There’s nothing in the world like child’s play. During child’s play, carefree is the number one rule and everything is guided by imagination and impulse. Nothing is impossible in child’s play because nothing in the world seems out of reach!
As life’s issues pile up, we slowly start to forget how to be that carefree and have fun as we did as kids. I’ll let you in on a little secret: you can still have fun like a child and be an adult. In fact, it’s a necessity to be a healthy adult, and a great parent. All it takes is recognizing the inner child within you again.
The trouble is, as adults we put constraints on that inner child. We view other adults who are able to tap into that fun side of themselves as “immature” or “irresponsible”. Barring truly over the top behavior, most of those folks are truly just having a good time and have figured out how to let their inner kids come out for some fun once in a while. Those people are usually very happy and do a great job blowing off steam when needed. They seem to be able to roll with things well and be truly in the moment with their kids. Don’t you want a piece of that…just once in a while?
Instead of being passive observers of our kids’ “child play”, your inner child will allow you to be part of the action and really connect with your kids, as kids. Instead of putting limits on how our kids have fun, your inner child will allow you to have fun with your kids they way they want to have fun. I’m not suggesting you toss caution and safety to the wind. I’m only suggesting that we can all chill out a lot more and play the way our kids want and need to play without intervening so much and putting so many adult rules and restraints on our kids. By connecting to our kids with our inner kids listening, perhaps we’ll understand them better and know what they want from their childhoods, and not the childhoods we think they want.
By the way, the fun produced by unleashing your inner child is 100% free – no stimulus package or tapping into your 401k needed to afford the benefits that you will reap from this investment.
I let my inner child out recently singing the “Jam On It, wiki, wiki” song at dinner. Before I knew it, I was hauling records down from the attic and showing my kids videos on YouTube of the songs that defined my husband’s and my teen years and college life. We had a blast. They now have some “new” songs to add to their iPods, and we have some new memories to add to those “old” songs. How cool is that!
(Originally posted May 2009; Updated December 2009)
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