Playful Parenting

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Summary

This book made me a better parent. It gave me new perspective on playing games with my kids to better understand what they are feeling. A little bit lengthy at times, but plenty of actionable ideas for improving the relationship with kids.

Quotes and Notes

Game ideas to create connection:

• Follow the leader
• Simon says
• Love gun - Chase kids and give them love and affection when they decide to shoot you with a gun. Or, be dramatic and topple on them in a prolonged death sequence. Either of these will allow for more connection.
• You'll never get away - hold a child and let them struggle to run away. Repeat, making up different excuses why they got away last time and how they won't be able to next time.
• Bad words - if kids use words you don't want them too, pick another made up word and make a big stick around that instead e.g. "Well, you can say that all you want, but if you say Bobbledyboo you're gonna be in big trouble.” “Bob-bledyboo!” “Oh, ho, ho,” I say, “now you're in trouble.” I say this lightly, not in a mean, scary way, as I chase the child around the room."
• Sock game - "Each person tries to take off everyone else's socks while keeping his or her own on. This game is fun with two people, and a riot with three or more"
• Staring contest - "stare at each other and see who laughs or smiles first. This game combines eye contact with giggles, two of my preferred methods of connecting."
• Fortunately/Unfortunately - have one person share a statement starting with "Fortunately..." (usually ends up being about their day), and the next person then says a reply starting with "Unfortunately".
• Squiggles - one person draws random lines on a paper, the other person completes them into a drawing. Opens up communication.
• Thumbs up/thumbs down - if kids don't want to talk, you can ask questions and have them give thumbs up/down. Eventually you can get sillier with questions and they will use sillier gestures.

Play is where children show us the inner feelings and experiences that they can't or won't talk about. We need to hear what they have to say, and they need to share it. That's why we have to join children where they live, on their terms.

Often times, children don't have the words to communicate big feelings and events. But they can role play or act out scenes with dolls that help communicate how they feel. They act out trauma through play.

“Playing with my kids isn't always fun, but I do it anyway because I know in the end we are all happier. Also, the more I choose to play with them their way, the more likely they will go along with some of the things I want to do.”

You can't escape playing. You always have too many errands, chores, etc... to play. But if you don't play, you will either be nagged until you do (stressful, leads to bigger emotional challenges) or your kids will completely shut you out and you won't know what's going inside their heads.

It's always better to play first, do your chores later.

Set aside a little time each day to play, build those connections, and fill up a kid's cup with love. They will likely be "better behaved" afterwards, allowing everyone to be happier.

Another mistake we make (I catch myself doing this frequently) is cutting them off when they are talking about “unimportant” things, or when they are chattering away about nothing, or when they are repeating themselves. Then, later, we expect them to tell us what we want to hear. That's not fair. We have to listen patiently to their way of telling things, even when it is excruciatingly dull to us, if we want them to get around to telling us the good stuff.

If your daughter calls you a stupid idiot, try being so stupid you can't tell her from a pillow, and try to take a nap on top of her. I sometimes refer to this aspect of Playful Parenting as “it takes a village idiot to raise a child.”

The village idiot technique also works well to defuse conflict in a humorous way e.g. "If you don't figure out how to share the juice, I'll have to pour it on my head!”."

This book uses a metaphor of a cup that every child has that needs to be filled with love. Often behaviors adults don't appreciate are just signs that the child is feeling a lack of love.

Give up the search for perfect equality. Give each child what they need, rather than attempting to be equal. The demand for perfect equality is a setup for disappointment. Debbie just got new boots, so now Cathie wants a pair. She is on the verge of hysteria about it, in fact, but her boots are perfectly fine for another year. The confusing thing is that Cathie cer tainly needs something, and she's insisting that what she needs is a new pair of boots. What she really needs is to have her cup of love refilled. Seeing her sister so happy with her new boots, she figures that would be a good way to fill her cup. We know that won't really do the trick, but she doesn't. One option is to hold Cathie while she cries about the unfairness of it all, reminding her that our love goes deeper than a pair of boots. The other option is to find a way to effectively meet the real need for “enough” love and affection.

Boys use teasing, and even hitting, as a way of being close to one another, especially since more direct ways of expressing affection are forbidden to boys after age three or four. On the other hand, this teasing and shoving can cause real pain and fear.

Boys in our society are famous for having problems with paying attention and sitting still, as can be seen by the huge increase in the diagnosis of Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). But I think many attention problems in boys are really attachment problems. They have more to do with the boy's cup being empty or leaky than they do with any inability to process information. No one can process information properly or pay attention well if they don't have the secure base of good attachment. Stanley Greenspan writes: “The active, energetic child soon learns to seek in stimulation the satisfaction he cannot find in intimacy.”7 Then, of course, all that racing around makes him hard to be close to. Thus, the impulsivity and scattered quality of some boys diagnosed with ADD may simply be a side effect of a deeper problem, an inability to connect. Most treatments for ADD don't address this underlying difficulty in attachment—the empty cup—and may even get in the way.

