Once upon a time, you were a child. You played and had adventures and discovered more about the world and yourself every single day than you probably have in all the years since.
As we get older, we can often forget how to play, how to get excited about the little things and marvel at the world around us. Often we get so involved with the day to day business of going to work and paying the bills, that our eyes become closed to all the things that used to inspire our minds and fire up our creativity.
The way children play is becoming increasingly affected by the confines of modern society, with games like tag being banned from school for the risk of being ‘dangerous’, and parents worried about letting their kids play outside by themselves.
Government plans that set out in their Fair Play strategy highlight the need for children to take risks as part of their play, to enable them ‘to better understand the opportunities and challenges in the world around them, and how to be safe’.
The Fair Play strategy has committed to funding a revival of the traditional adventure playground, places dedicated solely to giving children the opportunity to play and have adventures. Here children will have complete freedom to jump, swing, run and climb, build dens, sit around camp fires, grow things, dress up and make things.
The developmental theorist Piaget believed that in play, children ‘expand their understanding of themselves and others, their knowledge of the physical world, and their ability to communicate with peers and adults’. So why should we ever want to stop playing?
As children we think that when we are adults we will have the freedom to have whatever adventures we like, when actually, the opposite is true. Either we lose our sense of adventure, or our responsibilities take over and we think we neither have the time, nor the money, nor the freedom, to indulge it.
My sister has recently returned from sailing around the world in an ocean yacht race. Now THAT is what I call an adventure. It was gruelling, physically and mentally challenging, dangerous, but above and beyond the most fun, most eye-opening, and most inspiring thing she has ever done.
It may not be to everyone’s taste, and adventures needn’t be on such a huge scale (then again, why not?), but the interesting thing was that a large part of her trip was funded by people who, inspired by their own longing for adventure, sponsored her to change her life completely and have the biggest adventure of her life.
We’ve mentioned before Miles Hilton-Barber, the self-titled ‘Blind Adventurer’ whom we had the pleasure of hearing speak recently. Miles is the perfect example of someone who has re-discovered his sense of adventure, and doesn’t allow the considerable risks associated with being blind to stop him climbing mountains, flying planes or crossing deserts.
The MP, Hilton Dawson says ‘we need to provide children with the opportunities to have adventures’. Well said Mr. Dawson, but why stop there? We believe in adventures for everyone. Rediscover your ability to play, open your eyes and find the opportunities the world presents us with every day. Have an adventure. That’s what this is all about, surely?
