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Have You Played Today?

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There used to be a bumper sticker that said, “Have you hugged your kid today?

Maybe today we need one that says, “Have you played with your kid today?” I’m using the idea of play in a very general way. This play is not just a game with rules or a sport. But something both parent and child can especially enjoy together.

Have the only things you’ve said and done with your children all been about tasks and completion? Here are a few things to think about.

  • Have you taken the time to tell or hear a silly story?
  • Have you plopped down on the floor and wrestled with your children?
  • Have you hugged your little child and started to dance across the floor?
  • Have you made a game of a chore instead of just telling Little One to ‘get it done’?
  • Have you worked a puzzle or drawn a picture together?

I think you get the idea. All these things take a little time. We must relax a little and not be compulsive about the completion of a task. They all mean some smiles or laughs by both parent and child. In other words, “Have Fun!”

Don’t let a day go by where the only things you talk to your child about are tasks and time and duty. Take a deep breath. Lay down your phone or paper and focus on your child. Start singing a silly song. You might find there is a better atmosphere in your home for the whole evening.

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Dads and Moms Play Differently

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This is no news. We all see the difference, but we may not realize the importance of the difference.

A dad looks, smells, sounds and acts differently than a mom. There are beneficial differences between moms and dads to the development of their children.

Dads are much more physically active with their children. They tickle, wrestle and throw theirs kids in the air. Moms use toys and talk to their children.

Dad’s style of play helps a child’s physical development and coordination. He teaches limits, like when enough is enough. They learn that biting and kicking are not acceptable. Dads encourage their kids to try harder and go faster which fosters independence and confidence in their own abilities.

Mom’s play helps her kids develop their language and communication skills. They learn social skills from her. She is usually more calm and quiet in play than dad. Kids have fun, but not the hilarity they may have with dad.

This diversity in approaches gives children a broad, rich experience in relating to others. Together they help their children remain safe while expanding their experiences and increasing their confidence.

Moms usually spend more time and are more involved with their children than dad. But dad’s time and style of play is vital to good development. Gottman says,  “Rough and tumble play used by many dads can predict better self-control abilities in children. High energy, positive play can predict/effect how well a child will be viewed by other kids, and how well they will be accepted by their peers in school. The Gottman group found that the more emotionally involved a father was with his child at the age of four years, the more socially competent his child was at age eight!”

So dads, stay involved with your kids. Start when they are newborn and never stop having your time and playing with your kids.

Moms, make sure you allow dad to play with the kids — in his way. Encourage him to spend time with them. Just turn away if you can’t stand seeing him play rough and tumble. He loves his kids and won’t hurt them. Trust him.

Together make plans for times to play together with your children. Take turns leading the game and enjoy watching the way your kids thrive!

Watch for more articles on how dads help their kids develop well.

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Playing Together

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In an earlier article, we talked about Mom and Dad During Pregnancy. We discussed the attitudes and assumptions moms and dads may have about pregnancy, birth, and childrearing. It included an exercise to help couples discuss the pregnancy, their expectations of parenting roles, fears and plans for delivery and bringing baby home.

Co-parenting begins in pregnancy. During pregnancy, the couple should make it a priority to grow their friendship. Make time every day for meaningful talk, learning more about each other, and practice thoughtfulness. This builds a strong foundation to withstand the stressful weeks after baby’s arrival. Those who do best during the early days with baby have a high level of comfort in sharing hopes, fears, and needs.

In my article on Bonding and Brain Chemicals, we see that parents who spend time together and are involved in the preparation, as well as the delivery of their baby, are helped along by their brain chemicals in the bonding process with baby. We are designed so that mom, dad, and baby bond into a caring, nurturing family.

The Gottman Institute studied over 150 parents before and after their first child. Almost two-thirds reported heightened conflict, relationship disappointment, and hurt feelings post-baby. These were the Disasters. What were the Masters doing to make their marriages satisfying while adjusting to parenthood?

The Masters were intentional about their rituals of connection. Last month we talked about establishing rituals in the article: The Positive Point of View. Parenting together is more than just playing together. A good place to start is to develop a morning routine of feeding, playing, and taking care of the baby together. Later every day, spend time unwinding and connecting with each other’s worlds. Make some special plans for a family outing on the weekends. Don’t slip into only doing what is necessary to survive, but find ways to make each other feel special and important to the family. No need to spend a lot of money or use huge amounts of time or energy. These connections just must be important to each member.

How do you play with your baby together?

Mom, dad, and baby need to have time together every day to play. Find a time when baby is awake and comfortable and mom and dad can be fully present.

Both parents should be equally included in the game they are playing with baby. Neither should withdraw from the game and neither should take over or prevent the other from playing. It is meant to be a fun time for all. One parent may start the game, but invites the other parent and makes room in the game for him or her.

Both parents need to be paying equal attention to the game and to baby. Put your phones and work away and turn off the TV. When baby tires of one game, start another. It can be a simple as smiling and making some nonsense sounds. As baby matures, the games can become songs with motions. Whatever you enjoy doing together can be the game.

