Ben proudly announces to every audience that he gets to play dress-ups for fun and as a job. That’s how we pay the bills. Halfway through this holiday run, we turned up with our medieval show ready for some fun. Now this is a show that relies very heavily on the kids interacting since they make up the 16+ different roles in the court. But this group (primary school age) didn’t want to dress up.
“Who wants to be the king or queen?” Most of the group shook their head, “Who wants to be a knight” vocalized rejection. Ben and I looked at each other, how could there be people in the world who don’t want to dress up as a knight? Let alone kids!
The show ended with an extended hands-on section and lots of questions. We love a good question time, getting to see which things have piqued their curiosity and hands-on is always a ball as they try to lift helms and swords with tiny hands until they find the one that’s the “best fit” for them. Even the leaders are always keen to get themselves into a piece of armour.
Chatting to other leaders and teachers at shows since then we admitted being truly surprised at this reaction from the kids and everyone we told was as surprised as we were. It seemed wrong to all of us that kids of that age should be so disenchanted by life.
I think maybe the problem is what they hear from us adults and the uncertainty we share, although Ben and I strongly advocate everyone having as much fun as possible.
So go! Have fun and try to dress up every so often, it’s amazing the difference it makes.
A Life Made Whole 