Playing without toys - a kindergarten puts it to the test
Will you play with me?" - «Sure, I'd love to.» - «Oh no, we don't have any toys left!» - «We can still play something, what would you like to do?» - «I don't know!»
This scene took place during my first visit to the Wartegg kindergarten in Lucerne.
The 20 or so children were packing all their toys into boxes when a girl wanted to play with me. But with what? Because puzzles, CDs and Jenga sticks - everything has been taken to the cellar and the shelves are empty. Toys that can't be changed are put away. Materials that can be used to create new objects such as cloths, string, painting utensils and adhesive tape can be retrieved on request.
Initiated by the Lucerne association «Akzent», which is committed to sustainable prevention and addiction therapy with the support of the canton and municipalities, the Wartegg kindergarten is taking part in the «toy-free kindergarten» project together with other German-speaking Swiss kindergartens.
For many educators, play, especially free play, is the most important basis for a child's healthy development, as Professor André Frank Zimpel, professor at the University of Hamburg and author of several books on the subject, emphasises. «Play is the child's work and its most important activity.» For Zimpel, playing is the best thing a child can do.
In her anthology «Play = Learning», US researcher Dorothy Singer and her team show that children who are given enough time to play at home and at school are later characterised by better academic performance, creativity, resilience, self-confidence and social skills.
Children should not only play as much as possible, they should also do so as freely as possible: The «toy-free kindergarten» project therefore goes one step further: away from the compulsion to consume, away from predetermined play ideas, towards concentrated, creative, in-depth play, according to the basic idea of the campaign, which was founded in 1993 by Elke Schubert and Rainer Strick from Aktion Jugendschutz München. Their credo:
Strengthening life skills is the most effective form of
prevention of addiction.
Long live boredom
In Lucerne, the two kindergarten teachers Pia Christen and Yvonne Enzmann also want to strengthen children's creativity. Because they are convinced that creative children become strong adults.
Afraid of boredom? Not a chance. The children look forward to the toy-free time. Emma, 6, for example, loves playing dress-up in the family corner. She says: «That won't be a problem: we always wear clothes anyway, that's enough for playing.»
In kindergarten, children are given lots of external stimuli to play with, there are set play sequences and ready-made play ideas. Without rules, without toys, without guidance from the teachers, boredom is still an issue in Lucerne.
Many children today are «addicted to stimulation» or have simply become «consumers», writes Jesper Juul in his text «Children should be allowed to be bored». Without stimulation or play, these children suffer from withdrawal symptoms. But, as Juul emphasises: «Boredom is the key to inner balance.» Only those who allow the inner restlessness of boredom to pass can get in touch with their own creativity. And: «Creativity is central to developing self-esteem.»
So what to do when a child is bored? The magic formula is simple: allow and wait. Time is of the essence - this also applies to creativity. Jesper Juul recommends that parents whose children are bored should hug the child and congratulate them on their boredom. And: show interest in what they will do next when they are bored.
The idea behind the project: creative children become strong adults.
There is a blue chair in the kindergarten in Lucerne, based on the picture book of the same name about boredom and fantasy by Claude Boujon. When a child is bored, he or she sits on the chair and waits until another child invites him or her to play a game.
Initially, the blue chair is used a lot, but over time it is used less and less. The children know how to help each other and copy ideas from each other. It gets loud in the kindergarten: drums are beaten on cupboards, the furniture is played with like never before. A castle is created from chairs and adhesive tape, and a prison is built under a table. «Hide-and-seek, fangis, chutzele, building huts, hide-and-seek and nomal fangis,» answer Leo and Lian, both 6, when asked what they like to play in kindergarten.
Are there more arguments without toys?
«Yes, it has become much louder in kindergarten,» confirms teacher Pia Christen. The children move around more and there is much more to discuss and argue about. Are there also more arguments? «Oh yes,» says Pia Christen. «The children have to assert themselves more, and that doesn't always work without arguments.» - «No, why is that?» asks six-year-old Eren. «We don't have any more toys to fight over.»
«We argue a lot less. There are no more toys for us to fight over,» says six-year-old Eren.
There is also more physical friction and a sore chin after falling off a chair. But this is also part of free play. «Children must be protected from danger, but they must be allowed to take risks,» says educationalist Margrit Stamm.
Lead less, accompany more
On my second visit to Lucerne, just over a month after the start of the project, the children have noticeably settled into their new kindergarten with empty cupboards and shelves. On Mondays and especially after the holidays, they need a little more time to get into free play. And yet: everyone is happy.
Other children play together, there are new groups and there is less gender segregation. Pia Christen appreciates «having more time for everything». Lessons are less organised and the children can eat their snacks when they want to, rather than at 9.30 am for the break.
«As teachers, we have to be very present,» says Pia Christen. However, she and her colleague Yvonne Enzmann enjoy being able to let the children act according to their needs. It is not always easy to be reserved, to accompany rather than instruct, to simply let the children do what they want.
«When the children build a house, you have expectations of how the house should look,» says Pia Christen. If the children do it the way they want it, in this specific case with x metres of adhesive tape, it was sometimes difficult for both of them to hold back with suggestions.
«At the beginning of the project, some parents wondered what addiction prevention in kindergarten was all about,» says Christina Thalmann, project manager at «Akzent». «We then explained to them the main aim of the project, which is to strengthen the children's life skills and protective factors.» Protective factors such as «expanding language skills and communication strategies, promoting frustration tolerance, experiencing their own self-efficacy and practising and applying coping strategies in the event of conflicts». This means that most parents are on board and willing to support the project at home.
Other children play together, there are new groups and less gender segregation.
During the course of the project, the children's parents report back that the children are talking more at home. The kindergarteners are proud and integrate certain habits from kindergarten at home too. «No cardboard box is safe from Emma at home anymore,» says her mum Mirjam Weniger.
After ten weeks without toys, the first toys can be taken out of the cellar. What did the children miss most? The plush polar bears. Together with the Duplos, the stuffed animals are the first things to move back into the kindergarten.
Even with the shelves becoming fuller, play is freer, more flexible and still combined with a cardboard house from the toy-free era. Pia Christen and Yvonne Enzmann want to do without toys again for a while with the next kindergarten class. And hopefully give the children a big boost to their resilience by doing without.
«I'm fine,» replies Sophie, 5, when I ask her how she found the time without toys. And hands me a paper cut-out as a gift.
www.akzent-luzern.ch
Ideas for more free play in everyday life
- Create time and space for free play, consciously keep time slots free from appointments.
- Take a step back with impulses and let the children do it themselves.
- Let children take risks from time to time.
- Rotate toys consistently, store a box on the floor from time to time and swap it out with other toys later. Pay attention to what the child is currently interested in and what they are playing with of their own accord.
- Make the most of the surroundings and build a hut in the forest rather than under the lounge table. Get off the tram at a random stop in the city and look for the nearest fountain, where you can ride a boat with a cork raft.
- Take advantage of situations and play disco to department stores' music in the lift from the underground car park to Migros or the Coop.
- Prefer toys without a fixed purpose. Children will certainly find the shiny plastic knight's sword cool at first. But if you let them make their own knight's sword and transform it into a walking stick from the hospital the next day, it will make them happier in the long term.
Free play: Read more
Mrs Stamm, why do children play so little these days? Swiss educationalist Margrit Stamm explains why free play is the best early development strategy for children.
