Yes, I am a recovering Star Trek nerd. In high school, I loved that show. My sister was worse. We even went to a Star Trek convention together.
However, this blog is not about Star Trek. Scratch that. Let’s talk about space instead. It’s the final frontier, and I’m not talking about exploration of known and unknown galaxies here. I’m talking scheduling.
We all have schedules. Some of them are crazier than others. They shift from time to time, and sometimes space opens up, and sometimes we fill that space up again with more activities. Homeschoolers may not be in school, but that simply means that schoolwork does not need to eat up the entire day. Something else might: classes, play dates, volunteer work, jobs.
Often we leave out what is most important in our schedules. And that’s space. Space to play, space to be, space to stare off into…you guessed it …space. Space to be bored. Space to hang out with the neighborhood kids and play games. Space to swing on the swing or dig a hole in the yard.
Learning is scheduled. Play is scheduled. Exercise is scheduled. Yes, even for home learners, these things easily begin to fit into little boxes.
In the 1980s, there was a lot of talk about quality time in parenting. Busy parents arranged dates with their kids. But how about giving our kids some quality time with themselves? Kids lose space so quickly, and when they lose space in their days to play and to just be, they lose the time when they can innovate, think quietly, and dream.
It’s the final frontier of scheduling, this space thing. It’s something that we neglect to put in the schedule at all, because space is seen as necessary only as a quick break before the next activity. But space is productive time, and doing “nothing” is often the most useful thing for a child to do.
Here’s to space. Long may our kids explore it.
Image courtesy of lilgoldwmn at Stock Exchange.