Babies as young as three months are able to understand the game includes both parents. When the play is not coordinated, parents become competitive and dissatisfied with the game. The baby becomes confused and over stimulated.

Both parents should be equally emotionally involved in the game. Watch baby’s reaction and show a similar emotional reaction to the play. This means if the game fails, both parents are equally empathetic with the baby. If baby gets over-stimulated, both parents stop the play and allow baby to recover. Play is only restarted when baby looks at the parents with interest in play again. If you need a refresher on over-stimulation, see Turning Towards Our Child.

Supporting one another in co-parenting

We need to be supportive of one another. Some days it will be harder to find the time to play together. Some days we just feel grumpy and out of sorts. It is days like this that we need to encourage each other to take the time to play. We’ll all feel better for the effort.

We need to continue to appreciate the efforts each one is putting into the whole parenting role. Be thankful for anything your spouse does to include you and baby together.

Moms and dads make mistakes with baby. They may overstimulate or miss cues for help. We need to allow our mates to make mistakes. Don’t ridicule or scold, instead help them recover. This will be a lifelong process, so it’s good to start early. We all make parenting mistakes. Our children will survive, especially if we are parenting as a team.

Together celebrate the successes with baby. Each tiny step brings so much joy especially when we are experiencing these times together. Even when your spouse wasn’t there when baby did some new, amazing thing, be sure to share and wait for the time it is repeated for your spouse to see too.

As your baby grows to a boy or girl, keep parenting together. Find ways to interact together every day. Make dinner time a time to see into your child’s heart. Don’t use it for correcting or scolding. Include your child in as many of your activities as possible. Tell them how much you love them. You only have a few short years to lay the foundation for their successful life. Don’t waste it.

Time for Some Practice

Plan and set aside some time each day to play with your baby or child together.

One parent begins a game. This can be anything your baby or child likes to do with you. Parents take turns playing with your baby or child while the other looks on. When your baby or child is no longer interested in that activity, the other parent should initiate a different game or activity. With older children, one may read a book and then the other lead the family in singing some favorite songs. But do it all together.

Pay close attention to your baby or child’s reactions. Is he smiling and interested? Has she turned away or begun to push away from the activity? Try to predict how long they are interested. End play while everyone is still smiling and feeling content.

If your baby or child has gotten over stimulated, see if you can identify at what point they lost interest or showed they didn’t like the play. How did you both respond? How did your baby or child self soothe? Were you able to play any more after soothing or did you need to begin the bedtime routine or other activity?

Take a few minutes to talk about the play time. This will help you plan future times to enjoy together as a family.

The next lesson in the Parenting Together section is: Affirm Your Child

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Turning Towards Our Child

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In The Relationship Account we focused on how mom and dad have positive connections that add to the happiness and success of their marriage.

Now the goal is to have positive connections with your baby or small child. In this article, I want to show how we turn towards our children and how to recover when we have let them get over-stimulated.

Turn Towards

Just as we have to recognize our mate’s approaches, we must see our baby’s and child’s approaches to us. Tears and wails are not your baby’s only appeals for connection. When your baby turns to look at you or reaches out with a wave to you or babbles, they seek connection.

As our children grow, we must recognize the different ways they reach out for our attention. Toddlers and preschoolers try to get our attention in many ways. Yelling, fighting with a sibling, and throwing something may be their last resort after trying many other subtler ways to connect with us. Seeing our children’s changing needs and responding in positive ways keep the relationship account growing.

Like our response to our spouse’s approaches, we must respond to our little one’s desire for connection. The best connections happen when we stop what we are doing and give our baby the attention they need. Eye contact, bathing, changing, and feeding all reassure a baby that they are loved. These are little deposits many times a day that build our relationship account with them.

On the other hand, we make withdrawals from the account just like we can with our spouse. Who among us has never ignored a cry, rolled her eyes and sighed heavily, or yelled at that darling child? It is a common experience. We love our child and want to be cheerful and always talk sweetly to them. But we live in a pressure cooker of time restraints, noise, and activity that wear us out.

Bonding and Building

We are made in such a way that we bond well with our baby as long as nothing interferes with the normal process. Bonding is the beginning of building a life-long relationship between parents and child.

To build on this foundation, parents need to consistently meet their child’s need for attention, affection, and care. Much is written about how to respond when a baby cries. Some say to never let a baby cry and others believe we should let a baby ‘cry it out.’ Gottman Institute research “shows that ignoring the child will only make the child insecure, hungry for affection, and clingy. The way to create a secure child is with responsive parenting.”

Extremes damage and distort. Petting and sweet talk when a child willfully disobeys teaches the wrong lesson. And never allowing baby to cry at all short circuits baby learning that when they express a need, it is met. We need a balance in our approach.

Over-Stimulation

To connect and build our parent/child bond, we want to play with our baby. This is good, but they are not always ready to play when we have the time to play. Babies will respond best to your approach when they are more alert. It is good to learn your baby’s cues to know the best times to play. (If you didn’t see the article on States of Consciousness, this would be a good time to review.)

