I’m standing in the kitchen, wiping off my hands after washing the breakfast dishes, when I hear his little running feet getting closer and closer. Then I hear it.
“Mommy, Will You Play with Me?”
Sigh. This sweet kid cannot entertain himself if his life depended on it. Instead of pushing him off, I respond with “sure kiddo, what do you want to do?”
Mental high-five. Go Me!
“Paw Patrol! Oh, I LOVE Paw Patrol! You be Chase, I’ll be Rider! Let’s go!” I take off running after my son, smiles on both of our faces.
I’m ready to do this thing, let’s PLAY!
We run around the house pretending to save a lost kid named Jake. Honestly, I do not understand what we’re doing, but I’m following along with whatever directions he throws my way.
I say something about Chase grabbing a ladder to rescue Jake and it happens, “No Mommy! That’s not what Chase does, you’re doing it wrong! Jeeze!” Oops, I got off script.
After a few minutes of pretending and “doing it wrong” I’m feeling a bit agitated and bored. I look for my out.
Laundry! Oh, yes! I have laundry to fold.
“Hey kiddo, I had fun playing, but I need to go fold some laundry. I promise we’ll play more later.”
Whew, I’m free.
As I’m walking away he says “Awe, Mom!” and hangs his little head. Guilt smacks me straight in the gut.
“Why can’t I just play for more than just a few minutes? Playing has gotten so tedious!”
I want to play with him, unfortunately I don’t like to pretend play, which is his favorite thing right now.
We both get frustrated because playtime isn’t all that fun anymore.
This post is sponsored by GoNoodle. All opinions are mine!
It was time to make a change.
I vowed to no longer say “I don’t want to play”, instead I’d say “I don’t want to play that. Let’s do something we’d both enjoy.”
I’ve discovered that it isn’t what my son wants to play that matters, it’s who he’s playing with…me. He wants to spend time with me. I needed to come up with playful ideas that we’d both enjoy.
In order for this plan to work, I had to figure out what I wanted to do. I had to rediscover how I like to play.
How Do You Like to Play?
Take a minute and think back to your childhood. How did you like to play?
Did you play with dolls and decorate their homes? Were you a builder and creator of magnificent things? Did you yearn to be outside digging in the dirt? Did you spend most of your time with your nose in a book?
Remember things that you loved to do that you might enjoy doing with your kids now.
I loved to build, cook, and sing as a child. So for fun playtime with my kids, I make block towers, bake cookies, and have silly dance parties while singing 80’s music at the top of our lungs.
Make playtime mutually enjoyable for everyone.
Get Active
By far the easiest and most fun way to play with my kids is by getting active.
I don’t mean going for a family jog, I mean tickle wars, wrestling matches, running laps around the house, and playing hide and seek. My boys are extremely active, and when I’m active and silly with them, we laugh harder than at any other time during the day.
Plus, when we get active, our pituitary gland excretes endorphins that make us feel good. They literally give us feelings of euphoria. So when we want to play and enjoy our time with our kids, get active and let the brain chemistry boost our mood too!
Get Techy
When you need to relax and you don’t have the energy to get active, try curling up on the couch with a tablet and play some cool apps together.
I love playing fun games on the tablet with my boys! We get to be close to one another, use our brains to think, and laugh with each other. It’s a perfect way to connect, if you’re playing the right type of apps.
I know you might be thinking that screen time is BAD! Well, studies now show that screen time may not be all that terrible. It’s all about moderation.
Our children are the first digital natives, born into a world of technology. It’s our job to teach them how to navigate it. Studies have shown that it’s best when parents are engaged with their children’s screen time.
So, hang out for a while and play Angry Birds or Mindcraft with your kid. Enjoy that playful screen time with your child, instead of just handing over the tablet for them to play.
If you feel guilty about spending so much lazy time in front of a screen, I found the perfect thing!
It’s time to get up and start dancing!
Check out GoNoodle, it’s a FREE app that allows my boys and I to get active and enjoy technology at the same time, and we LOVE it!
GoNoodle has hundreds of activities, like Kids Zumba, The Kidz Bop, Yoga, and Stretching. I really like their mindfulness activities that calm my kids down after an active session of dancing while also teaching calming skills.
This app gets us up and moving! My kids think it’s fun, and I get a bit of a workout in too.
Since we moved to Alaska, where it’s cold and dark in the winter, this app keeps my kids moving when we can’t go outside and play. It’s a lifesaver!
“Mommy, Will You Play With Me?”
Those words don’t immediately cause angst anymore. Now, I can say “Yes! Let’s play!” and I actually enjoy playtime with my kids.
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Love this and needed this today! I would substitute board games for the tablet time though but we have worked on Monument Valley on lazy days too!
Ummm I have never heard of that app and it sounds so perfect for us. My daughter and I love doing Zumba and Yoga together!
