Legit Parenting
Legit Parenting
Rediscovering Childhood: Playing Pretend with Jeff and Andy Crocker
Remember when your imagination had no limits? When a cardboard box became a spaceship and a backyard was an unexplored jungle? As we grow up, that magical part of our brain often takes a backseat to our logical, organized prefrontal cortex—but what if reconnecting with play could make us better parents and happier people?
In this fascinating conversation, we're joined by Jeff and Andy Crocker (known professionally as Mr. and Mischief), experts in immersive theater experiences who help adults rediscover their capacity for imagination. Through their award-winning interactive performances like the Apple Avenue Detective Agency, they create safe spaces for grown-ups to step back into childlike wonder without the pressure to "perform."
The couple shares their philosophy that "just because something is pretend doesn't mean it's not important"—a powerful approach they apply to both their artistic work and parenting their eight-year-old daughter. We explore how traditional education often diminishes creativity, why boredom can be the birthplace of imagination, and practical ways parents can nurture creative thinking without controlling it.
Beyond just fun and games, we discover how pretend play helps children process complex emotions and experiences, from everyday frustrations to profound loss. The Crockers reveal their innovative approach to parenting that balances honesty with wonder, allowing their daughter to choose which tooth fairy tradition their family would follow after studying mythology together.
Whether you're seeking to strengthen your connection with your children or simply want to recapture some of the joy and creativity that adult responsibilities have pushed aside, this episode offers a refreshing perspective on why playing pretend matters at every age. Discover how embracing your imagination can transform not just how you parent, but how you experience the world around you.
Welcome to Legit Parenting, where we ditch the social media, perfect parent advice and talk about what really happens and matters in the trenches of parenthood and family life. I'm Craig Nippenberg, father of four, grandfather of two, best-selling author, keynote speaker and family therapist with over 40 years of experience helping parents understand how their kids' brains work. Through my books, private practice and consulting work, I've developed practical strategies that help real parents navigate the tough stuff and build resilient kids. With me is Sidney Moreau, producer and your tell-it-like-it-is mom friend, who's living proof that hot mess mom isn't a stereotype, it's a survival strategy and proof that it's okay. No judgment, no pretending, just real talk from a mom who gets it. Whether you're struggling with school drop-offs, navigating social media drama, trying to hold your marriage together, dealing with a divorce or raising a kid who doesn't fit the mold, you're in the right place. This is Legit Parenting, where we keep it real and remind you just relax, you only need to be this side of good enough. Welcome to Legit Parenting. I'm your host, craig Nippenberg, along with my producer, Sidney Moreau, whose son recently graduated from college that's a big congratulations for him and he's living in New York City, living it up, and he will be successful. He's a dynamite kid.
Speaker 1:We've taken a bit of a break recently from recording because we're starting on a new series on the things of the best of the things of beauty make me cry, and we first thought we'd put together clips from Legit Parenting over the years, and then we've expanded that. We'll have a website. We just launched the first four or five things of beauty in one segment and then we'll have a website where you as a listener can go on and type in. Is it type Sydney? Yeah, you can tell your story of Things of Beauty Make Me Cry and we'll share them as we continue to develop that. But it's taking a bit of time to get it all set up, so you'll have to bear with us. Now. Today I'm very excited.
Speaker 1:The title of this is we're Going to Pretend Just Like your Kids Do, and we have two special guests, jeff and Andy Crocker, and they are two very imaginative, creative people whose performances teach adults, parents, how to play again. Now, as I was preparing for the show, I did research on their site and the stuff they sent me and it's really mind blowing. And I was sitting there like yesterday I'm thinking how do I put this in a linear fashion. And then I thought to myself maybe that's the point, not to have it in a linear fashion, because pretend play doesn't work in a linear fashion. That comes from our prefrontal cortex, or what I call the president. So just for a brain synopsis, quick, your prefrontal cortex helps us pay attention, sit still, get organized, working memory, step-by-step, linear thinking. It's the part of the brain that doesn't really start to develop till age two, three for girls, three, four for boys. Boys are about two years behind in frontal lobe development or development of their president. Now, what they have a lot of when they're little sits right behind the prefrontal cortex. And that area of the brain is where humans can imagine and we can create things and dream and pretend, and not many species are capable of that. I just read a recent piece on that. It's a very unique quality to humans that we can project in the future and add all these things and come up with just all kinds of ideas and imagination. And then our kids get into traditional schools and the imagination part often gets overweighed by the prefrontal cortex of sitting still in the classroom paying attention, doing things in a linear fashion. And by the time we get to be adults we use a lot of our prefrontal cortex and often forget about that other part of our brain that is still there and maybe that's what we need to do more of. So I picked out a few little snippets as I did research and I'll just read a few of these and then I'll give them their official introduction that I got sent the Apple Adventure Detective Agency. That sounds lovely. Fun, forward, interactive experiences, games, theater, comedy, playful, participatory events that they put on experiential design and adventure empowering art. They've done things at the Denver Film Festival with Disney and I loved.
Speaker 1:Andy apparently wrote a guest column for a magazine called Imagine Soup or I don't know if that's just a website, and the topic was how playing pretend like our kids makes us better parents and people. So the title of their bio Mr and Mrs Mischief, not just Mr and Mr and Mischief. I don't want to do the binary thing on that one, but we'll let our audience guess who's Mr and who's Mischief. I'm thinking they're both Mischief. To be honest, looking at you, I think okay, I can see that with both of you, with roots firmly planted in the worlds of theater and themed entertainment, mr and Mischief, aka Jeff and Andy Crocker, create fun, forward journeys beyond the fourth wall.
