Defining Codependent Play
in order to discover independent, confident play
I’ve met a lot of parents who want to play with their children more, but don’t know how.
This dynamic has always captured my attention, including in young children who struggle to play with others. Kids or adults in this situation often feel left out, confused, and then self-judgment creeps in the window. Why can’t I play like they do…?
It can be a painful situation, and I think a lot of us relate.
There are a lot of dynamics to speak to in this, but in this article I want to focus on how it impacts us as adults. I’m beginning to facilitate an adult group that wants to cultivate and explore play, so that we might have more skills with kids, yes, but also just to enrich our own lives.
Contrary to popular belief, my experience is that children also need people to model and structure play for them, at least at first, and usually that first model is mom or dad. The fortunate reality is that children, most children, are eventually going to have friends and adults that help them explore play.
But what about us adults? If we don’t know how to play, who’s going to teach us?
For lots of reasons, our lives tend to get increasingly serious as we age. Then we look at the news, or we have kids of our own. Bills are due. The responsibilities pile up, and we want to be free and playful with our kids…but it’s hard. Life wears us down, tires us out.
And then we judge ourselves for it!
I’m laughing as I write this, but it really is a powerful dynamic in many of our lives. I see it as a defining factor in our culture. It is often easier to remain serious than it is to play… in order to get the next job, cook the next meal, or provide the next thing. We work and judge and serious-ify playfulness right out of our bodies. Some of us are so boiled in this dynamic that play or silliness even seem rude or inappropriate to the cultural moment.
There’s so much to explore in all this, but I’m trying to break this recurrent dynamic into bite-sized pieces we can work with one at a time. So, what I’d like to focus on today is what I’m going to call Codependent Play.
Codependent Play is when you’re willing to play only if the child or person you’re playing with validates or enjoys your acts of playfulness. On one hand this makes sense, but if I’m a parent or teacher who’s a little unsure of himself - imagine the pressure this puts on a child. It’s as if we’re requiring their approval or emotional validation for us to be present and playful with them.
One of the biggest impediments to playing with kids, or your wife or husband for that matter, is the expectation that they are going to like it, approve it, and offer you pleasant feelings in return. Typically, we’re not even aware that we have this expectation or desire. We just offer something - a flower drawing, a toy robot searching for power-ups – and our child looks at us as if we’re stupid.
Crush. Heart crush (not in a good way).
Have you ever experienced this? Kids are brutal – they’ll tell you it’s stupid right to your face. Or, if not, they’ll just walk away or do something different, or whatever.
Far better when we can show up for play with confidence in ourselves – the kind of play that does not require a child, or anyone, to validate the game or character or activity for us. Why? Because we like it ourselves. We are already content.
When we do this, we offer something very precious into the room, the yard, or the playground. Even if a child does not interact with the play, they observe our presence, our willingness, our simple joy in the moment. This is priceless.
It takes supreme guts. It takes real practice. But practice we can, and the payout is literally life-changing.
In contrast, try to understand the emotional weight we put on a child, or another adult, when we need them to approve our offering, or game, or whatever by being happy for us?
Some readers might get hit in a soft spot as you read this, then recognize how you yourself were treated this way - far too much. Playing with mom or dad was too often a way to cheer them up, as if our childlike wonder or playfulness was a sort of medicine for parental depression or overwhelm. Parental overwhelm is very real, but the solution isn’t to draw energy or inspiration from our kids. Dynamics like this can plague people their entire lives.
I find it fascinating that play, when taken seriously, opens us to all kinds of vulnerable memories and experiences. It isn’t about fun, not exclusively. Play is a full human experience.
A Recent Play Ground Activity
Codependent Play. Confident Play. I’m not trying to be very specific with either of these terms, not yet. I’m merely trying, as an average and caring dad, to describe the elements of play that bring people and kids together in joyful, inexpensive, and simple ways.
Practice confidence in your play. This is what I’m doing in Play Ground. I’m starting off with very simple activities to build a repertoire of solo-play that can be shared with kids (or other adults) without requiring them to approve or validate us.
To become confident in play may require us to practice and play on our own, at least at first. And especially if one hasn’t played in a long time. But if you’ve ever enjoyed a sunny afternoon of play with a handful of kids, or even just ten minutes after a busy workday, or a silly game with bendy-straws at a bar with a friend - then you can understand why play means so much to us. Ten minutes of play can transform an entire day of cynicism and frustration.
If you’re interested in exploring this with me more, join Play Ground. It’s a WhatsApp group (27 adult members and growing) exploring simple playful practices, then sharing about those experiences and learning from one another. And it’s free.
Play is an ingredient. It is not a distraction or a solution. It is an ingredient in life that enriches and expands our capacity for experience, so that the serious work and the painful losses that are real and unavoidable in life, become balanced. We want the entire recipe to feel balanced, devastatingly beautiful, and full of energy.
Joseph Sarosy is the author of Off Grid Kids, Juniper Heartwood, and How to Tell Stories to Children. He is the creator of the Juniper School, a forest school in northern New Mexico, a founder in the VELA Network, and an innovator of Indie Education. He is currently facilitating a project called Play Ground, a no-cost WhatsApp group for adults who want to reawaken playfulness in their daily lives.