How To Play With Kids

What’s the most expensive thing you have to have with babies and toddlers?

Some will say the stroller. Some the baby food. Some say toys and then even when you have them, you still don’t know what’s the best way for using them and how to play with your kids.

Most, however, will say it’s the diapers. Especially when you want the best for your child – that means best diapers on the market.

And as the best diapers are also the most comfortable for the child… it often takes 4 years before your child can live without them.

There’s nothing wrong with having the best for your child and there’s nothing wrong with comfort.
But the smell in the trash bin, the changing of diapers with your own hands, the red spots, washing it again and again when the diapers leaked just that tiny little bit…

At certain point in time you simply want to stop with the diapers.

So we tried a few games. Nothing seemed to work. Every time we attempted, It was over only after a few seconds.

Ultimately, it turned out the potty we had was not really comfortable. It was made of plastic but it was cold and had “edges”. What do you expect, after all it is not the Lamborghini with leather seats 

It did not work and we had to endure a few more months until it was summer and we found a way how to reward our then two-year-old for “doing it right”. We skipped the potty altogether.

Now if you don’t want to wait, there’s a few tips you could use and there’s also experts around. Someone who changed roughly 56.000 diapers and potty trained over 300 children sounds just about right, doesn’t she.

So if your children are playing games with you and you are still stuck with diapers, check out the Johanne’s Potty trainer site

Sure you can. Although you might want to do this only just before Halloween.

Kids love mystical, scary but safely dead things. A typical example is the dinosaurs. Huge, dangerous, some even lethal but already extinct for 65 million years. That’s pretty safe distance.

And they love them and roar just like them when they play in our living room.

Back to the topic. So how do you “play this game“?

There are numerous web sites which are dedicated to funny food which might have (and often has) effect on the nutrition habits of your children.

They won’t eat cabbage unless it is disguised as a skeleton of a triceratops or a tyrannosaurus. Then suddenly, the only thing that matters is the shape, not the taste or the fact that you actually have to chew it before swallowing it…

Well, that’s the way children work.

Now, while I discourage spoiling children this way -

Children should eat everything regardless of the shape as long as it’s healthy, is already on the plate (and does not run away as Arthur Dent noted in the final part of the Hitchiker’s guide to the galaxy ).

- from time to time it does not hurt turning the dinning table into a playground and using the food with creativity. With a scary thing before Halloween, fighting dinos on a slow Sunday morning or moving the food around with a spoon and building structures just the way Bob the builder would.

If you like this idea, would like to play with your kids, but can’t get the creativity started, the page halloween-snacks lists the ones for Halloween and you will also find the full recipe!

Yummie

And certainly, if you liked any of these or those, let us know!

Surprise, surprise.

Willyac reports: When 1500 children were asked, “What do you think makes a happy family?” they didn’t list money, cars, or fine homes. They replied: doing things together.

An article at Parenting.com on the same subject underlines the necessity to play with kids as well while citing the study of Nick Stinnett and John Defrain.

The same study mentions that “What you do isn’t as important, they say, as doing it.”

So is the “How to play” not important after all? I believe it is. Quality time is not the same as quantity time. You can be in the same room yet not participating in the game or family activity. That’s not the same as playing the game. And that’s not the same as cleaning the house together, going out together or for that matter washing the dishes together.

By the way, your kids won’t know how to tidy up the room if you always do it yourself when they already went to bed. Do it with them and they will have fun doing it as well. Good one. Going to try it tonight? Let me know!

I have been looking for nursery rhymes, instead I’ve found this one. Nicely done and the song by A.J.Jenkins is quite catchy…

Join over 63 million people and have a look.

Do you know a parent who can answer ALL the questions that a child will ask? I don’t They keep asking and asking and asking until you feel like your head is going to explode. And then after a couple of years it fades away. They ask less and less.

Is it a good sign? Does less questions mean loss of interest? Is the school system wrong and subdues children’s curiosity?

Questions are actually an interesting phenomenon.

A question you ask gives you more than attention. It gives you control.
Try a little experiment. In the next conversation you have start with a question and keep asking. Now note who is the one choosing the direction of the dialogue? You are!

The school system (most of them all over the world) has one goal. To bring everybody on the same (reasonable) level.

Build a kind of common sense, communication platform so that we can understand one another.

Whether we like it or not, letting the kids ask questions at school does not fit into this picture. You can’t have 30 kids asking the teacher questions. Well, actually you can and then you end up with a small anarchy, which is controlled by the kids. Not the teacher.
You see results of this everywhere. It works just as bad as the standard education without questions.

So how do we solve this?
(Did you notice I am asking questions even when I write? I regain your attention with every question I ask.)

Personally, I believe that the school system will fall short on this issue. You have a far greater chance to support children in asking questions. How? By one-on-one coaching at home.

Support children in asking questions.

When playing with kids, let them ask the questions and let them be in control.

When a question is asked, answer it! Keep in mind, you should be rewarding every question and the answer you give is the crucial turning point. Your answer can bring up more questions or dismiss the rest of the conversation (and questions).

Question everything, don’t take things for granted and ask questions in front of your children.

Leading children by example can definitely contribute to the process.

Asking questions is a tool.

You can explore the world around you by observation. Look around you and yeah, you did not notice that thing up there, did not even exist for you before.

“What do I see? This is what you see.”