Speaker 1:With an unexpected blend of storytelling and real-world engagement, the husband and wife team help foster curiosity and connection through immersive experiences that encourage participants to revisit an opportunity to play, pretend. Think of them as your extrovert friends that allow anyone a safe place to step out of their shell and explore in places that otherwise never go. Jeff and Andy created experiences for clients including Universal Studios and Walt Disney Imagineering, and their award-winning work has been praised by the New York Times, broadway World and oh, I don't know how to say that one, I'm dyslexic. No proscenium, that's right, you got it. Yeah, I didn't know if we were allowed to make out loud encouragement yeah, oh, yes, you can.
Speaker 2:Yes, I didn't know if we were allowed to make out loud encouragement. Oh, yes, you can no proscenium.
Speaker 1:I have no idea what that means, but I bet one of the spelling GB champion was crowned yesterday. I think he's from Texas. Our two Colorado kids lost the day before but I bet he knows what that means and how to spell it. What does it mean, jeff? And?
Speaker 2:Annie, presidium is the traditional theater framing device, so the piece that goes around the stage is a presidium. And same thing with when we say beyond the fourth wall. Fourth wall is a theater term, meaning that imaginary wall between the audience and the performance.
Speaker 1:So we don't like those, yes, and the idea that art should flow beyond its frame.
Speaker 2:Exactly. So, proscenium is the traditional theater frame.
Speaker 1:Okay, love it. Welcome to the show. And your parents as well. They have a daughter, correct?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And how old is she now?
Speaker 3:She's eight years old. She'll be nine pretty soon, but she acts like a 25-year-old.
Speaker 1:Sometimes, Okay, so she's got a good prefrontal cortex and manages herself to take it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, she does, but she really does have an extraordinary imagination that is often impenetrable from our side too, whenever we say, hey, what's going on in your story? She's. It's not for you, dad, okay, great, keep on keeping it.
Speaker 1:It's not for you, dad. Yeah, okay, I'm cool with that. Wait till she's a teenager. That gets even worse. I don't want you to know anything, but it sounds like she's blended both the peripheral cortex and she's kept her imagination alive through the process of schooling, which is fabulous.
Speaker 2:Well, I think it's really interesting hearing you speak about the brain and like I've never really thought about us that scientifically, but like for sure, like that's our, that's it's in the title of our company, mr and Mischief, like the constant dance between parts of the brain that are creative, but also like we actually have to design things and make them happen. It's not just playing pretend. There's a lot of design involved.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you need people to help design it and make sure it works.
Speaker 2:We can't just say it's not for you, dad, and then keep playing. We have to share it with humans.
Speaker 3:That's exactly right yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I see a young man who's in college now and he's in theater set design and he wants to be a Broadway set designer and he's incredibly creative, but he's very great at being an engineer and making sure it all stands up and doesn't fall over. The kid's amazing. I think he's doing a program in Romania this summer as a college.
Speaker 3:Cool yeah, the kid's amazing.
Speaker 1:So help us. Help parents get in touch for their creative piece. What's your thoughts? And tell us more about what is it you do or make these experiences. I've never been to one. I think I'd'd like to. We'd love to have you. Jeff, do you want to talk about?
Speaker 2:what we do like we have. These are two big questions. What do we? Do for realsies, and then also how do we do it? So do we want to start with what should? We do with what jeff?
Speaker 3:what do we?
Speaker 2:do? Tell me yes.
Speaker 3:As you said, craig, in the introduction, we create immersive and interactive experiences, oftentimes referred to as immersive theater. In many ways, we think of it, too, as experience design, because it's not always theater-specific, and we do it for guests to come in and they get to be a part of the story. Guests to come in and they get to be a part of the story, they get to actively be engaged with the story that we are trying to tell, or have them be a part of. Andy, what am I forgetting?
Speaker 2:Well, I would just say if theater isn't your bag. One of the things we like to say is we're doing, we trade in all ages imagination, assistance, right, we are building, designing social structures that allow people enough support so that they can play, pretend, in a way that feels that gives them enough support that if they're out of touch with that part of their brain, they can gain the confidence to play and if they're very in touch with that part of their brain, it doesn't feel restrictive. And that's a tricky challenge for design.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it sounds like you shepherd them in if they need it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And it's all ages we very much. A lot of our design is keeping adults in mind, but really anybody that's further from their imagination for whatever reason, be it time, distance, life structure that could come at any age. You could have lost touch with your imagination at 20.
Speaker 3:Well, I think too, Craig, it's like you mentioned at the top of the show, which is like oftentimes, as we get into adulthood, that part of the brain has atrophied a little bit, that imagination part, because we've been exercising the prefrontal cortex so much.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and developing that and your brain speeds up as you get older and it tops out at age 35 at 200 miles an hour. The speed of the neurons sending chemical messages Preschool requires it about five miles an hour. So the brain really speeds up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so much of our lives are dictated by prefrontal functioning and there was a wonderful book written years ago about the difference for human evolution from hunting societies where you needed people to be in the moment, hunting, throwing your spear quick to save you, more impulsive driven hunting, gathering, going about. And as soon as farming came along, our brains kind of switched to long-term planning thinking in an agrarian lifestyle where you have to plan for the future and take things step by step. So the brain has changed over the years, but so often that imagination piece can get squashed.
Speaker 2:Wait. Did we accidentally go on a marriage therapy podcast and no one told us? This seems very applicable to Jeff and my marriage and partnership. Is this a trick? Is this an intervention? What happened?
Speaker 1:No, this isn't. You can have imagination. Maybe I'll get my wife to come on too. Now I'm thinking in terms of the context, cindy. What's the museum we have here now? Or the experiential theater? I've never been to it, it's by the old my Lai Stadium.
Speaker 3:Meow Wolf.
