Raising Playful Tots is an Internet radio or Podcast available 24hrs a day . Host: Melitsa Avila of Play Activities. Download each episode yourself visit each show notes to do this or have iTunes do this automatically for you.
Week 28th Feb 2010: Large family play….with Meagan Francis of www.thehappiestmom.com shares her experience of managing a family of 5 and play. When you have a large family the way you play may change and the dynamics of play.
Keep up to date with new show by signing up for the newsletter. When you sign up for the newsletter you get a free 11 page special report 10 ways to extend your child’s play. New show on Wednesday!
We were lucky enough to be visiting extended family in the UK when we bought our first dressing up costume fully made.
Before then we just pretended.
Seeing such obvious pleasure we started receiving dressing up clothes for birthdays and Christmas with the same zeal. And so their dressing up chests began.
But what if we had started with the basic pieces, I wonder would we be in the same situation now?
Let me backtrack a little.
Living in a play void
It’s not an excuse I felt I lived in a play void. At the time I didn’t have influencers as I do now or people who would hold me accountable for this or that style of play.
I was new to the area and didn’t have the connections to ‘my people’ you know the ones you always find that are just like you in a new area. We were all trying our best and flitting from one thing to another.
We take for granted what we have around us like good friends and influences but I missed having a book section to browse. We had a great library but without books already there how do you know which books to browse if you don’t know the section or the section is empty. So like countless mothers and women before me and since, I do the best I can with what I have, my memories and thoughts.
Way to encourage pretend play
Not having much else to do . We instead read books a lot because they weren’t in short supply.
We liked to do voices and act out sections by saying, ” show me how the elephant was moving through the jungle?”
We used everyday items as we saw them to be something. We would often hear and still hear in our house. “Hey look at this, guess what I am?/this is?” as we would have a long sleeve not yet on dangling from our nose, stooped back ( elephant)
So we liked to fool around and pretend play.
We didn’t however get into grabbing everyday clothes from our wardrobes.
The kids did when they were at the grandparents house because they have amazing wardrobes that go back decades and you can find some really interesting things hidden in there. ( I still remember the platform shoes from my childhood. I used to wear. Still around for my boys)
What changed?
We jumped from the imaginary play that used pure imagination to costumes pretty quickly and here is where I think we missed the foundations.
We were good at using toys to fuel our imagination and books. We played restaurants and car wash but not really characters or people. So when the costumes arrived this void was filled with superheroes in our case.
Is this type of pretend play bad?
Clearly they love their superheroes but their play stagnates. The superhero always wins out and saves some helpless person. While I let my sons play this, I don’t think I would be able to stop them frankly or want to, I do think this is what they crave but I do draw the line at how often they play.
Even with the countless books we have read together and now have around them this fixed pretend play isn’t pretend play at all but rehashes of programs they have watched. In a household were TV is limited I still note how pervasive TV and marketing has taken hold in our household.
The question is what to do next? What do you do to keep your play real? Do you actively influence the pretend play in your home? Is too much play really a bad thing?
With three boys roughly equally spaced I often get the impression that I’ve been here done this before. Not just with clothes, which is inevitable. But with behaviours and play activities.
The first time my oldest threw himself on the floor and let us know how he felt I was stunned, embarrassed and lost. Fast forward the middle one, we could smile and had a few options up our sleeve and now the youngest tried for a week then gave up ( Well right now he’d rather climb than tantrum). We still get thrown a loop don’t get me wrong. Each child is unique and brings a little something the other one didn’t so there is still the challenge but I feel my confidence has grown with each child.
I think play activities can catch you like this too.
We can get a bit like a deer in the headlights. So many options and that crippling tiredness.
Apart from the obvious reach fors. Here are some activities we’ve loved over the years.
