Q
I was asked this the other day and am actually quite surprised that I’m having a hard time thinking of specific things I do. I tend to be playful without thinking about it! Here are a few examples, though:
- Singing is a big thing! If I can remember to sing about something, my children
- change their attitude and the dynamic shifts within moments. Instructions that
- are sung are responded to faster; feelings expressed in song lead to dancing
- and connecting; clean-up is best facilitated with song.
- My children stay with me when I line them up and we hold hands to be a train
- or flap our wings to be mommy and baby ducks (in a straight line, of course).
- We toot toot or quack our way through grocery stores, parks, parking lots,
- Home Depot.
- Fussy children get to be fairies and flown to the car.
- Upside down is how we shake the “grumpies” out.
- Most mornings we sing two good morning songs one of which requires
- “shining faces,” and if they are already grumpy, I wipe their faces shiny.
- After the songs, I make sure they know that the biggest rules for the day are NO
- SMILING and NO LAUGHING! Which always causes a horrid eruption of
- giggles to start the day off right. And, during the day, sour faces are reminded of this rule and thanked for adhering to it.
- We do races – to the car, fastest clean-up, whatever is being dawdled.
- Anything they don’t want to do might erupt into begging them to do it. Teeth
- beg to be brushed, toys beg to be put away, Barbies are very concerned they
- won’t get to their party in their box on time.
- I work very hard to foster a team spirit in our house, and this has led to
- everyone pitching in so that one person isn’t doing all the work – because when
- one person loses we all lose, but when one person wins we all win.
- I try to remember that nothing has to be done in a way that makes people
- miserable, nothing is “just easy” when you’re a child, and children don’t see the
- world the way adults do (simple jobs are daunting, large messes are
- overwhelming, play is much more important than cleaning).
- I also take their lead in games so that things are fun for them. I figure they are
- children and their job is to play. I can fight to stop that and make them serious,
- or I can embrace that and facilitate the play so that responsibilities are
- accomplished and achieved, too.
- Story telling with a moral! Lately I’ve been stopping my children and telling
- them parables where “a little boy” or “a little girl” is struggling with a similar or
- the exact same issue they are, and I talk about what makes these story children successful and what makes them unsuccessful and the importance of choosing wisely. It seems that because the story isn’t about them, they are more open to the instruction.