Amusements for Children by Vina Sherwood-Adams

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 30, 1915

Amusements for Children

By Vina Sherwood-Adams

VINA SHERWOOD-ADAMS

There are two classes of parents who make mistakes in regard to the amusements of their children. One of these provides no special entertainment for the little ones. I have such a family in plain view every day. There are in this home, which is situated on a small city lot, four children, all under six years. The lawn is largely devoted to gardening. Everything within and without the house is kept in apple-pie order. The children wander aimlessly up and down the sidewalk, with not even a shoe box to draw for a wagon. The mother is one of the “slapping” kind, and the greater share of the time one or another of those children is in tears.

I often see these little folk sitting idly swinging their feet from the back porch, “keeping things clean,” of course. Poor youngsters! They would be changed children if they could only have even a sand pile. Once in a while they make a bold dash, and how the garden does suffer in their dirt reveling! Isn’t this an extreme case? Perhaps, but there are children whose mischievousness, as we adults term it, could be largely corrected if they were only provided with interesting play-employment. Keep the child happily occupied, and you have solved more than half the problems of discipline.

The parents of the other class are those who provide for their children too many toys and other ready-made amusements, which require little original thought to operate. I have in mind a family of three children who have, among them, enough toys nearly to fill a one-horse wagon. They are discontented and selfishly quarrelsome. The mother once said, “I do not see why your children are so contented at home. They seem to enjoy playing there. We buy ours everything to play with to make them happy, but they are not content to stay at home a minute on returning from school.” Could she but have glanced into our back yard, she might have solved the mystery for herself as she saw her children transformed into contented youngsters while they dug caves that could actually be crawled into, or at another time made the land of China, with its great wall and queer pagodas, evidently based on some recent lesson at school.

As I associate with children, I learn that the more simple their playthings, the better they enjoy them. How boys do like to climb! Last winter our little boy would play for hours at a time with blocks, and I thought, “What a lamb-like little fellow he is going to be!” But this winter, blocks have no attractions whatever; it is climb, climb. If he was told not to climb on the kitchen cabinet, he would try the table or a chair. So to satisfy his craving for climbing, and to avoid his being hurt or injuring the furniture, I arranged two boxes, one smaller than the other, and both heavy enough not to tip, with a board placed slanting from the shorter box. Now up and down he climbs for an hour or two each day. Sometimes the top of the box is a store upstairs, and he carries all kinds of material up to his store. The open end of the larger box is left out, so he stables his play horses (a pair of red kindergarten chairs) there.

I was advised to switch him for his frequent disobedience in standing on the furniture; but as I saw his happy face as he would reach as high as he could stretch, and say, “Me high, mamma,” “Me big like papa,” I wondered if there was not some other way out of the difficulty, and the introduction of those boxes has entirely solved this annoying problem of climbing on forbidden places in the house. Perhaps some other mother may have a “climbing boy” who could be allowed this harmless but healthful exercise if directed in the right way.

Of course such toys and games as aid in original thought and healthful exercise are to be commended,—wagons, sleds, skates, carpenter tools, gardening tools, dolls, dishes, etc. But did you ever observe how a boy will enjoy a wagon or a sled he has made himself? Encourage the children to make their own playthings, and not to depend on the store or others to supply all their wants. It will make them resourceful when they meet obstacles later in life. If you are training your children for the mission field,—to be all-round men and women, capable of adapting themselves to any condition,—let one of your first lessons be that of resourcefulness.