“Let’s play infection!”

My head whipped around. “What game is this?” I asked – my mind suddenly filled with terrifying visions of our elementary LearnCliff students coughing in each other’s faces or standing too close together for long periods of time.

“Oh, it’s like tag, but when you get tagged, you become one of the people infected, so you’re it too and you start tagging.”

“Oh ok. Have fun…” And off they ran, spreading out far and wide to avoid “infection.”

I watched as this group of energetic children smiled and laughed, running around after each other, tagging and missing. They played on a grassy field by the side of a beautiful lake, under the bright sun on a cold winter day. And I was struck – by how far away infections felt, but how real they were to these children and to all of us.

 

Children process their lives through play – the good and the bad. New older siblings play with baby dolls. Ninjas and superheroes act out beating the bullies. Stuffed animals feel the same emotions as their young caretakers.

I’m reminded today of children in the Holocaust acting out the horrors around them in games, the vital and necessary way they could make sense of their world. In play, children can bring the scariest parts of their lives into a space where they can confront them and practice ways of dealing with them.

One of the best things we can do for children during this pandemic is give them room to play. And maybe give ourselves some room to play too. To make light of the darkness, to play buzzword bingo with news reports, to play act giving the hug or the high five you can’t give quite yet. Let the kids play, and let yourselves play too.

 

Jocelyn Wildhack is our Chaplain and Camp Director. She is soon to be ordained as a minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA).