Ever wonder if the play activities you do and the values you teach really stick with your child?
Ever played with a child and been beaten in a simple game?

It happened this week and really illustrated something to me worth sharing. We need to teach our kids sportsmanship intentionally. It can’t be a happy accident or rob them of the chance by artificially bending the rules, too far for them to miss the opportunity of learning.

What happened?

He was thrilled to have won, not just once but three times at dominoes. I didn’t let him win. It’s how the dominoes played out. ( As anyone knows who’s played dominoes with me; I’m no domino player- just matching!) The joy of his win was right there. I said the right things; Good game and congratulated him on the thrashing he gave me.

He gave me a hug and said. Thanks for playing mum. Then wanted to reassure me that we could play three more games so I could win. We then had an interesting discussion about winning and losing and how we both felt. Being able to bring it up again at dinner to the family helped.

Play – Model- Play- Reinforce- Play

What they need

They need to have practise to articulate their feelings and put their thoughts into words, with us. When we play with them we give that opporrtunity. If we let them win all the time they don’t know what to say or do when they lose elsewhere.

The bigger test will be how he responds now in company and away from home

Do you let them win?

Teaching kids sportsmanship is a post from: Play-Activities.com
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Your child goes to a setting. What’s it like there? You enjoyed your first visit to see the place at work. So much so you sent your child there. When was the last time you visited to stay and play?

If only to see how your little one interacts with others. I loved seeing the routines he can do that I didn’t give him. ( See I knew he could take direction really.)  Visiting a setting was were I first learnt the tidy up song, Clean up! Clean up! Everybody everywhere!

Workers and standards come and go. New initiatives and practise that are easily transferred to home. You get to see your child interact with others.How they are there provides more of a picture of who they are.

When was the last time you were able to visit your child’s setting?

Click here to read the rest of the posts in the series, 31 Days to a more Playful Tot.
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31 days to a more Playful Tot {Day Sixteen} Time for a visit is a post from: Play-Activities.com
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Comparisons hurt, harm and are useful.

If I asked you what type of parenting style do you support with play. What would you say?

It wasn’t until I was in a different country in a totally diferent situation did I realise that I my idea of play was different. It was then I wondered am I doing it right?

We don’t all move. We often have the same friends and same circles.

Is there a right way to play? If there is, who do I listen to? What about my family and individualism?

Knowing your own mind takes time to develop. We come with all the baggage of our childhood and family relationships. Now we have a playful tot to raise and lots of decisions to make on important issues like TV time, electronic media, mobile media, organic toys, wooden toys, plastic toys, Montessori, Waldorf, classes, playgroups, the list goes on. Our mind isn’t just made up on all issues- just like that.

How do you develop your mind so you don’t just follow the crowd?

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Knowing your mind in 25 steps

1. Look at your children and learn how they work.
2. Go to trusted sources. You have to decide who they are.
3. Accept advice as just that advice- what worked for them may or maynot work for you.
4. Try new things
5. Share your ideas. Other people see things you may not see.
6. Have encouraging and supportive friends
7. Your children will make you cry and despair but they have the capacity to make you laugh and weep with joy if we create opportunities for that to happen more than once in a while.
8. Accept and reject things as the season changes in your family
9. Create plans.
10. Educate yourself in the areas you lack
11. Beware of bandwagons
12. Ask questions…..ruminate on ideas….feel free to adapt, transform or drop ideas….after careful thought.
13. Find and talk to people who have been there before you. It’s amazing how much perspective they will give you.
14. observe families who you admire. Try out what they are doing.
15. Sometimes you need to take a break and focus on other things like your marriage, home, work, career, goals, dreams or ambitions. Not just your kids will thank you for it.
16. Parenting is not a competition. Some are further along than I am. I’ll be further along than someone else.
17. Everyone has problems. No one is perfect
18. Discuss your ideas, opinions and direction with your spouse, friends and family- they know you and will often give you interesting advice ( some good and some not so good)
19. It’s okay to be different. Different isn’t automatically bad or good.
20. Have thought provoking twitter and facebook friends. They will challenge you in good ways.
21. Grow
22. Remember that sticking your head in the sand doesn’t work there has to be another way.
23. Encourage people who try things out- they are actively working on knowing their mind ( You can learn from their successes and failures)
24. Compare yourself less to those around you. Some comparison is good but be careful
25. We don’t need to know all the answers and get it right the first time. We can let many things just go and roll with it,however we have to decide which ones we do intentionally.

