What Can We Do to Encourage All Age Playfulness?

When my daughter began to bring me colouring in "assignments" to complete the fun we had in the process got us thinking. The result of all of that thinking is "Togethimals" a small daughter/daddy collaboration that has now been unleashed on the World. Some quotes from the website that help explain the concept:

In a world that sometimes seems obsessed with “getting to grown-up” Togethimals is here to honour childhood imagination and the things that adults and children can learn together through it. This book, brought about through a daughter and daddy collaboration is unique not only because of its cross-age creators but also because its readers - adults and children alike - are invited to keep reinventing the story for themselves, because the surplus from its sales doesn’t go to the creators but to making the world a little better for children and adults alike and because children and adults are involved in the process of deciding where the surplus funds go and learning how philanthropy works – together

At a time when colouring in books for adults were becoming very popular, Natasha started drawing pictures of "two different animals together" and giving them to Adrian to colour in and name. The colouring in was relaxing and exploratory for Adrian and the conversations about what these "together animals" were called became more and more interesting - a real chance for a very meaningful cross-generational discussion. 

So we put a book together - "Togethimals" - not too overproduced, fairly homely.... Our aim was to help improve interaction and conversation. It was not to make money. So what if people bought the book and a surplus was generated? If that happened, maybe that surplus could help address a societal issue and create a way to involve all generations in it? Maybe this little book could be a daughter and daddy social enterprise of sorts? 

This looks set to be a fun, little, exploratory journey for us. We hope you, the reader, might like to journey along with us whether it be by buying the book, contributing otherwise to the Fund or participating in who-knows-what-other-activities might eventuate.