When you feel like getting fierce, instead get FUNNY
Raising children means lots of inevitable frustrations and conflict every single day.
How many times have I told you not to track mud in the house?
Why can’t you listen for once in your life?
How dare you hit your sister? Stop that immediately. Or ELSE!
Sometimes I want to tear my hair out trying to get me kids to DO something, or to STOP doing something. But here’s a simple hack I think we all need to be aware of. You can say absolutely anything harshly, or humorously.
You can say absolutely anything harshly, or humorously.via @ParentingJunkieTweet ThisIn Lawrence Cohen’s book “Playful Parenting” he teaches us that we can use the power of playfulness to help our children cope with stress, connect with us, and even get their cooperation more easily.
When we can say something in a funny voice, or turn or chore into a game, then it calms us down! Suddenly we realize that it’s not an emergency that they aren’t listening to us, or that they’re refusing to clear the table. We send a message to our own nervous system to calm down, and get creative! Whilst calming ourselves down is a huge benefit, it also calms our children down. This actually diffuses power struggles! The nervous system goes from fight, flight, or freeze mode, to creative mode. Our pre-frontal cortexes are back online. We can get back into feeling connected, which IS why children want to cooperate – they feel a connection to you. We can focus on the task at hand rather than all the conflict surrounding it. So when we’re tempted to get fierce, we can instead get funny and still get the results that we wanted.
Instead of saying,
“How many times have I told you not to track mud through the house?!”
Try this sign at the front door,
Dear Mud Monster,
We love mud (outside!)
Kindly place shoes here.
Need to go somewhere? Try taking on the persona of Secret Agent Mama reporting for duty. Your mission? Get into the car without being discovered. Go! Go! Go!
Your child hit his sibling?
You could say, “WHOAH?! Hitting your sister? Hold the phone! You must have forgotten what arms are for. Arms are for singing kumbaya. Here let me know you.”
For more playful parenting ideas read this blog about playful parenting, or listen to my podcast episode on the same topic!
So instead of repeating yourself, getting louder, or yelling, ask yourself what the funny, weird, playful way is to express the same request. I know it’s not always possible but when we are playful we actually like who we’re being as parents more and we can enjoy parenting more. And we love parenting more, we can also parent them from love.
LEAVE A COMMENT!
Do you have an experience where it was playfulness for the win? We love to hear stories! How did you totally diffuse a potential power struggle?
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