The water is lava: why play works when instructions don’t

Recently, while spending some time in Maui, a friend who runs a local surf school asked if I could help with a lesson for four young kids.

Surfing is one of my favorite things, so helping kids experience it sounded like a pretty ideal way to spend the afternoon.

Four small children in the ocean, however, requires a little strategy.

My friend, the surf instructor, would take one child at a time farther out to catch a wave while I stayed in the shallows with the other three. There was a decent amount of current that day, so my job was essentially to keep everyone—and every surfboard—within arm’s reach while they waited for their turn.

Easy enough.

Except the ocean had other plans.

The wind was strong, the water was choppy and whitewater kept rolling through us. The kids were supposed to stay sitting or lying on their boards so I could keep everyone close and make sure nobody drifted away with the current.

But they were little kids on surfboards in a moving ocean. Staying on was easier said than done.

Every few seconds:

Splash.

One kid in the water.

I’d help them back onto the board, turn around—

Splash.

Another kid in the water.

“Stay on your board.”

Splash.

“Try to sit still.”

Splash.

“Guys, stay on the boards!”

They weren’t misbehaving, and they weren’t ignoring me. They were excited, waiting for their turns and trying to balance while the ocean moved underneath them.

After so many years working with children, I’ve learned that repeating an instruction usually isn’t the answer. Young kids can understand exactly what you’re asking and still not respond to it the way an adult might.

Sometimes you have to translate the instruction into their language.

And very often, their language is play.

So I stopped repeating myself.

“The water is lava!” I announced.

Immediately, three little faces looked at me.

For anyone unfamiliar with the childhood classic, “The Floor Is Lava” has very simple rules: the floor has suddenly become molten lava, and you have to get onto a couch, chair, pillow or anything else available before you get burned.

Children seem to understand this game instinctively.

Our version just happened to involve the Pacific Ocean.

“If you fall in,” I told them, “you’re burned.”

Game on.

Suddenly, the same three kids who had been falling off their boards every few seconds were completely focused.

They grabbed the sides of their boards. They shifted their bodies when waves rolled underneath them. They leaned one way, then the other.

Every time someone wobbled dangerously close to the edge, the others yelled, “LAVA!”

They were laughing.

I was laughing.

And somehow, nobody was falling in anymore.

The wind hadn’t changed.

The current hadn’t changed.

The ocean certainly hadn’t stopped moving.

The only thing that changed was the story.

“Stay on your board because I need you to” was an instruction.

“The water is lava” was a mission.

And missions are much more interesting when you’re 5.

I’ve seen versions of this countless times while caring for children. Adults can repeat the same direction over and over and assume a child isn’t listening, when often the child understands perfectly well.

The instruction just isn’t particularly interesting to them.

“Put your shoes on because we’re late” makes perfect sense to an adult.

“Can you get your shoes on before I count to 10?” suddenly has stakes.

“Walk to the car” is an instruction.

“Race me to the car” is a challenge.

“Clean up the blocks” is a chore.

“Can you find all the red blocks before I find the blue ones?” is apparently urgent business.

And “stay on your surfboard” is a rule.

“The water is lava” is survival.

Play gives children something imaginative and concrete to focus on. Instead of concentrating on how difficult a task feels—or how much they don’t want to do it—they become absorbed in the game.

And often, the skill follows.

Those kids weren’t thinking about balance, body positioning or adjusting their weight every time a wave passed underneath them.

They were thinking one thing:

Do. Not. Touch. The. Lava.

But while they were playing, they were practicing all of those skills anyway.

Of course, not every direction needs to become a game. Sometimes “stop” needs to mean stop, especially when safety is involved. Kids also need to learn that some things simply have to be done.

But when there’s room for it, play can completely change the tone of a frustrating moment. What felt difficult suddenly becomes funny. What felt boring becomes a challenge. And what felt like another instruction becomes something they actually want to do.

Later, one of the little girls finished her turn catching a wave and paddled back over to me.

“Gaby,” she said, “I want to play that game again.”

A few minutes earlier, I had been repeating the same instruction with almost no success. Nothing about the ocean had changed. I had simply turned the instruction into a game.

Kids hear a game differently. Give them something to imagine, a challenge to take on, or a mission to complete, and suddenly they want to participate.

Same message, different language. Play is often the one they understand best.

Published in The Aspen Times
September 3, 2026