it also helps children develop critical skills that will serve them in any setting.

Rain and snow are, of course, magical to a young child. Most children thrill at the sensory experience of precipitation—they stick out their tongues for rain, they hold out their hands for snowflakes, they watch with wide eyes as rain puddles deepen and snow builds up. There’s so much pleasure to be gained from getting drenched in a warm summer downpour, jumping in puddles, and playing in the snow to the limits of their infinite imaginings.

Being out in this kind of weather isn’t always joyful; it can be totally miserable! What if, despite your caregiver's best intentions, you don’t have your gloves when the temperature drops? What if you don’t have snow pants and the wet seeps through your pants? Often peers can create the distractions and provide the scaffolding that encourages “suffering” children to power through:

Pointing up to a tree canopy that catches some of the rain, a child calls out, “We’re under the magic umbrellas!” and brings the others into the useful pretend scenario.

A child with sensory sensitivity is led by another’s enthusiasm to try immersing their hands in the rainy wet mud. Another time, a child worried about a deep puddle bravely joins one who has stepped in.

The distractions of the perfect snow for snowballs helps a child forget that their legs are wet and cold.

When the rain gets to be too much, children problem solve together to create a makeshift shelter.

Children who go through trials and tribulations with their peers may grow more than when adults step in to help; for sure, these experiences provide for lasting shared memories of overcoming challenge. Dealing with physical discomfort together inspires imagination, ingenuity, and bravery that help build the critical skills of perseverance and resilience. Being out in “bad” weather is good for a lot of things!