Kids' cups get filled when they get told yes. Sometimes, you have to enthusiastically follow their lead and say yes to their games. This will fill their cup with love and give them confidence.

When kids are struggling with something don’t want to talk about something, do role reversal and act out their fears in a silly way. That will make them laugh and maybe open up conversation.

Here's another example of transforming behavior by first joining, then leading. Betty teaches an art class for nine children, ranging in age from three to twelve. One day, they were having a hard time focusing and concentrating. She took them to the Mount Auburn Cemetery, where she had hoped they would calm down. They didn't. Near the tower, which is a structure with a skinny spiral staircase, Betty had them put down their sketch pads and materials. She was speaking slowly and deliberately, and they were surely thinking that she was expecting them to settle down and work. All of a sudden, she shouted, “Last one up the tower is a rotten egg,” and she led the way running up the tower. At the top, she said, “Now we have to run down,” and she started down, the rest following boisterously. As she went down, she slowed the pace gradually, until near the end they were going very slowly. She started saying, “Feel the gravity pull your foot down as you take a step….” By the bottom, they were calm, focused, and ready to draw. By first joining the children where they were (boisterous and wild), Betty was then able to lead them to a new place (settled and grounded). She said it was the best class ever.

Meet kids where they are. If they aren’t ready to practice piano or violin, meet them where they are and then transition to slow and calm.

If you don't have time to play right now (e.g. your hands are covered in raw chicken while you're cooking dinner) you can say "I don't have time right now; let's have a big hug and play in fifteen minutes.' That's like, "...serving a snack after school to tide a child over until dinner, that extra contact helped her manage the wait until she could get some attention from her parents."

The other day my daughter had six girls over. I had to take them to the park because of the noise level. On the way back I said, “Last chance for shrieking.” They screamed those piercing nine-year-old-girl screams a few times, and everybody laughed. One girl asked if she could have a solo. Not only did inviting the screeching get it out of their systems, but it meant that I could get away with asking them not to scream later.

Give kids space when they cry but don’t walk away to another room. When you walk away, you are leaving them alone. Give them space, let them stop crying, then see if they can accept some love from you that they have probably been missing.

We can cry alone, but it is so much more healing to cry on someone's shoulder. That's why I recommend that parents not send their children to their rooms to cry alone, or leave them alone to cry themselves to sleep. It is more time-consuming to stay with them, to help them let out their feelings of loneliness and sadness, but those feelings don't just go away because we shut the door on them.

Children are often full of deep feelings that they can't get out. The real emotion is just too intense to handle. So they pick some little thing to get upset about, a pretext.

I think parents avoid playfulness in difficult parenting situations because they are afraid of rewarding bad behavior. I have to remain stern and angry and cold so he'll know he did wrong. But being playful is not about rewards or punishments, it is about restoring the missing ingredient—connection—that caused the problems in the first place.

The goal of most punishment is obedience. Good judgment, on the other hand, comes from talking with children, brainstorming about how they might handle different situations, and discussing moral dilemmas.

We punish children for being messy, for being noisy, for being selfish, for being cranky when they're tired, for being impulsive—in short, for being children. Children cannot be punished into maturing faster, or scolded into somehow skipping a step of child development. Of course, we need to manage these behaviors, to help them move to that next stage of development when they can share, or walk calmly down a hall, or be polite. But punishment does not rush development. If anything, it slows down development.

Flood children with love and affection. Sometimes that's all we need to do. If we fill their cups in the most basic way—a hug, a cuddle, a story, a kind word, some special time together, their favorite foods—they will figure out the rest.

Give up the search for perfect equality. Give each child what they need, rather than attempting to be equal. The demand for perfect equality is a setup for disappointment. Debbie just got new boots, so now Cathie wants a pair. She is on the verge of hysteria about it, in fact, but her boots are perfectly fine for another year. The confusing thing is that Cathie certainly needs something, and she's insisting that what she needs is a new pair of boots. What she really needs is to have her cup of love refilled. Seeing her sister so happy with her new boots, she figures that would be a good way to fill her cup. We know that won't really do the trick, but she doesn't. One option is to hold Cathie while she cries about the unfairness of it all, reminding her that our love goes deeper than a pair of boots. The other option is to find a way to effectively meet the real need for “enough” love and affection.

Often children will try to take the initiative to reconnect, and adults will completely misunderstand. Your daughter won't go to bed, for example, but perhaps she isn't just trying to make your life difficult. Maybe there is unfinished emotional business between you, and she wants some late-night time to work it out. Or your son keeps bugging you while you're making lunch. You're already annoyed, so you send him away. But these children are just doing their best to find a way back to connection, because disconnection is painful for them. In other words, they are trying to step out of their tower of isolation, but we are too locked away in ours to notice. Through the foggy windows of our tower, we don't see their attempt to reconnect, just their obnoxious behavior.

When kids are being "annoying", it’s probably because they need some kind of attention. It’s better to pause and give them what they need so that their behavior can change.