Yes it’s that simple song which is nearly 90 years old! But I was thinking more about actually blowing bubbles.
When my children were very young I found a fantastic big bubble maker. You had a bucket of soap mix outside and they could run around the garden making big bubbles and long bubbles – it was great fun for everyone.
I saw an interview today on CBS Sunday Morning of an ex-special ed teacher who had blown bubbles (I’m guessing one-on-one) with a boy with autism. For the first time that child stopped what he was doing, came and sat with the teacher and looked him in the eye!
Wow! The man does bubble shows these days.
I have frequently used simple, and cheap, pots of bubbles for very young children – you certainly get your dollar’s worth. I also used it as a first way to reach a speech delayed and terribly anxious 2 year old (was/is she on the spectrum? I don’t know).
We spread newspaper on the tile floor in her kitchen – obviously her parents weren’t there because we could squeal as much as we liked! She also started to talk. I could say “Can you say ‘bubbles’?†and she’d give it a try. It’s such a lovely word for such a child to try and pronounce, its happy and you’re doing something happy together.
It’s a bit like sharing an apple and the word ‘apple’ when a child has never seen one before – another first word! (same child – shall we call her Exhibit A as my first charge who had astounding and horrifying delays?)
The important thing is to make these activities, eating and bubble blowing as examples, one-on-one, happy and sociable. Then the responses (speech) come like wild fire.
I am assuming that the child the special ed teacher connected with was over 3 years old since autism is seldom diagnosed before that age – often much later.
So that means that in that child’s first few years no one sat and blew bubbles with him to try and draw speech out of him? That’s astounding to me. Bubble making soap can even be made at home. I just found numerous ‘recipes’ online so I’m sure they’re in library books too.
I am alarmed to think that the 83% of children under 8 from the middle class families I know who have some developmental and social delays, diagnosed and undiagnosed, might never have blown bubbles or had someone blow bubbles for them.
I think it must be because their parents have forgotten how to play – perhaps they never played in their own lives?
I’m probably unusual because during my school, working and college years (yes they came in that order!) I thought of my ‘real’ life as being at the weekends when I went sailing – ultimate freedom and true playtime. As a child I had freedom to play, to make mud pies (some of our ‘beach’ was very muddy, but so much fun!) or sandcastles at the beach. We dug up the clay soil in our back garden and created little pots; we made plaster of paris Toby jugs from plastic moulds. We had dressing up boxes full of old clothes; we had cowboy outfits made from WWII blackout material, a little gold fringe and we were all set.
These were our play things. We had freedom to be, to play, to devise our own games and projects.
My youngest son once built a go-kart from scrap wood. We went back and forth to the ironmongers (hardware store!) for all the bits and pieces and finally with his big brother riding his bike and towing it we all arrived with great pride at the ironmongers to show them the finished project!
Within a year that youngest son had his first volunteer job – 1 hour a week cleaning shelves and sweeping in the ironmongers – boy was he a happy camper (he was 8 years old, remember he was totally home educated so had the freedom).
To him that became part of his playtime, albeit something he took very seriously. But he and his brother seem to balance play and seriousness now that they’re grown men and the youngest certainly has very good business savvy. He literally started from the bottom.
My oldest son got the job of a lifetime well before he became the renowned computer design guru he is today. He was employed as an assistant to a local museum director a year or so before the museum actually opened. He had many interesting opportunities in that job – all up his alley relating to the handling of historic documents and artifacts.
One of the first projects he did was make a scale model of the proposed interior layout of the museum. Here was a young guy who had spent hours and hours making historically detailed scale models – WWII planes, submarines. His playtime, which he too took seriously, became his work.
Learning about computer programmes and the interactive nature of many of the museum exhibits was how he played in his late teens and early 20’s. What was playtime to him then is the foundation of his work today.
So the thing is, from play comes fun and then automatically learning takes place, you just can’t stop it.
If parents don’t blow bubbles and have fun with their little ones then they are on the wrong track.
That is why we have 83% (my own statistics, more girls than boys) of children with developmental delays.
It’s actually a sign that it’s not an epidemic caused by something outside our control – autism and related conditions are well within our control – we just have to spend time one-on-one blowing bubbles and then the bubble that the child is living in will burst and they will be free to play.
I’m going to blow bubbles today! Try it yourself and see how you smile!