In our speed-of-light modern lives, it is more important than ever that we not sacrifice our children’s important and slow “work play” on the altar of too many—tempting—extracurricular activities.

But all that busyness? That sense of industry when we’re running our kids frantically to All The Things? That’s important, right? No. It might be a portion, a small asset in our lives. But not the main event.

The building blocks to who they are, and will be, happen during slow play. Kids should have leisure—btw, that looks like “Mom, I’m bored!” first. But boredom forces them to dig deeper!

Carve out and protect their time to engage, explore, marvel, and understand.

Let them play.