We are trying to teach our daughter to eat solid food. Many babies start naturally reaching for their parents’ food when they are ready, but neither of our children ever did. It was a long, painful process to get my son to eat the same things we were eating, and I fear it’ll be the same with my daughter, unless I can get her to start playing with her food.

That’s right, play with her food.

According to my daughter’s new speech/feeding specialist and the book Baby-Led Weaning, I should be placing foods on her plate and allowing her to play with them. She will pick them up. She might put them in her mouth, or smell them. She will almost definitely throw them on the floor. Mealtimes will be fun for her, but painful for me, because I’ll be constantly on edge, worrying that she’ll either choke on a new food or make a big mess.

Watching her last night made me wonder: when did I stop learning by playing? When do any adults stop learning by playing? And what would happen to my knowledge of the world, my creativity, and my productivity if I prioritized play? 

Play is the New Meditation

In the book Overwhelmed: Work, Love and Play When No One Has The Time, author Brigid Schulte makes a case for adult play. She interviewed the owners of a Manhattan-based group who set up play groups for adults. There are classes in sky diving, finger painting, interpretive dance, you name it. The idea is for adults to break free of their daily lives, and for a brief time experience the joy of being a kid again.

When I read the book, the idea sounded tantalizing, but then I had to ask myself, what does play even feel like as an adult? Scarily enough, I didn’t know. Is it play when I’m rolling around the floor with my kids, or am I just being an interactive parent? Is it play when I’m messing around on my instrument, or is that something I need to do for my job? There are so many blurred lines between what I want to do and what I have to do that I don’t know what it would look like to simply abandon all thought and go with my instincts. 

How Do I Start Playing?

I tried to think of one thing that makes me feel like a kid again, and I finally came up with dancing. I love to dance, wild and crazy, not caring what I look like. Dancing makes time stop for me. Dancing makes me feel free.

There’s no telling what dancing, or any other play, might teach me. There’s no means to an end, as there is with kids’ play. When kids play, they learn how to use their hands and their minds. They connect synapses. They imitate adults. They try out new sounds and moves. Kids are constantly living in the sweet spot between learning and having fun. Why can’t adults live that way, too?

So while my daughter learns to eat, an adult skill, I’m going to let her play. And when I need to escape my adult self, I’m going to let myself play. There’s no telling what I’ll learn from the experience.

How will you play today?