Improv Theater with LEGO

I have always hated playing pretend with children.

Playing pretend is a game where you act out roles and interact with each other. Things like playing hero, playing shop, or playing house. I used to think that kind of play was exhausting.

That was because I didn't know how to develop the scenarios. I thought hero and battle games were just monotonous tasks of enemies appearing and swinging swords around, and playing house was just a chore of cooking and serving food.

Perhaps that was because my children were still small, and the main goal was just to imitate adults or fictional characters.

But that wasn't the only reason.It was because I had no idea how we could both enjoy it.

It wasn't until my younger son turned seven that I finally understood how to enjoy playing pretend.

I realized that the kind of pretend play I can do is improvisational theater, or ad-lib comedy.

What made it painful was my attitude of 'playing along' with him.

My second son would call out, 'Mom! Let's do town!' 'Town' is our word for 'playing with LEGO'.

At first, it was a game of building a simple town with LEGO and recreating people's daily lives there. Repetitive days of saying 'Good morning' when it was morning, 'Goodbye, goodnight' at night, and 'Welcome!' when someone came to the shop.

Honestly, at first, I was just trying hard to go along with it. But it wasn't fun at all, and it made me sleepy.

So, I decided to stop just 'playing along' with my child's game and started doing it for real. By 'for real,' I meanI stopped playing just to accommodate my child.That is what I mean.

My second son would immediately introduce a villain, which would end up turning into a monotonous battle game. I really hated that, so I...

'This person is doing bad things because he is lonely,' I said, creating a backstory.

Then my second son said,

'Maybe if he comes to the park, he can make some friends.'

So we decided to expand the park. We planted flowers, built benches and a restroom, and had a dog figurine we got as a freebie run around.

Then, the characters got hungry. We talked about how we needed a food shop, so we built a bento shop.

My second son said, 'Let's have this villain work at the bento shop.' I replied, 'I see, maybe if he learns the joy of working, he won't do bad things anymore...' and so on.

In this way, by creating detailed settings, the things we needed next, what we wanted to build, and the story development all started to open up at once.

Eventually, we built a park, a private house, a bento shop, a butcher shop, an auto repair shop, an internet company, a train station, a hot spring, a broadcasting station, a police station, a hospital, and a bank. They were all cheap-looking, but it's interesting how they function perfectly within the story.

I think the reason I started to find this play interesting is that I abandoned the perspective of "playing for them" or "keeping the kids company.".

I started building things I wanted to build or thought were necessary on my own, and I even reached the point where I'd show off with a smug face, saying, "Hey, second son, look at this!! What do you think? Isn't it amazing?" At this point, I don't even know who the child is anymore.

Before, when I was trying hard to keep up with the play, 15 minutes felt like an hour. But now, an hour passes in the blink of an eye, and we can play thoroughly.

At 32, I've finally become able to immerse myself in LEGO!

And on the third day of starting this approach, our pretend play turned into improv theater.

When you get absorbed, "emotional descriptions" start to emerge.

Even in pretend play, when you get absorbed, detailed descriptions of emotions start to appear.

My second son still keeps bringing in thieves and villains. No matter how many times I reform them, he persistently brings the villains back.

Once, the wolf, who was the town's important watchman, was defeated by the villain and died. We all held a funeral ceremony and wept bitterly. However, my second son then added a "cha-ching" sound effect and brought the wolf back to life.

I see, so that's how it is. We proceeded with the story under the premise that the wolf had been miraculously revived by everyone's grief reaching him.

After that, my second son unrepentantly brought out the same villain doll again. Since I wanted to end the battle scene quickly, I went all out to defeat him.

Then my second son said,

"Wait! It was this guy who brought back the wolf's heart!?"

He had connected the funeral where everyone wept when the wolf died earlier with the current fight scene to create a new development.

"Wait... what do you mean?"

I went along with that setting too. It was my own interpretation, but I thought maybe my second son was thinking something like, "Even this villain has a human heart."

What I realized then was that as a result of trying to engage and enjoy it seriously, not only can you become immersed, but you also become able tolay the groundwork for the story and create emotional developments.I realized that.

It gradually stopped being "LEGO play" and started becoming more like improv theater or ad-lib comedy. My second son was thrilled, his face turning bright red as he laughed over and over. I, too, laughed from the bottom of my heart, felt sentimental, and was taken by surprise.

I remembered how hard it used to be when the three of us—my sons and I—would play fighting games. I didn't know what to do. It was boring. But I wanted to play with them too...

So, I decided to play the soundtrack of a historical drama and try doing it in the style of a period play.

Then my eldest son, who was about in the fourth grade of elementary school at the time, actually started crying. He got so emotionally involved in the scene where his younger brother was cut down by the corrupt magistrate (me) and was overcome with grief. It was very similar to that time when I thought, "Is this a theater troupe?"

I learned that if you create detailed settings for pretend play, solidify the stage, and repeat the process of building a story, detailed descriptions of emotions naturally emerge. Complex communication is born, and you can pour your emotions into it.

So this is how you were supposed to do pretend play.

People's wavelengths, tempos, and the feel of play

In this 'town,' there is a sense of trust that 'whatever you do, it will come back in an interesting way.' By expressing what we each think of freely, a chemical reaction occurs. I used to think that this kind of play was only possible if you knew each other well and your wavelengths and tempos matched.

Thinking back to my own childhood, I remember feeling embarrassed to perform something in front of others, or being told, 'That development doesn't make sense.' Among children, there's also the 'I don't want to do that' factor. Like how I sometimes think, 'He keeps bringing out villains and it's annoying.'

But, in the 'town' that my second son and I have, there is a world where 'no matter what I do, the other person will respond to it.'

My second son doesn't tell me 'that's not allowed,' and I don't either. There is an implicit rule that no matter what we do, it will (or we will make it) turn into a somewhat interesting development.

I was never able to play like this with my eldest son, and when my husband tries to join this 'town,' my second son refuses with all his might. The 'town' already has a history of several days and is built on a unique wavelength and tempo.

For each person, there is a different feel depending on the combination, such as 'it's fun to play this with this person,' 'this game doesn't work well with multiple people,' 'this is boring with just the two of us,' or 'this is impossible no matter how you try.'

I feel that the effort to find a way to play where the people there can freely express themselves will save me in the future.

Finding things I can play as a child myself

The reason I think about things like this is because I don't want to play with my children while thinking it's unpleasant or a hassle.

Because I have to be having fun myself.

It's not for the sake of the children, but because I can't stand the feeling of it being unpleasant.

But, I am begged to 'play with me, play with me.' Children have demands like 'do this with me!' The desire to grant their request and the feeling of not wanting to do it clash.

That's why I look for a match point, like 'it's fun to play this way with this child' or 'if we're going to do such-and-such, it's fun to do it this way.' I find games where our wavelengths match. If there are siblings, there is always a game where 'the wavelengths of all these members match.'

This was meant to be a life hack to make my own feelings easier... but it went beyond a life hack and I even felt moved by it.

Finding a match point takes quite a bit of time and is trial and error. But letting go of the perspective of 'playing for the sake of the children' and thinking about how I can return to being a child and play is important to me.

I look forward to seeing how big I can make the 'town' and how deep a story we can create in the future.