Playful Parenting: An Exciting New Approach to Raising Children That Will Help You Nurture Close Connections, Solve Behavior Problems, and Encourage Confidence

I’m always amazed when adults say that children “just did that to get attention”. Naturally children who need attention will do all kinds of things to get it. Why not just give it to them?

My wife was out and I was home alone with Emma when my mother called. She said, "Oh, so you're babysitting?" As politely as I could manage, I answered, "I call it fathering." She realized immediately what she had said and apologized. I realized that when she was a child, and again as a mother of young children, father's active involvement with their infants was so minimal that it could fairly be called baby-sitting.

Play is also a way to be close and, even more important, a way to reconnect after the closeness has been severed. Chimpanzees like to tickle one another's palms, especially after they have had a fight. Thus, the second purpose of play serves our incredible - almost bottomless - need for attachment and affection and closeness.

Children don't say, “I had a hard day at school today; can I talk to you about it?” They say, “Will you play with me?

Plus, we adults have unhealed hurts from our own childhoods, which sometimes get in the way right when our children need our support. Our own piles of old feelings interfere with parenting playfully. In turn, that makes it hard to help children with their emotional difficulties,

Tuning in does not mean questioning our children about every little detail of their lives. Instead, tell an interesting story from your day; they might respond with a story of their own.

Using Playful Parenting, we can help children release all this emotion in ways that aren't hurtful to others. We do this by just spending lots of time giggling together, but also with some specific techniques. To help children with fears, for example, it often helps to play as if you are the one who is scared, and really exaggerate it. Make sure they don't feel mocked or humiliated. It helps if you don't imitate them exactly, but just take the general idea and exaggerate it.

Young children also play to learn about the world. Why aren't we amused when our toddler drops her food off the high chair for the hundredth time? Because we know about gravity (and we have to clean it up). She, however, is extremely amused, because everything about the universe is new and interesting and open to playful discovery.

But sometimes children do not connect or reconnect so easily. They may feel so isolated that they retreat into a corner, or come out aggressively with both arms swinging. They may be annoying, obnoxious, or downright infuriating as they try desperately to signal us that they need more connection. These situations call for creating more playtime, not doling out punishment or leaving the lonely child all alone.

The most common response by parents to children's isolation is aggravation or worry. We may focus on the annoying behavior, not seeing the pain underneath, or we see the pain all too clearly and feel helpless to fix it. These are difficult moments for any parent. What we need are keys to unlock the door to that fortress of isolation and help the child out again into the fields of play. Playful Parenting provides those keys.

Others of us may be unable to put aside our competitiveness or our need to be in control. We get bored, cranky, and frustrated; we're sore losers; we worry about teaching how to throw the ball correctly when our child just wants to play catch.

The fact is, we adults don't have much room in our lives for fun and games. Our days are filled with stress, obligations, and hard work. We may be stiff, tired, and easily bored when we try to get on the floor and play with children—especially when it means switching gears from a stressful day of work or household chores.

If they don't think we will play, they may not even ask. They just go about their business, and we go about ours, and we all miss chance after chance to reconnect.

Video screens can offer many useful things: entertainment, information, even distraction from stress. But they can't make goofy faces, give hugs, or provide a deep sense of safety and security.

this behavior is actually a sign of secure attachment. When they are with strangers or day-care providers, securely attached children “save up” their bad feelings for when they reunite with their primary attachment figure. (Gee, thanks!)

One time the wife asked everyone if they wanted lemonade, and after she went in to make it, one of the children said to her husband, “Your mom is really nice.” Nonparents, even if they are recognized as being adults, can be accepted as “one of the gang” in a way that parents generally can't. And children benefit from a thoughtful, respectful adult who can be seen as an ally rather than as the enemy.

In the words of John Updike, who often writes about the alienation of husbands and fathers, “If men do not keep on speaking terms with children, they cease to be men, and become merely machines for eating and for earning money.” Obviously Updike was making an understatement; fathering takes more than just being on speaking terms with our children.

Maybe we swore we would never be harsh with our children the way others were harsh with us. Then, just when they need us most - when they act up and misbehave and call us names and son on - we get angry and punish them, or feel hurt and block them out. We momentarily forget how fragile our little ones are, just as they forget about cooperation or sharing or calming down and following the rules.

Getting on the floor also means joining in with play that we would rather ignore or eliminate.

all play is more profoundly meaningful than we usually think. First, play is a way to try on adult roles and skills, just as lion cubs do when they wrestle with one another. Human children roughhouse, and they play house. As children discover the world, and discover what they are able to do in the world, they develop confidence and mastery.

my hardest so you don't win all the time?” Then see how it goes. If it goes well, over time they will balance the enjoyment of winning—even unfairly—with the enjoyment of a challenging match—even if they lose. You may also need to spend some time directly on the child's feelings about competition. Children will signal that they need special attention to these feelings about winning, losing, and competition by being very upset