5 ways to overcome the play activity blues
If it’s not working, it’s not working try something else
You child may not be ready for crafts, playing by themselves, not creating a mess, always dumpsthe Legos, sit for anything like you expected. Not everyday needs to be a fight. Try something else and come back. Development may happen in steps. I see my children skip steps and fall down the steps all the time. Keep heading toward the goal but don’t get discouraged along the way. My child won’t do craft activities- what now? Childhood games
Repeat. If it worked before it is likely to work again
We all have those moments when the play activity goes well for them, you and the universe. Then we forget what we did or what happened exactly and it’s like a moment of loss. Keep a record of successful activities so when we have, “one of those days” we can try something we know worked well before. That’s not to say it will work well again but we know it did….once.
Getting stuck in a rut is easy. We love routines. Buy the same cereal and coffee. Unless something jumps out at us like a Sale or Advert we’re pretty much creatures of habit. All good except sometimes even we get bored. Trying something new requires more work but the rewards are usually right behind.
If you love reading but 2 hours of reading to your little one is getting old even though you had decided it was what you wanted to do. Try using an Audio story. Love reading yourself but too tired to read at night try a non fiction audio book or parenting podcast.
Change the way you think about play activities. They maybe learning experiences but they need to be fun. Remind yourself of what learning is happening when the button won’t stick with the glue stick ( problem solving). Is our reaction to go and get the white glue or rescue the child? Once you’re retrieved the thrown button and everyone is calmer. What happens next? That lovely activity cut lovingly from the magazine is now a big old mess of high emotions and high expectations but the opportunity to grow socially and emotionally should not be forgotten. Could you change the activity to a science one of investigation, think on your feet? An essential adult skill is the ability to work through problems logically, the knowledge to know when to walk away from situations that are frustrating or dangerous and knowing how to check our feelings. Tell our boss they are a dumb idiot maybe what we want to say, at times but we learn that doesn’t keep us our job and saying something else would have got the same point across.
I guess I’m saying that many times it will be the things you learn as you go along over the end product especially in the Early years. We can help our little guys and appreciate without belittling their efforts.
Blissdom is a conference for bloggers who are moms or who work with moms.
If you’ve never been to a conference before I would really recommend this one as it’s small enough to get to know people and have genuine connections plus there are so many people to meet and you get to stay in drop dead gorgeous surroundings.
As usual with so much going on I really forgot to take photographs of people. I got the notes and met the people I wanted, apart from a few. I’m sure there were lots of others I didn’t know were there.
The Opryland hotel was amazing. Who would think you’d get a walk in before breakfast and have scenery like this and not be bothered by the walk…..ever!
I was excited to room with Stephanie of Keeper of the home and Rene of Budget saving mom. If you’re looking for organic tips and money saving tips I learnt a lot from these ladies. Please say hi when you go visit them:)
Stephanie is a passionate homeschooler, organic gardener and amateur nutritionist. She’s also the wife of an entrepreneur and a mama to three little ones. Taking a practical approach, she writes daily articles on inspired natural living for homemakers at her blog, Keeper of the Home. Her first book, Healthy Homemaking: One Step at a Time, was published in 2009, and her second book, Real Food on a Real Budget, is due to be published February 2010.
Rene is the wife to a great guy, mother of three daughters with one more on the way. She loves to save money, find deals, freebies, and garden. She tries to eat mainly organic foods on a budget, and has started a gardening series to show others how to raise some of their own food. Rene blogs at Budgetsavingmom.
Are you planning on any conferences this year? Which conferences do you prefer- ones away from home or day conferences locally?
This post is part of the Tell me Thursday meme. Found at Tellmethursday.com
You can find other stories about Wordless Wednesday pictures and link up yours today.
Sign up to our play-activities email and you will receive a new, fun, educational activity to try at home with your child each week. Best of all, it's completely FREE!
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=1144b83e-b9c0-4c1c-8abd-93d1233d49d4)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=c1e615e2-94fb-451e-acf8-5e0ad6598d70)
Subscribe by RSS