Speaker 1:Meow Wolf. So is that sort of I've never been there but I've heard it Is that sort of experiential?
Speaker 2:First of all, you've got to go. Second of all, no, I missed out on both. We say this because we are in community with those designers and they do incredible work. Our artistic practice is very different, Would you agree, Jeff? If not, we got to go back on the marriage therapy podcast.
Speaker 3:Yeah right, meow Wolf is creating these really bold imaginative art exhibits that people get to play in and really immerse themselves in these worlds of.
Speaker 3:I know, specifically in the Denver area, meow Wolf Convergence Station there is a handful of actors, creative operators that are in there that want to further a storyline that's inside. But the idea is mostly like stoke the artist community, allow there to be a place for these big, bold art installations to sort of come together and make it a really fun, exciting space to be in. What Andy and I do, as Mystery and Mischief tends to want to be like, we focus on one story we like to have as intimate as we can get so that you really feel like you get to be inside of something and feel like you are having this exciting, interactive experience. Feel like you are having this exciting, interactive experience.
Speaker 2:And I would also say we leave a lot of space for visualization and personalization, which you can have. Meow Wolf also has, but it is so visually rich. They have a very visual forward story world and ours, the story, really is built in these human to human interaction that could. Sometimes we have no set at all Oftentimes, and that's not because of budget but sometimes it is.
Speaker 3:I would add that something that Meow Wolf does very well in this sort of like immersive imagination space is they have they're like a story underneath it all, but at the same time they give you a seed to start with, and then they let you off on your own so that you get to do whatever you want in there and allow that imagination to start to grow.
Speaker 2:And we do our weight of design in the interactivity between people. We're very people forward.
Speaker 4:I would say Are your kids joining you in these groups, or is this adult?
Speaker 2:only Did I miss when we say adult. Only that sounds a little more sexy than any of our shows are we do. It depends on the show we have, our, the show that kind of put us on the map, if there is a map of tiny, intimate experiences that nobody knows about. We built an existentialist escape room called escape from god out. Now. Could a kid go to that?
Speaker 3:sure do children we've had some kids come and have a really good time.
Speaker 2:Do they love existentialism?
Speaker 3:some of them it's certainly where they're learning, and I would say.
Speaker 2:I think, and very specifically, the Apple Avenue Detective Agency is a show about childhood, but the kids have a very different experience because it's not about returning to their childhood, because they're already there. So the Apple Avenue Detective Agency is an autobiographical piece about the childhood detective agency I had as a kid where we encountered a real crime, and it is adult themes but we were 11 encountering adult themes. So it's a show. That one in particular is a show about children and about childhood, but not necessarily for them. We try to keep everything as all ages as possible because we're not the ones to judge where people are in their imaginative journey. Does that ring true, jeff? Otherwise we're going back to marriage therapy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, absolutely, and yet there are. We've certainly developed experiences that are specifically all ages, truly for anyone that wants to come from age three to 103.
Speaker 2:We very particularly do not ever say family friendly. We're both kind of allergic to that term. I think it's very antiquated and limiting and family means something very different to every community. Your work family that's toxic but your colleagues and your chosen family, your biological family, intergenerational family. So we really tend to say all ages, because that's what we mean.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's great and your story of the detective agency. My wife and her sister did that and I don't remember the show it was based on, but some detective show back in the 60s, and then they would come up with their own scenarios being detectives and all of that stuff. They'll talk about it fairly often how much fun they had doing that. And you're getting adults back to doing it.
Speaker 2:Well, and without spoiling too much about the Apple Avenue Detective Agency, it really at the core of it is that those of us who played detective as kids and there are a lot of us, I would say not all of us solved a real crime because we did, but all of us who played detective whether it was Nancy Drew or Encyclopedia Brown or the Westing game we developed a framework with which to explore the world, especially in your teens and teens and nine through 12, I'd say, when the world stops making sense, having a framework to ask questions oh, we're playing detective. That's why we're trying to figure out why grownups do what they do. It was a very natural fit for the work we do, bringing people back to their most inquisitive and imaginative selves.
Speaker 1:And would this take place like in a small theater? Hell, no.
Speaker 2:Where's the venue? Okay, jeff Crocker, where does it take place?
Speaker 3:When we premiered it. It premiered at UC San Diego on the campus and we created a little like backyard space. So we put up a fence and we had bicycles and picnic benches and stuff that you would find some family's backyard and so a lot of what we do because we don't like to do traditional theater. Yeah, we created the Apple Avenue detective agency was in this like faux backyard on the ucsd campus and we leveraged all these things the physical, um, all the senses to help create that space in your brain of being what it was like to be a kid. You're walking through the bushes to get to the backyard.
Speaker 2:So we actually had people walk through bushes to get to the backyard. So we actually had people walk through bushes to get to the space. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:We had our characters pass out fruit snack to the audience members. They sit on the ground, you eat fruit snacks and your brain immediately starts to put you back in that, in that feeling of what it meant to be a kid.
Speaker 2:And then when they, when we sent them out to explore the neighborhood and they leave this backyard that we created, we planted methane explore the neighborhood and they leave this backyard that we created we planted methic they just literally went out of the fence and into the big, wide world of the UCSD campus and went looking for mysteries and, unlike an escape room where you're trying to solve puzzles, they were literally just picking up pieces of trash and being like why is there a candy wrapper near the health food store? And then they would, they did it all.
Speaker 2:The audience would just develop mysteries because we put them back in the mindset of being curious. So they would say, oh, there's graffiti over on this flagpole, but there's no graffiti on this. What could it mean?
Speaker 1:That's great and it's so funny because you want your kids to be curious, but not always. And then comes out that parental phase curiosity killed the cat, which means don't be so curious. Or if they start asking questions you don't want to answer, Okay, enough of that.