Baby loves to play. And so much is learned about how the world works and about trust and independence through play. Play the game your baby is enjoying as long as he likes it. But when we try too hard or want to play with our baby when they are not ready, we can cause over-stimulation.

Babies give 100% attention and they have a very short attention span. These two factors mean they can quickly get overstimulated. So it is your responsibility to notice your baby’s signs of over-stimulation and help your baby self-soothe.

Baby Signals he has had enough

Baby signals he has had enough by looking away from whatever is in front of him. If you miss that, he may try to cover his face with his hands or try to push away. He will bunch up his forehead, arch his back and tense his whole body. A cry with a long wind-up before the wail is his strongest message that he is over stimulated.

It is not unusual for babies to get over-stimulated from time to time. It becomes a problem if it lasts for a long time or happens too frequently.

Recovering from over-stimulation

As soon as you notice signs of over-stimulation, help your child to calm down. Be a good example. Take a deep breath and relax yourself. Speak more gently with a lower pitch and volume. Back away from whatever was over-stimulating. If there was too much noise, gently pick her up and go to a quieter room. If there was too much light, dim the lights. If it was just too much play, stop and let her calm down.

Sometimes, especially if you noticed quickly and gave a break, your baby will look back at you or the toy very soon. He will make eye contact and may even smile. You will notice his eyes are alert and open, his breathing is normal, and his body is relaxed. This is the signal he is ready to play again. Don’t start again until you see he is ready.

When you help your baby calm down from being over-stimulated, you are teaching self-soothing. This is an important skill to learn. So even though your child occasionally is over-stimulated, good will come from it as they learn to self-soothe.

Practical Discussion

Take some time to talk with your spouse about over-stimulation.

  • Have you seen this happen with your baby or child?
  • Can you see any pattern to when it happens?
  • Is there something you could do to prevent it?
  • What helps your baby most to self-soothe?
  • Is your child able to recover more quickly now than when younger?
  • Make plans how to handle over-stimulation when it happens next time.

Another warning: Look for solutions and progress. Don’t use this as a topic for an argument. Work together to build your relationship with your baby. You are a team.

To read more about Parenting Together see: Playing Together

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Toys. . .Free or Inexpensive

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egg carton sorterBaby and children’s toys can really get expensive. Kids’ attention spans are short. So, trying to keep them in new and interesting toys can get to be a very expensive proposition.

My goal for this newsletter is to provide you with some ideas for free or inexpensive ways to keep your kids playing and learning. These are not ‘babysitters,’ but rather ways families on a budget can still give their kids the advantage of stimulating creativity and learning.

Choose a drawer or box that your little one can find new toys in every few days.

  • If your drawer is in the kitchen, you may put a small pot and lid, plastic bowls that nest, a wire whisk, wooden spoons of different sizes, colored plastic cups, measuring spoons, chopsticks, a muffin pan, cookie cutters, etc. Keep changing what’s in there to keep them interested in exploring.
  •  A box in your sitting room may have a stuffed animal, a net ball, scraps of fabric with different textures, elastic and string, a small pillow, a picture book, a box of blocks or dominoes. Replace these with new things often.
  • Girls love a box full or old clothes, hats, shoes, and scarves to play ‘dress up.’

Make an obstacle course out of chairs, tables, sheets, and pillows for indoor fun. Take walks outside and use curbs for balance beams, stepping stones or cracks in pavement for agility in skipping, jumping, and hopping. Use sidewalk chalk to make a path that will challenge your child’s large muscle skills.

box fortKids love to make a fort out of old packing boxes. The boxes appliances come in are their favorites.

Make a busy board out of things around your house or bought inexpensively from dollar stores or hardware stores. Here’s a great example: Handsonaswegrow.com

Read a book to your little ones. They may want you to read one book every day for months or read a new book every day. Buying new books is good when your child is still putting everything they hold in their mouth, but as they get to be toddlers and preschoolers, you can use library books or used books. It is helpful if you can trade kids’ books with friends or play group buddies. eBooks are an option too, but don’t have the added benefit of teaching how to handle books nicely.

Finger plays and action songs are a great way to teach pre-reading skills and cost nothing. Here are some great resources for these fun songs and rhymes.

If you cannot afford an expensive erector set, you can challenge your child’s building creativity with popsicle sticks, pipe cleaners, wooden clothes pegs, and rubber bands.

You can keep a toddler busy with an empty water bottle and cut drinking straws or small pompoms to put in and pour out. Pompoms of different colors and sizes can be sorted, picked up with tongs and put into containers.

For 70+ homemade toys you can make for your kids, see: Happy Hooligans Also, see my Pinterest board for Toys – Free or Inexpensive.

You can make a homemade version of many of the fun stuff kids love to handle:

  •  Playdough that is safe to eat and cheap to make. For playdough that can keep for up to 6 months, try this recipe: fun.familyeducation.com
  • For recipes for homemade foam, water beads, fizzy slush, pretend snow, colored melting ice, slime, sand foam and more, see my Pinterest board for sensory activities.

For more on toys and the importance of play see: Toys and Play here at Your Child’s Journey.

Please share your ideas by adding a comment to this post.

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