Fun is fun so long as it's fun
One working definition of adulthood, for me, is that no one can make me watch fireworks for the Fourth of July anymore.
No one can make me go to a cookout, either, for that matter.
Yes, I said “make.”
I know that fireworks and cookouts are supposed to be fun.
And they are. Except when they aren’t. Fun is only fun if it’s fun.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately in my adventures in autismland.
I’ve been reading a new - newish? model for assessing and educating autistic children. And it’s not horrible. I realize “not horrible” is not exactly a ringing endorsement, but honestly in this field, “not horrible” is actually pretty rare. I can’t think of another system that is better overall and I can certainly name worse ones. It recognizes sensory needs. It incorporates visual supports and augmentative and alternative communication methods. It recognizes that in times of stress, adults adding more words to the situation can cause more harm than good. It includes the idea that children should be taught to request breaks and given supports to do so and have the request respected. These shouldn’t be revolutionary ideas in education or therapy settings, but they pretty much are.
But it is not without problems, and one of those problems is the way that it privileges certain types of play over other types. It also privileges spontaneous spoken communication (even though one of the creators has done research on the function of echolalia and found, unsurprisingly, that echolalia has functions) and eye contact and interaction with non-disabled children over solo pursuits.)
Play is what I want to talk about, though. Play and fun.
The makers of this model are not the only people to consider certain types of play as better than other types. And they are pretty consistent in their judgement.
Spinning car wheels is bad play. Flicking doll eyes open and closed is bad play. Closely watching boxes fall off a table is bad play. Lining up blocks is bad play. Sorting dinosaurs by color, or size, or diet is bad play. Working math problems at recess is bad play. Looking for rocks on the playground is bad play.
Running cars on the table and making “vroom vroom” noises is good play. Feeding dolls and putting them to bed is good play. Pretending a box is a hat and wearing it is good play. Building castles out of blocks is good play, unless it’s the same castle over and over, of course. Having carnivore dinosaurs eat herbivores is good play. Monopoly with classmates is good play. Soccer on the playground is good play.
Actually, a lot of times, activities in the first category aren’t even called “bad play” or “wrong play.” They often aren’t considered “play” at all. “He doesn’t really play,” says a parent or therapist, which makes me wonder what the child was doing for the past fifteen minutes when touching and licking toys with a big grin.
Maybe I got the definition of “play” wrong.
(Stops. Consults google.)
“engage in activity for enjoyment and recreation rather than a serious or practical purpose.”
No, I got the definition right.
I checked “fun” too, while I was at it.
“enjoyment, amusement, or lighthearted pleasure.”
That’s what I thought.
What has happened is that many people, including teachers and therapists and researchers, but also actually most people, have reworked “play” and “fun” to refer to things that the majority of people consider play or find fun. This reworking is so deeply engrained as to go unnoticed as a reworking. That’s privilege for you.
“I hate to travel,” I say.
“But traveling is FUN” says a coworker.
No, travel is fun for my coworker because it’s fun for her. It’s not fun for me because it isn’t. It’s a privilege to be able to assume that fun for you and fun for most is fun for all.
Now, none of this is to say that life should be all fun, all the time. Children and adults have to do all sorts of things they don’t find enjoyable, usually on a daily basis. Some necessary things that are frequently considered not-fun include taking medicine, getting vaccinations, stopping a great video game to have a family dinner, washing dishes, attending 7AM work meetings, drawing up a budget. . . the list goes on.
I’m not even saying that children shouldn’t ever have to do things they don’t find fun that most people find fun. The way schools currently work, many children have to play at least some soccer in order to get credit for PE class in order to graduate from high school. Maybe schools should work this way and maybe they shouldn’t, but many of them currently do. But even if it’s OK to make kids play soccer, we should at least respect these kids by letting them know we understand it isn’t fun for them. If you tell a soccer-hater that soccer is fun, that probably isn’t going to improve how they feel about soccer. It may, however, negatively impact how the child feels about you. It may possibly even impact how they feel about trying other activities billed as “fun” in the future. This is really really hard for a lot of people with reasonably conventional ideas of “fun” to understand. This includes a lot of teachers and therapists and parents.