I’m working on No.21 this year. What about you I’m curious?

What are you doing to ‘know your mind’ on issues in 2012?

Are there any areas you find the hardest to do?

Click here to read the rest of the posts in the series, 31 Days to a more Playful Tot.

31 days to a more Playful Tot {Day Eleven} Know Your Mind is a post from: Play-Activities.com
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Every now and then I’m reminded about how I need to give my son’s choices.

Choices that I can live with. Not any old choice.

I eagerly absorbed the principles and practises of Love and Logic, after attending a course in 2004. The power of choice seemed like a really good idea. I felt I was ahead of the curve. It worked.

Our next child threw us the curve ball and now we looked at 123 Magic. We now had a mix of ideas. I was glad for the different ideas as it made me think. There you go made me think so I needed to make sure that if I wanted to raise thinking children I needed to give them opportunities to make them think.

This is not new. None of us like to be told what to do all the time. However in our time pressured society we just don’t have the time, usually to give choices. I’ve talked about our walk to Nursery and how I needed to slow down and effectively smell the coffee. Today I want to talk about how the power of questions can really change your children’s outlook.

The biggest battle of wills

They don’t want to do or have what you are offering because you are only telling them. With their new voice, No is the best word in the world. They see the power. We need to give them chance to say, Yes!

Love and Logic, if I remember rightly, encourage as many choices as you can. We never thought that made total sense for our family.Partly because we’re just not able to think of at least two choices for everything we want to do at the time.  You have to think carefully.

Do you want to wear the blue shirt or the red shirt here?

Neither shirt is a problem to you.

They are more playful when they feel like they’ve had a say in their environment. So are we. It involved a change of mindset for us to think this way constantly.

Oatmeal or cereal?       OJ or milk?          This book or that book?

Learning can be either passive or active. Passive learning is when the parent is responsible for all learning conditions. Parents direct and children comply. Passive learning is easier for parents to do than active learning, but less beneficial for children….. Active learning is not only more exciting for children but usually results in better intellectual development

Ready to Learn: Goldberg

It starts simply with things like choosing which socks, and even this can seem like a hassle but they really love it. It’s part of the power we can give away. It continues with choices about food and learning how to express preference clearly and nicely, whether they be negative, neutral or positive. It continues with dinner games and question cards and leads to full discussions and learning about our children.

Communicating our values

Values are communicated and if we don’t’ hear what our children are thinking we have no chance of communicating our values to them in a way that they’ll be able to take on new information and make good choices about to do with these thoughts. I’m sure you’ve had the experience that what came out of your mouth was alien to what you thought you’d ever really say or even believe. But in the saying you realized it and perhaps changed or did something about it.

Yesterday we were reviewing our chore list for the umpteenth time. I want it to work. They want it to work. It breaks down regularly. After listening to a show about entitlement I decided to battle the chore problem yet again.
This time I added a time element….. It boiled down to having three chores and them deciding when to do them. Immediately they both sussed they didn’t need to do each chore each day. They had to decide when they would do it, how often etc. They asked me a lot of questions. Do I expect they will be perfect? No. But here’s a great opportunity to try out their decision-making process.

Last evening, over dinner, I asked how their chores went for the day. Proudly the oldest gave me his reasoning of why he’s decided to do his that way. His middle brother was listening. The middle one gave his very different version. I was able to ask how did it work for you? ( In true Dr Phil fashion!) We had an interesting dialogue about the struggles and they asked and each gave different answers.