Thanks for all of the great ideas! Now that my daughter is old enough, I can’t wait to play hide and go seek, and make pillow forts with her this winter. we love playing games on the ipad sometimes too. I will definitely check out that app!
There is a fb page called Loose Parts and Intelligent Playthings. Look it up!! I’m a grandmother now (call me Grammy) but my house is just like my house was when my own kids were little. I have tons of “loose parts” divided into areas… a table with “things” (shells, flat marbles, balls, small containers) the play house with dolls and doll beds, musical instruments, water play, a large pad of paper and drawing instruments (good quality color pencils) and easel and sand table on the patio, and hidden containers of future ideas for play (paints, playdough, cooking, etc. ). We play together as we discover the materials. My eyes are on the child and my heart is with the child. Time stands still. And yes, my house as a mother was quite a mess most of the time. And I’m so glad that was my value!
You described me pretty well and this post gave me some good ideas about things I can do with my kids that we’ll all enjoy. (Dance parties are definitely a favorite!)
My kids and I had fun, lots of non-techie things like board games, card games, (yes, I’m competitive!) and crafty stuff like stringing buttons or coloring together.
However, when I kept the 4yo son of a friend, whose husband had died and she needed to mourn and make funeral arrangements, I sensed he’d about had his FILL of being good and sitting quietly and acting as if his laugh button was broken.
So, I showed him a couple of cardboard tubes from inside wrapping paper and explained to him they were great for hitting other people, since it doesn’t hurt. And I whacked him once, to demonstrated. He grabbed up the other and the chase was on. I am competitive, but oldish; he was twice as competitive and twice as fast. We ran around in the house (breaking my rule about running inthe house!) and whacked each other until both tubes were so bent, they were useless, and we were breathless with the fun and exercise.
Then, at the body viewing, I entertained him in the hallways of the funeral home while his mama met all her husband’s dearest friends in the viewing room. How? We made paper airplanes and flew them in the hallway. I observed people who knew who he was, smiling through tears as they walked by. A couple of more interested men showed me how better to make a paper airplane (since my experience was rather limited to watching my brother fly theirs, not watching them MAKE them) and these men knew they were contributing to the comfort of this precious boy who would never see his daddy again.
Win. Win. Win.
Thank you for letting me know I am not the only one who feels this way when my son wants to pretend play all the time and I’m “not doing it right” and I end up feeling guilty that I can sometimes dread hearing the inevitable “Will you play with me?” Thank you for giving me some tips, tools, and reminders to enable us to both enjoy playing together!
Minecraft
Enjoyed and convicted to do better tomorrow. Shared on my FB page. Thank you!
I personally love playing music with my son, because I love music even though I am not talented at it at all! I do wish we could listen to something other than Music Together albums though. I actually can’t wait until we get to pretend play because I love improvising. And we’re both huge book nerds.
My gradson age 3 seems to love when I make weird noises. The one night I stayed alone with him when I heard him patter down the hall in the morning I did a little mouse ekk… he did a little mouse eek back, and my worries he’d scream “where’s mummy” were unfounded…
I personally enjoy & love the imaginative play/pretend play of my 4 year old & 2 year old. Everyday is a new adventure that range from bear hunts, to putting out fires, to trips to Athens to visit their Aunt, to also being bit by a snake. Their imagination is unreal. They see something one time and they are using their creativity to reenact what they saw. I am always in pure amazement of their creativity and imagination.
Love this! I have always hated pretend play, even as a kid, and I am dreading that stage in my little girl’s future. She’s super active though, and that app sounds amazing! Definitely gonna try it out!
Love your post. That scenario you painted at the start is exactly what happens to me! The weird thing is I used to enjoy pretend play a lot when I was a child…but these days it’s like my imagination doesn’t work anymore! I think it’s such a good point that we should find a middle ground, and play whatever we both enjoy. But I’d love to rediscover a love for pretend play. It’s so much harder than it sounds especially when there are so many “rules” to accidentally fall foul of!
Hi Amanda.
I delighted to hear about the way you can trigger Ecstasy in kids.
You can read minds of younger ones
I love that, i also has that genetic ,I like music very much.
Thanks.
Oh my goodness you just described my day, EXACTLY! Paw Patrol, getting off script, excusing myself to do laundry…
Such good tips here. Thank you!
I thought I was the only one who dreaded pretend play. Holy moly. There’s more of you!
So glad to know I’m not the only one. Thanks for the ideas. Where are you in AK? I’m from Eielson and my family still lives there! We’re a military family as well.
Your suggestions would make things more enjoyable for me but my daughter doesn’t consider that “playing” even if we decide on it together. Her idea of playing is only pretend play with her little people dolls. I don’t get credit with her for playing unless I do that.