And there are also times when people may choose to do things they don’t particularly enjoy, for various reasons. Take that kid who hates soccer. He wants to play with the other kids at recess, and those kids like to spend recess playing soccer. The kid may choose to play soccer anyway, at least sometimes, because the enjoyment of the group activity outweighs the dislike of the activity. That’s a valid choice. The kid may also choose to do something else, alone, or to suggest another group activity and see if anyone wants to join in. Those are valid choices too.
I made spaghetti and meatballs for my father this year for Father’s Day. It’s his favorite dish. I hate meatballs. I have never liked meatballs and probably never will. But I made them and I ate them. That was a choice, one I’m glad I made and would make again under similar circumstances. What isn’t OK is to tell me that meatballs are objectively good, or tasty. Because they aren’t. Meatballs taste great, if they taste great. They don’t if they don’t. That’s the same for all foods. And all activities, really. Someone may start to like something they previously disliked, or start to find an activity fun over time, but simply calling something good, or tasty or fun doesn’t actually make it so.
When I hear that a child plays alone at recess, I do my best to find out why. I typically ask the child what they tend to do at recess and what they most like to do, or would most like to do. This is how I found out about the kid who liked to work math problems, and the kid who liked to look for rocks, whose parents and teachers were expressing concern, respectively. When I see goals for children to interact more at recess, I question those goals. If the kid wants to join group play but doesn’t know how, those are great goals, to teach and support those skills, and recess is a great time to do it. And there are certain goals I support teaching even for children who prefer to be alone, such as sharing materials and not interrupting other people. Those are useful skills for the classroom which can become useful skills for the workplace. However, I question the rationale for teaching those goals at recess. Recess is supposed to be a time for fun, for play, for free time, for down-time.
Instead it’s turned into a time to teach hard things.
All children, all people, need down-time. There’s reasonable evidence to suggest that most autistic people need more down-time, not less. Time spent communicating with words and non-verbal signals is difficult. Time spent around sensory input is tiring. Time spent thinking through everything you are about to do and say is exhausting.
The least we can do is refrain from filling up “play time” and “fun time” and “down time” with more things that are difficult and exhausting. Oh and also, we can not lie to people and tell them they are having fun if they aren’t.
Here’s a list of some things I find fun and enjoyable. Note that some of these fit more with popular conceptions of fun than others. Cooking. Scottish Country Dance. Reading Harry Potter. Watching ER. Reading cookbooks to better understand the science or history of food. Discussing the use of language in Harry Potter. Jigsaw puzzles. Crossword puzzles. Watching Broadway musicals. Writing parodies to songs from Broadway musicals. Discussing continuity errors in ER episodes. Reading blogs written by autistic people. Taking trains.
Here’s a list of things I don’t find fun or enjoyable. Note that some of these also fit more with popular conceptions of fun than others. Washing dishes. Discussing romantic relationships in ER episodes. Traveling. Watching fireworks. Going to early meetings at work. Going to crowded places. Playing or watching sports. Driving a car.
Not liking popular things is irritating, because popular things are everywhere. But disliking popular things brings an additional level of difficult, because popular things aren’t just everywhere for the convenience of those who like them, but everywhere for the assumed convenience of everyone. So conversations about what should be a matter of taste become situations where one has to defend one’s right to an opinion and appeal to the very definition of fun.
“How can you not like -“ hamburgers? To travel? Going to parties to get drunk? Watching football? They’re good! It’s fun!
Well, no. Play is play if you are enjoying yourself playing. Fun is fun so long as it’s fun.
And if you enjoy fireworks and cookouts, I can pull up in my mind the wonderful fun feeling I have staying home and cooking salmon and trying a new recipe for strawberry shortcake. (Did you know that salmon and potatoes are a very traditional Fourth of July meal?) And I can assume that fun for you feels like fun for me, no matter how different the specifics.
Wouldn’t it be great if everyone could substitute that feeling of fun for the imposition of conventional fun? Wouldn’t we all have a lot more fun?
