Back to formlessness – How can unproductive play benefit children? And how can their parents be persuaded to allow space for it in their lives?

Unproductive

I use the word unproductive in my project to describe a type of play which has no expectations attached to it, not to refer to something which is a waste of time and of no benefit. The intention is to focus on the process of play and not the outcome.

All the children in the world are born with the natural drive to play, and have the right to practice it regardless of the social, economical or political context they live in.

Many theoreticians and psychologists have shown a focused interest in the study of play, ever since children started to be recognised as individuals, and play acknowledged as a pleasurable and creative activity.

Play has been given many values: some find it trivial, some see it as a waste of time, others disapprove of it but most adults see it as a learning mechanism in the development of their children. Somehow it got to the point where play can not be imagined without the educational factor; it is supposed to leave us with something after it ends.

Today everyone focuses on productivity; everything is expected to produce a material outcome. We transfer to children this obsession with creating something to be consumed.
Adults work very hard to lay paths for children to follow, to project their ambitions on to them, and to set rules and guidance for everything they do.

Play has come to be seen as the reverse of work, and childhood idealised as the reverse of adult’s work life. Although we might think of it that way, in reality we tend to act the opposite.
Parents have the desire to see their children happy, by thinking that they allow for leisure time, but the fear that they might destroy the child’s future pushes them into creating an agenda of activities designed to fight the wasting of time.

Children arrive in a world that is already shaped for them to fit in, a place where they need to follow the rules and perform well in order to become a successful individual.

· Should play always be educational?

· Why is unproductivity perceived as a negative thing?

· Is there such thing as pure play?

· Can unproductive play, ungoverned by adult rules and guidance, benefit children?

· How can we persuade parents to allow their children to spend time doing this?

Why ‘Back to formlessness’ and how is this related to unproductivity and play?

Formless is something that is lacking order, that has no form, and no restrictions.

It is something that hasn’t yet been patterned, but has an indefinite potential to be shaped. It is a form of beginning, that lives in us and to which we can go back whenever we feel trapped. Because of its uncertainty and feel of danger, adults suppress this state by setting rules, and drawing patterns that don’t allow children to ever be formless. When adults get involved in the child’s play, in a decision-making position, the child is unable to play, in the creative sense of the meaning.

Allow the child to start unpatterned, uncut and unshaped, with no destination pre-established for him. To have the option to go back whenever he desires to that chaos inside himself, that gives him unlimited possibilities of creation and deconstruction. A state where he feels free in making choices and taking decisions, and doesn’t expect something permanent to come out of it.

It is a challenge in the 21st century, when everything is concerned with form, to find a way to go back to formlessness.

What do I propose as a practical embodiment of the idea presented above?

For the past year I have dedicated my time to developing and testing an activity that offers the means and the context for children to experience the kind of play described above.

I would like to make it clear from the start that what I envisioned as a medium for this idea to be put in practice is not a type of therapy. It is not a class where children learn new skills, nor an arts and crafts type of activity. But, of course, it can be one, or all or none of this, depending on the direction the child chooses to take. We provide the space and the means and let the child explore the paths he wants to follow.

One way this could be achieved is through the use of toys. Games and toys are influential factors in the development of a child’s personality. Toys are a familiar medium to children, complex and in the same time flexible to use.

I have created and facilitated an activity that involves the deconstructing and redesigning of old toys. Because people find it easier to understand activities that they have previously experienced, I have tended to refer to these sessions as workshops. Following the arguments in this proposal, the name I use serves only as a word and can be changed.

I have raised the material for it through donations from charity shops and parents, who were disposing of the old, broken toys. I presented this idea to an organisation, back in April this year, called IRMO — Indoamerican Refugee and Migrant Organisation, who were more than happy to give it a try with the kids at their centre.

On the day I provided the material (bits and pieces of toys and games, cleaned and sorted, and other tools needed for construction and deconstruction), and the centre provided a space to work in. The session was two hours long. I asked the parents to drop their children off, and told them it was up to them whether or not they stayed with their kids. I was surprised to find that all the parents stayed, but rather than interfering with their kids they played on their own, driven by their own inner call to formlessness.

However, I noticed how competitiveness amongst the adults emerged after the session finished. They looked for some form of reward from my side, the organiser. But only for a short period of time, after which they realised the uselessness of the objects they created and discard of them.

As for children, when the play time finished, they seemed relaxed and quite happy to let go of the toys they made.

I could say that, in this case, the unproductivity of this experience brought some sort of novelty, both to the parents and children involved.

The whole workshop was much more successful than I expected, with a high level of engagement from kids and adults, and that encouraged me to further develop my concept.

The experience can be repeated in any environment and with any kind of materials. It doesn’t matter what we use and where we do it, as long as we keep an open mind and let the curiosity be explored. Let them be free in making choices and taking decisions.