Let’s take a look at our children for a moment while they play. Let’s observe how they respond to their environment. They see their surroundings through a fresh, natural and uninhibited lens, engaging with the world with a spontaneity that sometimes seems to slip out of control as we go through the stages of life. Children act in their world with a naturalness and boundless imagination that sometimes seems illusory to us adults.

As we grow and condition ourselves through life experiences, we begin to form beliefs and attitudes that sometimes get in the way of experiencing opportunities and possibilities that are right in front of us. As we begin to limit our vision of what is relevant to our lives in the moment, we narrow the lens, restricting the panoramic view of a more promising future. As we lose sight of the different perspectives and options that would allow us to reap and reap the rewards of greater clarity and awareness, we settle for the ordinary and complacent.

Children, who are curious by nature, ask questions about everything. Do we do the same or do we worry about looking silly or foolish to others? Do we analyze the question in our minds first to decide what the attitudes or reactions of others might be? Do we end without asking the question at all?

As parents, our limiting attitudes and beliefs often prevent us from seeing what the true reality is, and not the illusion we may have created. Our lens becomes too focused and narrow to be completely honest and open about what we see.

Should we go down and play with our children? Absolutely, we should and on a daily basis. Absolutely, we must break out of our self-made molds or scale the walls of our self-made narrow-minded perspectives and experience the freedom, the freedom of being in the present moment with the interaction of the game.

Your child can teach you to remember what you once knew: the release and joy that play can bring. It can open your mind once again to the panoramic view you once had of the world. Creativity and an awakened flow of imagination will show you new doors to go through that you might otherwise miss. There is so much you can learn about life through your child’s eyes, so come down and play.