As adults, we often don’t have a lot of time for creativity. Our days are overscheduled and everything we do has a specific goal or outcome attached to mind. Work Together Wednesday is your chance to reconnect with play for the sake of playing alongside your child. It’s the stressful middle of the week so keep things fun and simple. Free playing together with multi-use materials fosters initiative, curiosity, creativity, and the ability to focus in young children. It also might come as a relief to the busy, stressed out adults in their lives.

For Work Together Wednesday, there’s really no need to plan a specific activity. Instead look around your home or community and use what’s there. Just talk and play with your child in a very unstructured way. Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Build a pillow and blanket fort together. Ask your child questions about what they’re doing and follow the rules of their make-believe world while you build.
• Offer your child some materials from the recycling like paper towel rolls and cardboard boxes. See what they invent and use it together!
• Go to the park and step outside and point out things they can play with- leaves, twigs, and pebbles offer up infinite possibilities for imaginative play. Your child might make a potion or fairy house.
• If your child really wants to play with toys, offer them things like clay or blocks that can be used a lot of different ways and don’t have a specific purpose. Make some suggestions and see what they create!

By Jordan Shafer, LCSW (she/ her)

Jordan was a School School Worker for seven years with San Francisco Unified School District, working with children in grades pre-K- eighth grade as well as families and educators. She is highly skilled in supporting children’s mental health, social development, and their wellbeing as flourishing members of their communities. She recently relocated from California to her home state of Connecticut to raise her growing family.