By serial dramatic play is meant a dramatic game which is taken up
day after day for a considerable period, until it becomes a continued
story. The children who engage in this sort of play are, of course,
getting a much finer intellectual stimulus than those who play entirely
in a desultory and disconnected fashion. Not all children have the
capacity to sustain games of this sort. Here comes one of the great
fellowship opportunities of parenthood.
A good illustration of this sort of play is the war game which Robert
Louis Stevenson used to play with his step-son, Lloyd Osbourne. Owing
to the tireless resourcefulness of the older play-mate, the two
utilized nearly the whole house for a series of sieges and strategies,
and went so far even as to publish bulletins from the field of war,
which they printed upon a small press.
Mr. H. G. Wells, the novelist, has played with his two small children
by means of blocks, Noah’s Ark people, twigs and miscellaneous objects,
several series of games of war and peace, which he has described
most delightfully in his book, Floor Games. The parent who tells a
continued story to his children, which they illustrate together by
crude drawings, is engaged in an operation which is fully as much a
game as a story, and which often results in the children acting out
the story after it has been told or adding chapters to it of their own
composition. So keenly do they visualize the characters of such a story
that upon being suddenly called upon to relate what happened in their
favorite hero’s life after some particular incident they will often
reminisce as vividly as if they were telling their own histories. A
method of doing this by handicraft is suggested on a previous page.
A description is given in another monograph (Table Talk in the Home)
of a method by which a mother secured beautiful behavior at table by
naming the children for real personages and teaching them to regard
each other as distinguished guests. This device lasted successfully
for a considerable time. It is a pleasant custom to relate certain
cooperative games and enjoyments of parents and children to the home
festivals.
It is most enjoyable for families, at their reunions, to act out
together the family history. This dramatic commemoration of proud
events in the family history stimulates the younger generation with the
desire for achievement, and instills a wholesome pride and self-respect
which will often prevent them, through the temptations of youth, from
acting in a manner unworthy of their ancestors.
Recently two young veterans who had just returned from eighteen months’
service with the American army in France were given a dinner by one
of their neighbors who wished to celebrate their home-coming. Her
six-year-old son, whose grandfather had served in the Civil War, was
much excited for some weeks preceding the long-anticipated welcome
dinner. On the memorable evening he was dressed in khaki, in imitation
of the soldier guests, and wore his grandfather’s sword. The double
significance of that evening will probably never be forgotten by this
six-year-old, who felt the dignity of his position as grandson of a
Civil War veteran and host of two World War heroes.