"Although there are benefits to organized sports, they are not the same as playing in the sense we're talking about. Children need time to make up episodes, carry on pretend adventures, live heroic lives, lay sieges and defend forts, even if the fort is only an old armchair. Adults must not interfere or tell the children what to play. They need to accept the fact that this is something they don't understand, and, even more, their very presence carries the cold breath of reality that makes the pretend illusion dissipate and fade away. Think what it must be like for a commanding general leading his soldiers when some intruder into his play-world tells him to tie his shoes!
There's an idea going around that children need to be taught how to play--and that we need to teach them to pretend how to be little fishies and lambs and butterflies [Froebel's novel idea called 'kindergarten!'] Children undoubtedly enjoy these games that are made up for them, but they carry a risk. A child who gets used to crutches may never learn to walk on his own.
Children who spend a lot of time playing with grown-ups won't learn to create their own games and make believe, so they miss the education that comes from being allowed to go their own way and live 'as if his whole job as continual imitation.' "
Charlotte Mason