No one can make me go to a cookout, either, for that matter.
Yes, I said “make.”
I know that fireworks and cookouts are supposed to be fun.
And they are. Except when they aren’t. Fun is only fun if it’s fun.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately in my adventures in autismland.
I’ve been reading a new - newish? model for assessing and educating autistic children. And it’s not horrible. I realize “not horrible” is not exactly a ringing endorsement, but honestly in this field, “not horrible” is actually pretty rare. I can’t think of another system that is better overall and I can certainly name worse ones. It recognizes sensory needs. It incorporates visual supports and augmentative and alternative communication methods. It recognizes that in times of stress, adults adding more words to the situation can cause more harm than good. It includes the idea that children should be taught to request breaks and given supports to do so and have the request respected. These shouldn’t be revolutionary ideas in education or therapy settings, but they pretty much are.
But it is not without problems, and one of those problems is the way that it privileges certain types of play over other types. It also privileges spontaneous spoken communication (even though one of the creators has done research on the function of echolalia and found, unsurprisingly, that echolalia has functions) and eye contact and interaction with non-disabled children over solo pursuits.)
Play is what I want to talk about, though. Play and fun.
The makers of this model are not the only people to consider certain types of play as better than other types. And they are pretty consistent in their judgement.
Spinning car wheels is bad play. Flicking doll eyes open and closed is bad play. Closely watching boxes fall off a table is bad play. Lining up blocks is bad play. Sorting dinosaurs by color, or size, or diet is bad play. Working math problems at recess is bad play. Looking for rocks on the playground is bad play.
Running cars on the table and making “vroom vroom” noises is good play. Feeding dolls and putting them to bed is good play. Pretending a box is a hat and wearing it is good play. Building castles out of blocks is good play, unless it’s the same castle over and over, of course. Having carnivore dinosaurs eat herbivores is good play. Monopoly with classmates is good play. Soccer on the playground is good play.
Actually, a lot of times, activities in the first category aren’t even called “bad play” or “wrong play.” They often aren’t considered “play” at all. “He doesn’t really play,” says a parent or therapist, which makes me wonder what the child was doing for the past fifteen minutes when touching and licking toys with a big grin.
Maybe I got the definition of “play” wrong.
(Stops. Consults google.)
“engage in activity for enjoyment and recreation rather than a serious or practical purpose.”
No, I got the definition right.
I checked “fun” too, while I was at it.
“enjoyment, amusement, or lighthearted pleasure.”
That’s what I thought.
What has happened is that many people, including teachers and therapists and researchers, but also actually most people, have reworked “play” and “fun” to refer to things that the majority of people consider play or find fun. This reworking is so deeply engrained as to go unnoticed as a reworking. That’s privilege for you.
“I hate to travel,” I say.
“But traveling is FUN” says a coworker.
No, travel is fun for my coworker because it’s fun for her. It’s not fun for me because it isn’t. It’s a privilege to be able to assume that fun for you and fun for most is fun for all.
Now, none of this is to say that life should be all fun, all the time. Children and adults have to do all sorts of things they don’t find enjoyable, usually on a daily basis. Some necessary things that are frequently considered not-fun include taking medicine, getting vaccinations, stopping a great video game to have a family dinner, washing dishes, attending 7AM work meetings, drawing up a budget. . . the list goes on.
I’m not even saying that children shouldn’t ever have to do things they don’t find fun that most people find fun. The way schools currently work, many children have to play at least some soccer in order to get credit for PE class in order to graduate from high school. Maybe schools should work this way and maybe they shouldn’t, but many of them currently do. But even if it’s OK to make kids play soccer, we should at least respect these kids by letting them know we understand it isn’t fun for them. If you tell a soccer-hater that soccer is fun, that probably isn’t going to improve how they feel about soccer. It may, however, negatively impact how the child feels about you. It may possibly even impact how they feel about trying other activities billed as “fun” in the future. This is really really hard for a lot of people with reasonably conventional ideas of “fun” to understand. This includes a lot of teachers and therapists and parents.