Speaker 4:And I think too, I have three kids ages 22 to 8, with one in between. Thinking about raising my own kids, I think what happens as parents is we get so programmed to be like how's your day, what'd you do today, how's it going? But I tell a lot of my friends that have kids, especially teenagers, because, like asking your kids how they are, they're allergic to that. But if you create a scenario for your kid, even if it's a little bit far-fetching, you will go so much farther. So, for instance, I have a 17 year old daughter and if I said hey, her name's izzy. If I was like hey is how's your day, she'd be like fine, go, fine, go up to her room, shut her door.
Speaker 4:If I say if I say, izzy, I just went shopping, I need you to help me pick out something to wear, she will be like mom, you look like a dork, don't wear that, all these things. And it starts a conversation. So it's just like as a parent, using your, I think, not only for your kid to be immersed in their world, but to be immersed in your own world in the ways that you connect with your kid, and sometimes you have to role play and even if you're feeling distance with your kid, it's making up those imagination places where your kid can be engaged in your world. That's not fine. I'm fine, because we just put that wall up there, that way, jeff, are you thinking what I'm thinking?
Speaker 2:Let's find out.
Speaker 3:Possibly there's this one time where we asked Andy picked up our daughter Shirley from school and said how was your day? And she said it was fine. This was, I think, a year ago, so she was seven. It was like, yeah, there was a cow on campus.
Speaker 2:We live in Los Angeles, like in the city part of Los Angeles, and we were both like I was like infuriated and delighted. I was like I literally asked you if I think I had said anything interesting happened today and how was your day or whatever. And she was like, yeah, it's fine. And then, like at dinner, once the conversation was going and we were warmed up or whatever, like the cow, it's like legendary, Like I still am like remember the day I asked you if anything interesting happened. You said no and there was a full cow on your campus and so I've taken to uh to to your points indy.
Speaker 3:Like I always ask some, I always ask something to the terms like what was the most surprising thing that happened today? Because what we define as surprising is going to be different than what an eight-year-old thinks is surprising or scary, or silly or interesting or anything like that. I've let her brain pick out the thing that she wants to share.
Speaker 2:To be fair, we all agreed that the cow was surprising. That was 100% surprising.
Speaker 4:But raising kids is requires a high level of imagination to invoke any kind of connection at some point, and I think that's the beauty of that. Like being able, I think as parents and as an adult, we are linear in our thinking. We got to do this, we got to do that. But like thinking outside the box and being creative even if I'm not in my backyard. But being creative with how we connect it gives you full permission to do that, as adults want to be like adults.
Speaker 2:I mean, I don't want to be an adult, but so speak for yourself. That sounds like a nightmare.
Speaker 1:I'm tired of it. I would like to quit.
Speaker 2:Do we have a?
Speaker 4:choice.
Speaker 2:I don't know that's actually a hot tamale question in this household, because I think Jeff and I are very intentional, and I will acknowledge parents of an only privilege. Right, we have one kid who's one age, and we have this like privilege to evolve our parenting with her. It's also high stakes, though, because we're like, oh, we can't do this part over ever again.
Speaker 3:You got one shot.
Speaker 2:But as parents of an only, I think we've made some very intentional decisions about things like we. If she asks a question, we have to answer it, and we have to answer it honestly. Now the. Has that gotten me into trouble before? Did I have to explain French kissing once in a way that made me want to run out into traffic?
Speaker 3:Yes, the same thing. There was a conversation about how humans reproduce. That is like I'm going to do as much as I need to do at this age and then we'll get to the rest later. But being honest is important, is a core value.
Speaker 2:I think in a non-sexy a of creativity, because we made that decision of okay, we're and I will say also caveat like we don't celebrate Christmas, so we don't have to have any, but we didn't mean we didn't have to talk about Santa and I didn't want my kid to be the kid like that kid. So one of the things we did very intentionally was because I believe that kids have the capacity to hold. It's the same reason why someone wearing a character costume in a theme park, like they, can exist both as a character and they know it's real and they know it's not real. They contain multitudes, right. So we explained Santa as oh sorry Spoilers for anyone listening.
Speaker 2:I'm going to talk about Santa that just because something is pretend doesn't mean it's not important to people and that's like a very early on. Just because something is pretend doesn't mean it's not important, is like a through line of our family and it's made it really easy to navigate some of those trickier conversations, which is whether it's faith, whether it's myth or whether it's rumor or whether it's an emotional truth. And when it got time to talk about the tooth fairy, we sat down with her and we looked up the Wikipedia article of tooth fairy myths from around the world and we let her pick which one our family was going to do. We let her pick which one our family was going to do and that tooth mouse writes her letters and we do all of the traditional magic and it doesn't matter that she knows that she chose it from a list of mythology. We play that so hard. We stay up late and make the little footprints from the tooth mouse.
Speaker 2:She picked the tooth mouse from Brazil and France, I think, and I don't know. I feel like that's a. I'm just thinking. I'm speaking in draft right now, jeff, so you're welcome to tell me that's not how it happened, but that it is a really indicative of how we parent and how we play and how we do our work, which is it's pretend and it's important and we can know it's pretend and still have it feel real and have it do what it needs to do for our hearts and guts.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I just love that. Go ahead, jeff. There have been plenty of times where we've dealt with death in our family and you could hear in the background her talking about losing someone close to her, because that's the way she is processing things and that's really important and it's not for us, it is for her. But we know and we sort of hear okay, that is her processing this thing and it's going to happen today and then next week and three weeks from now and a year from now.
Speaker 1:That's why that imagination is so important yeah, and it's helping parents and teachers understand that kids process reality, especially painful realities, through play yeah and imagination and after 9-11 it was happening at all recess playgrounds.
