Quality Time with Our Children
I am writing this to share what I felt last week during the Pangaea Activity held in Shibuya, Tokyo. The Shibuya activity site is a bit unique. We use a traditional Japanese-style room for our activity. To sit on the floor around the table, we combine three small low desks into one large table. Participants are also diverse. Some are elementary school students, while others are in junior high school. The youngest ones are in the third grade. We have girls and boys. Some are shy. Some love to play pranks. We have little ones who still enjoy their childhood. And some are adolescents who feel insecure about themselves.
Anyway, the activity day went like this… All participants showed up in a relaxed mood before our activity began. In the first 30 minutes of the activity, every kid was spontaneously working on his/her tasks, such as leftovers from the previous activity or new assignments he/she picked up. And then, the participants were told that they had 5 more minutes to come and sit down in a circle. Within 5 minutes, the participants, as well as facilitators, gathered in one room and sat down in a circle. When the participants are asked to sit down in a circle, they now know it’s time to listen. That rule has helped me a lot in getting children’s attention easily.
I started talking with the participants by showing the postcards I had bought and the pictures I had taken when I had visited Thailand and Malaysia at the end of last year. The participants got thrilled with our big announcement that the Pangaea Project would take off in Malaysia within three weeks. When our 2009 calendars, which had been created with hospitalized children under the support from USB, were handed out to the participants, they got more excited. Moreover, they exclaimed as they found their drawings featured in the calendar. By watching their smiles, I strongly felt that they were spending quality time with Pangaea, as well as their peers. And I thought every kid might need such precious moments for his/her healthy emotional development.
Actually we had a new participant on that day. She appeared to be having a bit hard time initiating conversations with other participants. However, she was getting adjusted to the new world by sharing the same space and her stories with her new friends.
When I looked into our PC room, I saw a 5th grade boy helping third and fourth grade girls. They are good friends, even though they go to different schools. Those girls had drawn pictures and asked the boy to create the animated game using their drawings and the Viscuit, an effective tool to animate drawings.
It was one of our ordinary activity days. But, somehow, I realized Pangaea is needed not only for our children, but also for us, our staff and me, to spend quality time or “therapeutic time” during our activity.
I started talking with the participants by showing the postcards I had bought and the pictures I had taken when I had visited Thailand and Malaysia at the end of last year. The participants got thrilled with our big announcement that the Pangaea Project would take off in Malaysia within three weeks. When our 2009 calendars, which had been created with hospitalized children under the support from USB, were handed out to the participants, they got more excited. Moreover, they exclaimed as they found their drawings featured in the calendar. By watching their smiles, I strongly felt that they were spending quality time with Pangaea, as well as their peers. And I thought every kid might need such precious moments for his/her healthy emotional development.
Actually we had a new participant on that day. She appeared to be having a bit hard time initiating conversations with other participants. However, she was getting adjusted to the new world by sharing the same space and her stories with her new friends.
When I looked into our PC room, I saw a 5th grade boy helping third and fourth grade girls. They are good friends, even though they go to different schools. Those girls had drawn pictures and asked the boy to create the animated game using their drawings and the Viscuit, an effective tool to animate drawings.
It was one of our ordinary activity days. But, somehow, I realized Pangaea is needed not only for our children, but also for us, our staff and me, to spend quality time or “therapeutic time” during our activity.
Posted by: yumi | 8. General
