In our hurry to have our children walk, or in our anxiousness to serve them, we may cause them to skip stages essential for neural development. Instead, when we let the process happen—without trying to hurry or help it along—we are allowing the development of our child’s brains and bodies.

Carl Jung said that children do not distinguish between ritual and reality. In the world of childhood, toys are ritual objects with powerful meaning and resonance.

A deep comfort in one another’s company is what we look for in family; it’s what we want our children to feel. A sense of ease that doesn’t depend on a shared interest, activity, or conversation.

in play children use what they can move, and what they can transform with their imagination.

Children love to be busy, and useful. They delight in seeing that there is a place for them in the hum of doing, making, and fixing that surrounds them.

But children also need containers for the truth, for situations that may be difficult for them to understand.

With stories they have an arena for their own feelings and questions, a place to process the truth through their imaginations.

make-believe play helps children develop critical cognitive skills known as executive function.

Any activity a child can “lose himself in” allows for a release of tension, and the mental ease needed to process the day’s events.