Speaker 1:It happened at ours Little kids playing pretend airplanes, running into playground structures and some of the teachers were just horrified. What's wrong with them? How could they do that? I said they're kids, they're trying to figure it out. After Columbine there were a couple of kids who were running around with the guns right Finger guns and they're just trying to figure out reality through creativity and play and it's really good for them to do that. They have to have a place where they can just imagine.
Speaker 1:For our daughter we have kids 48 down to 19. Yeah, it's a big spread. But for our youngest her magic emotionally to really help her stabilize was drawing her feelings and rather than the main first goal was just to get her to go to her room and deescalate, not throw things at us. We adopted her at seven and she had a trauma history and then we got her a journal and she would sit in there and draw her feelings and just purge herself. We still have her journal, we've kept it and then we would talk about it later and she would explain it. And that have her journal, we've kept it. And then we would talk about it later and she would explain it and that was her chance to just let it come out in art or in some kind of creative imagination or storytelling.
Speaker 2:So beautiful.
Speaker 3:And I think it goes to what we were saying and like what we do is imagination assistance. So, even though we often produce an experience that does have a narrative, it has a story we are trying to tell. We want you to consume as an audience member. Giving you the opportunity to be yourself in that space and to act as you would act in that place is exercising and generating a little bit of empathy and allowing you to do those things, and that the pretend is as important as the actions you are taking, just the sheer fact that you are doing the pretend and I would point out there.
Speaker 2:Jeff, just something you mentioned is we don't have people, so what we don't do, what's known as like LARP, it's not live action, role playing, like we don't have anybody have to do a funny voice or come up with character traits. It's not more like Dungeons and Dragons you don't have stats or a character.
Speaker 1:Right, you don't have the dragon master.
Speaker 2:I mean you have us, but we're doing it real sneaky. You can't see us, but the idea is that everyone comes to this with themselves and it's very opt-in about how hard you want to play, pretend so when we're. We have a one of our shows is called 40 Watts from Nowhere, where you're playing a pirate radio DJ and nobody has to put on anything. They can just be themselves. We make it very simple. We tell you who you are and what you're going to do and then from there they can introduce whatever song they want. They can explore the space however they want, but they don't have. There's no need to put on airs or act or perform. You just have to explore and bring yourself to it. If you want to, I guess you can have. We had people do that.
Speaker 3:We've had people do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but we try to have, especially our more mature participants, our non-kids. We really try to have them spin as few imagination plates as possible. So we're like you're already pretending you're a kid. Like for Apple Avenue, you're already pretending you're a kid, you don't have to make up a new name, all you have to do is just be the version of yourself. You would be in this space, and that's a gift we can give people by design.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's awesome. I was thinking a couple other things. You mentioned you hate that, the phrase family friendly. The phrase that I cannot stand is play date. As soon as you have a play date, guess's in charge? The parents. The parents are in charge. They organize what we're going to do and we'll have these snacks and we'll take pictures to send to the other parents and show them that their kid's having a great time. It's all orchestrated versus kids just playing freely and you can't't really if your parent tells you okay, kids, we're going to play an imagination game. That's not the same as kids coming up with an imagination game on the road Forced fun, forced fun yeah.
Speaker 1:And the kids will often and this is an impulse for parents to help them solve it is your kid comes and says I'm bored, and then you're like, oh, I've got to do something for him or entertain him or whatever. And what they miss is that boredom often is where creativity comes from. So you're in this place of boredom and then you have to think what could I do? What could I imagine? Maybe I'll sit out in the backyard and look at the clouds and find animals up there.
Speaker 1:One time I was on a backcountry hot trip with my son. He was about seven and I did three trips with the car, over the sled, through the snow to get all our gear in for five days and I pulled him in I know he was about five then and I finally sit down at the outside table to eat lunch and he's inside and he says Dad, I'm bored and out of my mouth came great, I'm sure you'll figure out something to do. I never get to be bored. I want to be bored. And when I came to the hut he had camp meat like camouflage netting and hung things up from the walls and had a little fort inside of a yurt. I don't know if you know what a yurt is. It's a Mongolian hut and he had it all creatively designed and I'm like, yeah, being bored is good, and not having an adult to solve it for you, that's a really good tactic.
Speaker 2:We do a different tactic with boredom, but I really like yours and I might have to steal it, but we during lockdown in 2020, and I might have to steal it, but we during lockdown in 2020, we convinced our child that boredom was a dirty word and we will not be saying it in our house. I think we just said in our house we don't use the B word, we don't. We never say bored.
Speaker 2:Because, we were like we're all stuck in here together and so you have to come up with a different word so that we can solve it. Like boredom is too general If you're like hey, this is repetitive, or it's too quiet in here or I want to cheat. So we told her she's not allowed to say but unfortunately, or slash, fortunately we never undid it. So she would be like I was at school today and someone said the B word and we'd be like what? And then she'd be like, yeah, someone said they were bored and I was like, oh, that's just like our house she's going to be the board. But I think saying I'm telling the response of like good is like golden. I am very into that.
Speaker 1:It was different than my mother's response. My mom's response was always go find something to do or I'll find something for you to do, and we knew that meant chores, so we shut up pretty quick. But it is a gift to be bored sometimes and let your imagination just come to life. I think the other thought I had is for kids in general, especially as they're getting into those elementary years. Their brains are figuring out what's fiction, what's nonfiction. And then somebody who says something about their fantasy or it could be the elf on the shelf which thank God you got to miss that.
