Noticing, Sensing, and Turning the Mundane into Magic: Reflections on Session #3 of Our Outdoor Play Grief Group

Researchers, policy-makers, health professionals, educators, and parents all agree that outdoor play is critical to healthy childhood development. Play is a sanctified right of the child according to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Article 31), and it is the language of childhood. Wherever children roam, whenever they are given space and time, children will engage with one another and their surroundings in imaginary ways, turning the mundane into magic, turning a mere stick into a fort (to seek shelter from the rain), weapon (to make sense of a violent world), and wand to turn their friend into a wild beast (cause, well, why not)?! 

Still, play remains “a contested concept” (Leggett & Newman, 2017, p. 24). Contested, as in, how much power should be shared or “given” to children, and how does children’s self-agency fit into our dominant worldview? Play inherently provides children with power and a voice, a shift that challenges the status quo, traditional structures, systems, and ways of being. Play as an act of liberation is a theme I will explore further in the coming weeks (my entire career, perhaps). 

Play is also contested, as in, where do we find room for play in an adult-oriented world? Play has been placed on the margins of childhood, spare moments between the things that seem to matter the most and eat away our days- a curriculum that must be met, worksheets that must be memorized or filled out, organized activities led by the ‘experienced adult’, expensive sports that require many trips to and fro, box store errands that must be run, and increasingly, meltdowns and unprecedented mental health challenges for parents and children alike. When we throw trauma, an adverse childhood experience, or a crisis into the mix of a family's life, (such as the death of someone beloved), where does this leave us? I am learning that children need play as much as adults need a pause. 

Last week in our Outdoor Play Grief Group, as per each week, the caregivers went to a separate part of the forest near the yurt for their session, while the children went to the Chickadee Forest. I had a rare opportunity to join our caregiver group, and before our group started walked the land to get a sense of mud on the trails, fallen trees, and to map out the hike we would later do (risk management). The invitation for the evening was “noticing”...the natural (outer) world, as well as the felt sense of our internal world, including all that is emerging: the grieving, shifting, insights, setbacks, fears, resistance and growth. We walked over the forest root trail, through rocky and mossy place, and back again seeing the wingspan of the barred owl, changing and falling leaves, murky waters with frogs that were beginning to winter, and snakes absent, no longer sunning on rocks. 

When we got back to our seating circle of stumps, we talked about what we noticed internally, and new or recurring realizations in our grief journey. One parent shared that she’s noticed how her child’s needs are changing as they get older, and she’s learning the importance of following their lead and meeting her child where she’s at. Another parent simply shared that they noticed the importance of finding a moment to pause, to just ‘be’, which is hard and few and far between, a gift for solo parents who are bearing the brunt of parenting alone.

The children also hiked on a different trail, collectively deciding to go to a place called Rocky Red, “noticing” as well, their surroundings, making and imagining new worlds. Our play and art facilitator, Katie, shared:

[Tonight] we cherished the acorns and “golden sticks” that were presented to us. It’s noteworthy when the children treat objects from nature with reverence, curiosity and care – such as placing a small bone of a long dead animal onto a smooth flat rock, like an altar or a tray, to carefully transport it while describing grand plans to house it in a special place at home. This reminds us that children are curious about the natural processes of death and dying, and what remains in the physical realm after death. While these conversations might feel difficult, they are also empowering to children, to demystify and make more manageable the facts of death.

To an untrained or outside eye, we walked, we played. But we are doing so much much more. We are noticing our surroundings, and then going inward to notice what meaning we can make of it. We are individually and collectively learning to make sense of our stories and to build new pathways forward. A gift.