Anyone here with children? Are you on staycation and you feel your ‘me-time’ gliding away over the 8 weeks of closed creches and schools? How about immersing yourself in play. With your children.
I am at home with my 3.5 year old son (it’s 10am right now and he just asked for chicken…) during the day and then teach in the evenings. When I listen to my son playing with his toys, the stories make me laugh out loud. Some are so fantastic that I can’t imagine how he came up with it. And that’s the issue – have you forgotten how to make up a ridiculous sounding story? Can you tell one that has exciting twists and unexpected additions? Or is it the same pattern every time?
Relying on the same pattern every time can occur in thinking and moving. Children seem so ‘unreliable’ in patterns sometimes, they still have the unhabituated drive to simply do new things and drive us grown-ups nuts. When we compare ourselves to toddlers, we can easily see how getting older means more automatic programs running – well somebody has to do the washing and cleaning and going to work… but do you get home and have your ritual to relax? A beer or wine, because the conditioned association with it is relaxation? Are you getting annoyed if something happens to your routine?
So maybe for the rest of the week, pay attention to your daily routines and if you have some space to do something that is a bit different – leave the TV off and read a book, read a totally different genre than what you usually read, play a game, connect to someone you haven’t talked to in a while.
And make up a crazy story involving totally random characters…
Different input – different output – grow new neural connections!