Speaker 1:We had that with our fourth child, didn't have it with the first three that about puts you no, thank you. Oh, my God, this is brutal. But then other kids will be quick to say to them that's pretend, that's not real. And they do that with each other a lot. And so I'm saying if you have younger kids let's say you have a third grader and you have a kindergartner the kindergartner is still very much into their imagination and creativity. And then they have the older siblings say no, that's not true. And then the little one's feeling shamed oh, I shouldn't be having those thoughts. And as a parent you want to tell the other one what you said, which is because it's pretend, it doesn't mean that it's not important.
Speaker 3:That's right, it's a false it's a false binary.
Speaker 2:That's a beautiful phrase it's a completely false binary. It's super harmful to creativity and I think you brought up the word shame, which I think is maybe why it gives me such it's such a cry trigger for me, like I'm jeff, can see it in my face. Those of you who are just listening. Jeff and I are in separate rooms because of microphone situation, so if you you hear me being like Jeff, what?
Speaker 1:Oh, I thought it was the marital thing. That too, we're actually in separate states. No, jeff's just upstairs.
Speaker 2:No, it's such a cry trigger for me because I'm so protective I like could make myself cry just thinking about I'm going to do it right now, just thinking about, like when she doesn't do this anymore and I'm like fiercely protective of it and I never want that to happen to another kid. Also, it's the same like fiercely protective thing I get when people say someone's too old for trick-or-treating I will fight. I will fight someone, I will fight.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're never too old for trick-or-treating or dressing up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and celebrating whatever the fantasies or beliefs or myths you have. I was as a kindergarten student. I have horrible fine motor skills. I call my handwriting chicken scratch because half the time I can't even read what I write. But in kindergarten I failed crayons and scissors because I couldn't color in the circle without going out and I couldn't cut on the line Right. Then my connection with art class was gone. I hated art class. I just thought I'm not artistic, I can't do it, I'm terrible at it, just dreaded art class.
Speaker 1:And it wasn't until my son was born so he's 32 now and when he was about five we watched a video on drip sandcastle building and I discovered my art is making sandcastles. And we actually got a first place prize at the Great Sand Dunes in Colorado at their sandcastle building contest and we did this whole. God, it was 15 feet across and wow, and it was the history of the world through spirituality. And we dug a deep hole, deep hole on the north side and put in the ancient kivas that the ancient ones in southern Colorado lived in the sides of cliffs the cliff dwellings, if you've ever been out here. And then that gave way to an Egyptian pyramid which was followed by a Roman bridge to a Gothic cathedral, to an arch representing the future of the world, and we got a first place prize.
Speaker 2:As you should, that's amazing.
Speaker 1:Oh, I just love it. I just love building things. I could do it for hours.
Speaker 3:So when you say you failed crayons and scissors, are you implying that that was sort of a little bit like testing your fine motor skills in kindergarten, just sort of thinking about what your development was for all that. And then have you done it. What is your art? Is it still sandcastles that you think of as like sculpting with your hands?
Speaker 1:I think everything is art and I look for beauty in everything. And therapy I teach all our graduate students you're an artist. Therapy is art. Most of the kids we see they've been told the exact same advice we might give. The difference is can you artistically figure out when and how to say it that the child or the parents will listen to you? And when you get an affirming nod from them, you hit it? You're an artist. You've helped create something different in their life picture.
Speaker 3:This thread definitely goes to a core tenet of our design practice, our thinking, our focus on what imagination is. Andy, I'm going to throw to you here in a second, because you do such a better job of explaining. There's a lot of times people come into the world of art as a broad term and say do whatever you want, there are no wrong answers. Whatever you want to do, there are no wrong answers. And we hear that a lot, especially in the world of interactive performance and experience design. And we created a I don't know what you would call it, andy of our practice, which is that, no, there are wrong answers, in that you could create harm. You could do harm. I think, craig, what you're saying about there are times where you can say the right thing but it might not be as impactful as you want it to be. That's important. But, andy, I'm going to throw to you because, like we, there are wrong answers. You can do harm with certain things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're like I feel like no wrong answers is also so much. That's not helpful. I feel like it's a very unhelpful offering, and so we started it, actually just to pull back for a second. I think this came from you and I having a conversation about why I don't like scavenger hunts. I was like we were. We were pulling out something where I was just like I was trying to figure out why I didn't enjoy scavenger hunts and we ended up talking about how no wrong answers is a really hard place to create from. But we were like oh, because there are wrong answers.
Speaker 2:I think it's just insincere to say there are no wrong answers. There are always wrong answers. Causing harm is a big one, but also for various other reasons, there might be in an experience or an art piece or performance where there are wrong answers or game. But as soon as we reframed our design tenet to be there are infinite right answers, it became so much more helpful. And then that is a gift you can give to someone who doesn't see themselves as an artist or doesn't see themselves as a creative, to be like oh, there are infinite ways to do this. It's just a better place to create from both from the designer standpoint, but also passing the baton to the participant and saying to you, you can do this. There are infinite ways to be right, and telling them what are the boundaries can be very freeing. Boundaries are sexy, I think we can all agree.
Speaker 3:Boundaries are sexy. And I think, to go back to what you're saying, craig, about stuff like crayons, paper, no wrong answers is another version. Oh, here's a blank canvas, do whatever you want. Oh, does that not work? Here's another blank canvas. Here's another blank canvas. You could do whatever you want. Here's a blank canvas. And when, in the end, you're like no, I want to sculpt, I want to get my hands dirty and I want to make art three dimensions right in front of me, and understanding that there's infinite ways to create art in that sense, so there are infinite right answers of how you can do that.