Decision- making and the power of questions

At that moment, for the briefest of time, it didn’t matter if they had done the chores. Here they were actively discussing decision-making; the pitfalls of their brother’s ideas and congratulating them on what they did. I loved the process. The chores, to be honest were executed pretty well but they are a long work in progress.
It’s not always like this but I really believe the foundation of choices and active learning helps them to make decisions. They know we have each others back and we’re not afraid with our advice if we’re not sure.

How do you translate the power of questions into your family?

Click here to read the rest of the posts in the series, 31 Days to a more Playful Tot.

31 days to a more Playful Tot {Day Ten} The Power of Questions is a post from: Play-Activities.com
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Use frustration and failures as tools for success.

My three year old pulls to undo his buttons. No matter how many times I show him how to unbutton a button he’ll still pull. It’s his current bump in the road. It frustrates him no end.  How I use my voice and react is important here because we’re training him( and his watching brothers) as well as raising them. What do you do when you can’t do something? default- throwing yourself on the floor and wailing shouldn’t be the child’s only option. Neither should 100% intervention either from us. They have to have some tools……and sometimes we need some tools ourselves.

My youngest has two older siblings who seem to live to do everything for their youngest brother. It’s a lovely aspect to their personalities but it’s fraught with problems at times.  I try to leave him to get on his clothes. You know, pulling the top over his head; pulling on a sock, negotiating the right hole for trousers or pants.

The youngest is quick to slip off and ask his brothers to put on something. I think, ” Help me, shoes!” was one of his first sentences. He’s also learnt to go to a different one for different things. Smart. The boys don’t have the skills to say no- nicely or in a way we may as adults to encourage him, although they do try.

I need some tools.

Tools to support

Jill Rigby talks about three styles of parenting- parent-centred, child centered and character centred.

• Parent centered: more concerned with their own agenda than their child’s best interests.
• Child centered: more concerned with their child’s approval than their child’s well-being.
• Character centered: more concerned with their child’s character than their child’s comfort.

Books I’m reading to help with direction

” A person who grows up getting too frequent rewards will not have persistence, because they’ll quit when the rewards disappear.”

“You undid your button today.”

” Maybe next time you’ll get that button. Let me see. Mummy’ll try. Watch.”

Our solution

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What are you reading in 2012 to shape your family? I’m curious

Click here to read the rest of the posts in the series, 31 Days to a more Playful Tot.

31 days to a more Playful Tot {Day Eight} Real living is a post from: Play-Activities.com
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Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

It’s really easy to get caught up in what THEY are doing….and feel you’ve fallen short.
It’s easy to see that your child isn’t the same as THEM…. and believe if you just do/ have this then everything will be better.

What’s harder is finding a path that suits YOUR child and a FIT for your family.

It’ll mean experimenting, discovering, rejecting, reading, laughing, crying. Your ideas will shift. You’ll be tempted, worn down and persuaded.

One thing for sure: Less is worth so much more when they are young.

Less toys :: Less academics :: Less screentime :: Less tightly structured days :: Less media ::

When you have less of these things…..there’s more time for other things….

What are you planning for your family this year so that you feel the value of how less is more?

Click here to read the rest of the posts in the series, 31 Days to a more Playful Tot.

31 days to a more Playful Tot {Day Five} Less is more is a post from: Play-Activities.com
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Children are naturally self centered.  December is traditionally a time when we try to encourage service projects with our children. It’s a time for them to think of others.

• Things like cleaning out their toys
• Donating to a shelter
• Choosing a family from the Angel Tree.
• Operation Christmas child.

