Playful Parenting

Alonso and I read Playful Parenting by Lawrence Cohen recently. Actually, we read it for the first time when Oliver was a baby and loved it, but now he is three and we actually need some of the tools Cohen describes we thought it would be a good idea to brush up.

The concept is simple: kids act out of a desire for connection. When they feel disconnected from us, they will be harder and harder to deal with until we find a way to reconnect. Play, whether physical or verbal, is a powerful way to proactively strengthen that connection, and locate it when it has been broken.

The book is full of great examples, and it looks so effortless and logical on the page. In reality, of course, it's a lot harder to put into practice when you're just trying to get in the car so you can be on time for an appointment, it's raining, the baby is wailing and the big kid is running back and forth across the living room with both legs in one side of his pants yelling "I have a tail! I have a tail!" When I remember to use them, though, the strategies Cohen suggests can be really effective.

So how does playful parenting look in our house? This afternoon Oliver was collapsed in his bedroom like the cat from Peanuts with no bones--remember how the little girl had to carry her cat everywhere? Well, when Oliver is tired out he gets upset and goes into boneless cat mode. With bonus whining. "I can't do aannnyythiiingg. I just have to lay here forever." He's pretty persistent, and this can go on for quite a while. Funnily enough, ordering him to stop is totally ineffective. Leaving him alone until he gets bored and moves on just seems to escalate things. Threats? Nope. Bribes? Sure that would work, as long as I'm willing to use them for every single thing I ever want him to do. No thanks. So today I gave him a dose of Magic Mama Eyes. "Oliver, I have some medicine to help you feel better. You have to look right at me--I'm going to zap it into you through my eyes." Commence a minute or two of staring into each other's eyes and lots of giggles, followed by small boy miraculously able to play on his own for a few minutes while I got poor Finn nursed and changed. Whoohoo, it worked! It doesn't always, believe me, but when it does it is so very, very sweet.