Speaker 1:And that just from a therapeutic standpoint in terms of we? I work quite a bit with young adult males who are in the autism spectrum disorder range and are often very rigid in their thinking, and they and I'm always I like the analogy of a stained glass window that you create and bring in other pieces of glass and they'll only see two, and one of them is probably the wrong one. No, don't do that. One day a kid this morning said I'm just going to cut off my contact with my parents. I'm like that's extreme. I don't know about that one, but because they turned off the Internet and so in his mind it's either the Internet's on or I have to cut off my parents if it's not. And then we started brainstorming about there's other ways to go about getting what you want, and there's infinite more pieces of glass that could be right.
Speaker 4:And I think just to bring it and it's trying to expand that thinking.
Speaker 4:And I think, to bring it full circle, what you said to earlier, andy, is they went out of the immersive experience and looked for clues. And what you're saying is there's infinite possibilities, like you have to start looking for it. And I think, craig, somewhere in one of your books you even make the reference like looking for those little moments of that, to find those places. And so looking for clues, looking for the mystery, looking for the connection, looking at the possibility, I think, and like how you're putting it, like you can continue to give somebody a blank canvas and you can redo, and you can redo, and you can redo, but do you really create in that moment, if there's always that? And I think, just to pull this back into my own experiences, my oldest son went to an art school to play the upright bass and he's a very, very talented musician. You can imagine what happened when he went to art school to play the bass. He does not play the bass anymore.
Speaker 1:We sold both bases. They took it out of him, they beat it out of him.
Speaker 4:And he plays the guitar, but it's like there's an and or in the middle of that creation, because when you put so much structure into something, it absolutely robs you of the creativity. You stop looking for those little moments because you're looking for all the little details of the things you've got to check. But you also have to have structure, like they both have to exist the framework, the framework.
Speaker 2:And I will say I am not an expert in any neurodiversity and accessibility, but I will say, anecdotally speaking, there are a quadrillion, an estimated quadrillion, examples.
Speaker 2:Everyone has one that I work with Every immersive theater performer and also a lot of times, like theme park performers, have stories of folks anywhere on the neurodiverse spectrum, the constellation of ways our brains are different, but a lot of like nonverbal folks will talk to characters in immersive theater or that will unlock something in someone. And again, I'm an expert in designing these things. I'm not an expert in the brain, but I do believe that it is that structure, that comforting structure and safety of building the temenos, I think, is how it's pronounced, like the Greek word for a play space, defining that play space, the structure. This is how we interact with each other in this space that allows people to have any age and any point on the neurodiverse spectrum to interact in ways that they wouldn't particularly outside of that play space, interact in ways that they wouldn't particularly outside of that play space. I'm speaking a lot of words that I'm like 97%. Sure I'm using correctly, but that's how I roll.
Speaker 1:I use lots of words incorrectly. I'm fine with that. It's just been an amazing conversation. It has gone in so many different directions that I never thought it would, so I guess we've been imaginative today, yeah, and creative. Now I do want to get back to a linear piece. So how would parents or adult listeners, or maybe with their kids, go to one of your experiences?
Speaker 2:That's the word I like Listen we're always looking for new words, so whatever you say works for us, jeff. What's happening in our lives? How can people find us?
Speaker 3:to be direct, like we don't necessarily have like regular performances going um. So in that case, the easiest way to find out more about us is to go to our website and then sign up for our newsletter.
Speaker 1:Okay, and what's the website?
Speaker 3:It is mrandmischieffun.
Speaker 1:Oh dot fun. That's the first time I've heard that yeah.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, sign up for our newsletter. It's a pretty intermittent newsletter, but we do a couple things with our newsletter that comes out fairly regularly, which is we talk about what we're up to and what's upcoming for us. I would have mentioned at the top, we do often travel the US with festivals theater festivals, sometimes film festivals that have an immersive or experiential component to them the Denver Film Festival was a big one of those and then we also like to highlight friends that are creating this type of work, that are producing excellent pieces all around the country.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, that's the best way to find out.
Speaker 1:That is awesome. And for our parents, I think the idea today is get in touch with your own inner child I don't really like that expression but get in touch with your creativity and your imagination and join in with your kid and don't discourage that for your children. Now we all know that kids have way more homework than they used to, and that's one of the issues for our kids is the amount of homework they get. Between 1980 and 1990 doubled and I'm sure it's quadrupled since then. And so as a parent you're just like how much homework do you have? How was your day? Fine? Do you have any homework? Yeah, how much? Okay, get your homework, and there's no time to just be a kid and relax and be creative and fun, and kids need a lot of that.
Speaker 3:I think it's really important for parents to model some of that play behavior as much as they can.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and to show like yeah, we're all going to exercise our imagination.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and and to show like, yeah, we're all going to exercise our imagination. Yeah, and that's a perfect segue to our closing segment and it's been great having you on. But I always close with the legit parent award, and things of beauty make me cry. And today this young mom gets both of those. And then I have one more things of beauty. But it was. I recently had melanoma diagnosed in my right tricep and they did the biopsy. And then they're like, yeah, we've got to dig. And the surgeon came in and she's two years older than my son and they actually her husband went to the same school my son did that.
Speaker 1:I was a mental health consultant. For as we were talking I'm like, oh my gosh, what a small world. But she was telling me, she said parenting and she's got a two-year-old and a four-year-old and she said parenting is such a paradox. One minute you're just stressed and frustrated and you're trying to get them dressed or get out the door to get to the preschool and hassles. And then the next moment you're having this moment of beauty and she said we had one the other day where we spent 45 minutes in the park looking for a four-leaf clover with both of them and they were so immersed in trying to find a four-leaf clover and then one of them found a tree stump and it became their volcano and they were playing volcano games and creative fantasies around this stump.
Speaker 1:And I'm like you nailed that is a legit parenting thing to say, because parenting is rough sometimes. But then you have these moments of just spectacular beauty and in this case it was just being creative together and imaginative and exploring the world around him, like you were having that imaginary park, and then you go out and explore the world and she was just wonderful and did a great job on my arm too. So I have to thank her for her surgical precision. She wasn't daydreaming when she did it. She was very precise and did a very good job, but it was just like such a statement Wow, you are a real parent and you get it and you're embracing that creativity and imagination.
