I am the proud father of two sons. One is soon to turn ten years old, and the other is six. In Japan, the school year starts in April, so it is spring break for them. But, I had to work today, and I also had the responsibility of watching them. So the day became an impromptu take-your-kids-to-work day.
My office is a ground-floor space in a building that has two floors of apartments, and one floor of retail and office space. It is in between an owl cafe and a hair salon. We use the space for having meetings and shooting videos.
Today, I only had meetings scheduled, so there wasn’t much interesting for them to do. When we do video shoots, my kids can help out with lighting, or just observe the video-making process. While there was nothing interesting for them to observe in terms of my work, there was plenty of stuff for them to do.
We brought some board games and art supplies for them. But, there are also a lot of random things at the office, including a set of unsharpened katana swords, and a weight bench.
I trusted them to play with both of those things, even though they are things that could be considered dangerous. The result was that they played quietly for a long time exploring these interesting things, allowing me to work in peace.
They mostly posed with the swords and practiced swinging them a little bit. The only rule I gave them was not to fight with them. With the weights, they practiced putting them on and off the barbell and added up the numbers on the plates. So they got some PE and math all while having fun.
What would have happened if I prohibited them from playing with these things? I’m guessing there would have been some loud and attention-seeking behaviors.
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