And there are also times when people may choose to do things they don’t particularly enjoy, for various reasons. Take that kid who hates soccer. He wants to play with the other kids at recess, and those kids like to spend recess playing soccer. The kid may choose to play soccer anyway, at least sometimes, because the enjoyment of the group activity outweighs the dislike of the activity. That’s a valid choice. The kid may also choose to do something else, alone, or to suggest another group activity and see if anyone wants to join in. Those are valid choices too.
I made spaghetti and meatballs for my father this year for Father’s Day. It’s his favorite dish. I hate meatballs. I have never liked meatballs and probably never will. But I made them and I ate them. That was a choice, one I’m glad I made and would make again under similar circumstances. What isn’t OK is to tell me that meatballs are objectively good, or tasty. Because they aren’t. Meatballs taste great, if they taste great. They don’t if they don’t. That’s the same for all foods. And all activities, really. Someone may start to like something they previously disliked, or start to find an activity fun over time, but simply calling something good, or tasty or fun doesn’t actually make it so.
When I hear that a child plays alone at recess, I do my best to find out why. I typically ask the child what they tend to do at recess and what they most like to do, or would most like to do. This is how I found out about the kid who liked to work math problems, and the kid who liked to look for rocks, whose parents and teachers were expressing concern, respectively. When I see goals for children to interact more at recess, I question those goals. If the kid wants to join group play but doesn’t know how, those are great goals, to teach and support those skills, and recess is a great time to do it. And there are certain goals I support teaching even for children who prefer to be alone, such as sharing materials and not interrupting other people. Those are useful skills for the classroom which can become useful skills for the workplace. However, I question the rationale for teaching those goals at recess. Recess is supposed to be a time for fun, for play, for free time, for down-time.
Instead it’s turned into a time to teach hard things.
All children, all people, need down-time. There’s reasonable evidence to suggest that most autistic people need more down-time, not less. Time spent communicating with words and non-verbal signals is difficult. Time spent around sensory input is tiring. Time spent thinking through everything you are about to do and say is exhausting.
The least we can do is refrain from filling up “play time” and “fun time” and “down time” with more things that are difficult and exhausting. Oh and also, we can not lie to people and tell them they are having fun if they aren’t.
Here’s a list of some things I find fun and enjoyable. Note that some of these fit more with popular conceptions of fun than others. Cooking. Scottish Country Dance. Reading Harry Potter. Watching ER. Reading cookbooks to better understand the science or history of food. Discussing the use of language in Harry Potter. Jigsaw puzzles. Crossword puzzles. Watching Broadway musicals. Writing parodies to songs from Broadway musicals. Discussing continuity errors in ER episodes. Reading blogs written by autistic people. Taking trains.
Here’s a list of things I don’t find fun or enjoyable. Note that some of these also fit more with popular conceptions of fun than others. Washing dishes. Discussing romantic relationships in ER episodes. Traveling. Watching fireworks. Going to early meetings at work. Going to crowded places. Playing or watching sports. Driving a car.
Not liking popular things is irritating, because popular things are everywhere. But disliking popular things brings an additional level of difficult, because popular things aren’t just everywhere for the convenience of those who like them, but everywhere for the assumed convenience of everyone. So conversations about what should be a matter of taste become situations where one has to defend one’s right to an opinion and appeal to the very definition of fun.
“How can you not like -“ hamburgers? To travel? Going to parties to get drunk? Watching football? They’re good! It’s fun!
Well, no. Play is play if you are enjoying yourself playing. Fun is fun so long as it’s fun.
And if you enjoy fireworks and cookouts, I can pull up in my mind the wonderful fun feeling I have staying home and cooking salmon and trying a new recipe for strawberry shortcake. (Did you know that salmon and potatoes are a very traditional Fourth of July meal?) And I can assume that fun for you feels like fun for me, no matter how different the specifics.
Wouldn’t it be great if everyone could substitute that feeling of fun for the imposition of conventional fun? Wouldn’t we all have a lot more fun?