Speaker 3:Can I add something to that, craig, which is that in our house every year we have a joy jar, and I don't know how prevalent this is with a lot of people, but we have a joy jar and so every time something really delightful happens, we write it down, we stick it in the jar and then on January 1st or December 31st we open it up, we go through and only recently, the last couple years, as our daughter has become a lot more snarky, I don't know really understanding timing and comedy.
Speaker 3:But like her songs and her quips and everything, plus things that we do together, there are moments and we all agree on those things and we put it in that joy jar and that sounds like something that we would put in there of just oh, I want to remember that time. I don't want to remember it later, because when we come back to it, those are the times it really creates that memory.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we do a gratitude jar, okay, and then open it up on New Year's Day and read them. The funniest was that first year of COVID and on March 20th mine was I'm thankful I get to be off for two weeks. I did a lot off for two weeks. It turned out I had to do a lot longer than two weeks and we were laughing. I'm like, yeah, dad got more than he was hoping for. We had a long time off. It wasn't just two weeks, but no, that's a great joy.
Speaker 1:Jar, gratitude jar those are wonderful things and then you reflect on them with your kid and it's the same with my son. We were really big into adventures and an adventure to me is mostly outdoors. But it's a loosely planned trip and you leave opportunities open for changing your mind or going somewhere else or meeting someone. That takes you somewhere. That's just like incredible. It was way better Many times. Plan B and C are better than plan A would have ever been. But it's about relaxing, not getting too uptight or too anal about how it has to go, and you just embrace whatever comes your way, and we did a lot of those around the world and just those are great memories and good stories. So embrace that with your kids, have adventures, have fun, be creative and I always like to say, and spend some time volunteering to help others. We all need to do that too. That's great for kids, great for your family.
Speaker 1:And my last thing of things of beauty made me cry this little second grade girl coming out from school on Friday. It was Friday afternoon before Mother's Day and she was getting to the carpool a little later than most of the kids and she was walking by herself across campus and she had this little Mother's Day card in her hand that she had made. And it was just adorable to see this angelic child so patiently carrying her card and wanting to give it to her mother. It was like wow, that is just incredible. And she did it herself, she used her imagination and with great joy to give that to her mom and I was so touched by that. I want to thank Jeff and Andy again. Oh, here's the ultimate marital therapy question, not official, this was when somebody we made up. So, jeff, if your wife, if you were getting a hot dog for you and your wife a burger, what would she want? Ketchup, mustard, or maybe mayonnaise, or all three.
Speaker 3:Great question, greg. This really depends First of all whether it's a hot dog or a hamburger. I would probably. First of all, the answer is probably a hot dog, yep Right. And then typically ketchup and mustard Probably like a Dijon mustard would be great. And then sometimes, oh, a yellow, a yellow mustard, uh, and then sometimes sweet relish. But it has to be like maybe like a nice, like hand chopped sweet relish kind of thing.
Speaker 1:And Andy, what do you think?
Speaker 2:Oh, am I just weighing in on if he's correct. Yes, yeah, it really. I love a hot dog. I literally have a pin on of my jacket that says ask me about how much I love a hot dog. So I do love a hot dog. I like hebronati, if at all possible, and you don't do dijon on a hebronati. You got to do yellow, and I'm a big. I'm also love a pickle. So if there's a, if there's a relish that's pickly, i'm'm like, yes, movie theater. Hot dog, though, is its own category, and I'll just yeah, but Jeff knows me very well. I love that you corrected the Dijon I feel seen. Thank you.
Speaker 3:Because you knew I was thinking about a Hebrew national hot dog and not some fancy sausage, which is when you do the fancy mustards. Sure yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you passed Jeff Way to go. You two are great. You got a great marriage.
Speaker 2:Thank God because we have so much work to do.
Speaker 3:All related to hot dogs. Who knew?
Speaker 1:Instead of doing marital therapy at our office. I think I'll put a hot dog stand.
Speaker 3:This is a great idea, Craig.
Speaker 1:The spouse is to pick the topping 10 out of 10. This is very good.
Speaker 2:I'm very into this, Craig.
Speaker 1:This is very good yeah, it could be a moneymaker too.
Speaker 3:Hot dog couples therapy yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, now the thought I had when I've been out to LA, that we took our daughter at seven to Disneyland and I thought I could open a family therapy booth right here.
Speaker 4:Yeah For.
Speaker 1:the happiest place in the world. It's miserable. The dads are upset because they're shelling out all this money for lunch, and then the kid won't eat it, yeah. And then mom's always dragging behind the older kids and the dad schlepping the little one, and then you're in line for an hour with hyperactive children are spinning around and you're like, oh my god, get me out of here. I thought, yeah, five bucks, come up, I'll give you advice.
Speaker 3:It's also likely that your your per hour price at therapy is cheaper than your per hour price at disneyland with the family.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it go.
Speaker 2:Therapy and a churro. What else would anybody want in this world? You eat your churro and you talk about your feelings.
Speaker 1:Free churro with every session.
Speaker 2:This is listen, this is a real like. I legitimately speaking of legit. This is a legit good idea.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, I could laugh another hour with you too. Thank you again for being on.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having us.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having us. It's just delightful and for our listeners. We hope you enjoyed the show. If you did, please share it with a friend and we'll look forward to talking with you again. Thank you very much. Oh, I almost forgot the last line. See, I lost my linear thinking. I always close with a final line and, as a parent, remember just relax. You only have to be this side of good enough. Thank you.