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Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,

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Speaker 1: This is Laura, Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's

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Speaker 1: tip is that if you are looking to spend more

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Speaker 1: time with a friend, consider getting together while you each

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Speaker 1: do your own thing. This will create more time together

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Speaker 1: without sacrificing the opportunity to do whatever activities you each

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Speaker 1: want or need to do. So. If you have observed

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Speaker 1: Toddler's playing, you will notice that playing together often means

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Speaker 1: playing while near each other, but not actually playing with

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Speaker 1: each other. Annie is building a tower of blocks while

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Speaker 1: Kelsey is in her play kitchen. Jake is playing with

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Speaker 1: a firetruck while Allison is also playing with a firetruck,

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Speaker 1: but there is almost no chance they will collaborate on

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Speaker 1: putting out the same fire. As kids grow and develop,

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Speaker 1: they discover the pleasures of truly playing with a friend,

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Speaker 1: but until then, proximity creates its own form of connection.

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Speaker 1: Being together while doing your own thing can be a

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Speaker 1: way for adults to strengthen their sense of connection as well.

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Speaker 1: Adults can enjoy parallel play too. In a recent New

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Speaker 1: York Times article, friendship coach Danielle Bayard Jackson and Davidson

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Speaker 1: College psychology professor Katherine Bagwell describe how parallel play can

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Speaker 1: work for adults. While kids don't necessarily interact much during

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Speaker 1: parallel play, adults often chat a bit while they are

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Speaker 1: engaged in their own activities. They suggest that one friend

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Speaker 1: might knit while the other cooks, or one friend might

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Speaker 1: garden while the other sketches the plants she sees in

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Speaker 1: the garden. Now, obviously certain sorts of parallel play aren't

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Speaker 1: going to work. You can't really go for a run

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Speaker 1: while your friend paints at home and expect to enjoy connection.

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Speaker 1: It might not even work to both read your separate

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Speaker 1: books together. I mean, that could be fun, but you

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Speaker 1: might wind up chatting and distracting each other. But other

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Speaker 1: activities don't require such full focus. You and a friend

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Speaker 1: could meet up at a coffee shop and both work

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Speaker 1: on your twenty twenty four photo books together, or do

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Speaker 1: separate crossword puzzles. Or you could meet up at your

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Speaker 1: house and you do a puzzle while she colors in

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Speaker 1: a coloring book. As adults, we have limited free time,

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Speaker 1: and so it makes sense that we'd want to spend

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Speaker 1: our free time doing things that we actually like. And

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Speaker 1: it's great if you have friends who really like the

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Speaker 1: same things that you do. I have friends I run with,

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Speaker 1: or walk with, or even podcast with, and that is awesome.

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Speaker 1: But we might also want to spend more time on

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Speaker 1: our personal pursuits and spend more time with friends. The

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Speaker 1: good news is that these desires can sometimes overlap. Parallel

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Speaker 1: play means space for our own fun with the pleasure

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Speaker 1: of good company, which can be the best of both worlds.

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Speaker 1: If you try parallel play, I'd love to hear how

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Speaker 1: it goes. You can reach me at Laura at Laura

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Speaker 1: vandercam dot com. In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks

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Speaker 1: for listening, and here's to making the most of our time.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas,

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Speaker 1: or feedback, you can reach me at long Laura at

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Speaker 1: Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia.

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Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app,

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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.