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It’s also one of the busist times of the year. So with all good intentions we don’t always get to do these things. Me too. This year we didn’t get to participate in the Operation Christmas Child or deliver our Christmas cookies to our neighbours. Somethings just had to give. However the concept of doing things for other people shouldn’t be just for December. If we forgot, didn’t have a chance etc neither should we let the guilt haunt us. Just find another avenue that’ll work for you and your family.

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Children need to know that the world doesn’t revolve around them.

Expanding their horizons and letting them experiences different things outside their ( and often our) comfort zones gets the conversation flowing and the mind changing.

Young children need it.

6 Ways to Explore the World with your Children

Investigate cultures and festivals where you live?

Three of our favourite festivals in Italy were the mushroom, cheese and basket festival. They were three different festivals. Who knew there were so many different type of each though? If it wasn’t for the 100s of people walking past our house perhaps we wouldn’t have gone. I mean- a mushroom festival? Really? Living in Italy we embraced weekend festivals. You learnt so much. It was fun.

Country fairs :: local museums :: Visit the tourist office online or in person and find the kid friendly places to visit::  visit a farm:: learn some history- why is your town on the map- who were the pioneers and where did they live? When is the  popular festival in your area?

Expand your friendship groups to include diversity

We get comfortable really quickly in our friendship groups. Having moved around a fair bit, I have been on the outside a lot looking in on groups. We choose and become friends because we have a situation, feelings, beliefs in common. How diverse are your children’s friends?  Say let’s ask a tricky question- how diverse is your group of friends?

• New friends ( ‘known’ for less than a year)
• Friends
• Old friends ( ‘known for more than 5 years)

Explore new locations through picture books, topics and blogs

http://www.thelittletravelers.typepad.com/  I loved their series 52 meals from 52 countries

There are many families travelling with young children around the world.

Join a postcard exchange, cultural exchange, linky that celebrates something

International postcard swap  ::Random postcard ::Postcard exchange :: cultural exchange

Learn about a new area through dressing up, food and activities

3 ways to bring diversity into your child’s play | Play-Activities.com

Linking play activities with food | Play-Activities.com

Cultural diversity in the home

Learning about our world | Play-Activities.com

9 must haves for your dressing up box | Play-Activities.com

66. Celebrating other cultures | Raising Playful Tots

How do you expand and explore the world?

Click here to read the rest of the posts in the series, 31 Days to a more Playful Tot.

31 days to a more Playful Tot {Day Four} Exploring the world is a post from: Play-Activities.com
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Melissa over at Chasing Cheerios mentioned a Cultural Exchange  just before the Summer. It sounded a great idea.

The idea was to send a packgae out that represented your country to a group of people. Melissa coordinated the whole thing. We were in a group of 6 people. 6 packages- how difficult would that be?

Naturally life gets busy during the summer. My husband was back after a year deployment so life was hectic. The kids also spent a large portion with Grandparents. I didn’t want to send activities for them to do. Hanging out with the Grandparents was all that was required.

So September rolls around and back to school. Again super busy. The boys and I worked really  hard on finding UK things and what they wanted.

This is what we selected for our package. Each one was a little different.

• ELC money in Euros and Sterling
• Twining fruit Tea. (We’re big fruit tea drinkers but we were thinking of the kids- no caffeine!)
• Mini chocolate digestives ( I had to buy a second packet the first packets got…er..um eaten)
• Love hearts and traditional sweets
• keyring with a tourist attraction from the UK/London. Here we have the traditional phone box. Not many of these around.
• Make a flag activity
• Information pack about the K including recipes
• Drawn picture of a Beefeater costume.

Imagine that duplicated 6 times. It was an interesting time at the post office sending these off.

Next the wait…….

So far we’ve received one from Arizonia and one from Japan.

The boys are beyond excited to open them up. We unpacked them at Dinnertime.

If you get the chance to participate in an exchange….do!

There are lots of physical swaps online. I spoke about the International Postcard Swap  on the podcast recently.

Have you participated in any swaps? Share the links below

Cultural Exchange is a post from: Play-Activities.com
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