You can also explore by action. Pick up a stick, break it. Success? Yes, you can break wooden stick. Wow!

“What effect has this action? This is the effect it has.”

And, once you learn this powerful tool, you can explore by questions.

The power of the exploration by questions is that you actually explore models of things. Models of the world, things, situations, relationships … in heads of other people. People who had more time and chance to explore the world for you and are now willing to share with you the essence of their knowledge and experience.

“How do you think this works? This is the model of the thing.”

I assume that the children go through these three above mentioned phases of exploration in their development gradually as the tools become available.

Right, but how does this explains why they stop asking?

Each individual is building a model of the world inside of his head. Right from the start, right when we are born.

The model how we see the world, what to expect from it, how does it react with us, the “what if” scenarios and so on.

When a child gets to a model which shows reasonable level of integrity, there is not much more reason to keep asking. The model is “complete“. Sure, there are still many model corrections to be made, but these are minor.
The child will ask again when it encounters a problem with the model.

Monday. Dad, is my favorite show on tv today?
Yes it is.
Tuesday. Dad, is my favorite show on tv today?
Yes it is.
Wednesday. Dad, is my favorite show on tv today?
Yes it is.

Sunday. Dad, why is my favorite show NOT on tv today?
Because on Sunday we want to go out – just like most of the people do – and you would not want to miss a single episode, would you, honey?

Asking questions is the most powerful tool in this game. Use it! And teach your kids using it!

Children will ask you all sorts of questions. The famous never-ending “why” asked over and over and over is just one of them. (For those of you who are in the “why” phase I have good news: It will stop one day )

But there are other questions as well.

How would you answer an innocent question: “how big is the universe“?

Here’s what we did:

To start “small” we began with the solar system. How do you tell your kids how big something is? You can use analogy.

Is a planet bigger than a car? Bigger than a house? Bigger than the school or a football field? Yes, you can get this far. And then? Well, that’s it. Some of the older kids will understand that it’s bigger than a continent or an ocean.

We had to look for a different way and turned to pictures. And yes, found some interesting ones.

You can always introduce “something bigger than this” if you can draw the two things on a single sheet of paper.

(image source)

Again an analogy – a picture which shows how the planets circle the sun. A very old picture, but still understandable today. And to make it easy for the children, instead of the planets there are cars!

(image source)

If you enjoyed the article or learned something new, let us know!

This game can be played with kids of any age. However, keep in mind that it requires certain level of patience. It takes several rounds of guessing to get there.

Depending on the age and the interest of the kids, you can play using animated characters (like Mickey Mouse), family members (uncle John), inventors, famous people, celebrities and so on.

As the name of the game already suggests, the main question is the “WHO?”.
That being said, there are two variants of this game.

Variant “ME”: Everybody knows who you are, except you.

Your goal is to find out who you are.

Example:
One player – possibly the parent – writes down the name for each of the players so that they don’t see their own name. One possibility is to use the yellow stickers and stick them onto the back of the player. The players then ask other players questions about themselves. The player to be the first to find out who is the personage he represents wins.
It is up to you to decide if you want to continue with the game until everybody knows who their represent or not. As a parent though, you can tell when the game is no longer fun and it is time for the next round instead of torturing the ones who still don’t know

Variant “YOU”: Nobody knows who you are but you.

Their goal is to find out who you are.

Example:
One player picks a well known personage.
The players ask questions about the personage you represent in order to find out who you are (the players can take turns).
The player to be the first to find out who is the personage you represent wins.
Just as with the first variant of this game there might be a point when players exhausted their imagination and knowledge and they still did not guess who you represent. In such a case, rather than torturing the players for a very long time, you can better quickly pick a different personage or change the player roles (somebody else picks a personage to be guessed and answers questions).
If you keep going and nobody can guess, the game will loose its attractivity and this might be the last time you are playing it.
Games have to stay fun.

If you want to help others playing this game, just leave the personages you have used in the comments for inspiration

The Where does it grow game is fairly simple. Requires some preparation but is highly educative and fun to play.
You will need a clean sheet of paper, scissors and colored pencils.
Using the sheet of paper and scissors prepare a set of cards as shown on the image below. On one side of the card comes the fruit or vegetable. On the other side of the card comes the place where it grows – it might be a tree, field, water or a pot.
And how do you play this game with your kids?

• Lay the cards on the table with the fruit or vegetable facing up.
• Let the child pick a card.
• Ask the child “where does it grow”?
• Set the card aside and continue until you used up all cards.

You will notice that the guessing will very quickly turn into a fairly sure answer Have fun and let us know!

I have spent most of my childhood in a sandbox. Nothing has changed since (well, I don’t play with sand anymore, but our kids love it ).
At times, when we finally get the kids inside we have to avoid turning them (or the clothes they had been wearing that day) upside down. Otherwise we are facing a huge waterfall of sand. Can be fun but requires additional non-planned actions on our part just before the kids go to bed – like vacuum cleaning for example.

Another thing is that some of the public sandboxes are also accessible to dogs and cats. How do you solve that?
Get a sandbox in your own garden. Today it does not have to be a simple wooden frame or ugly and can actually improve the look of your garden.
There’s actually a website devoted to sandboxes. Enjoy reading there and let me know if you liked it

Watch what happens when the big boys play with the toys for the small boys

Amazing isn’t it? Do you ever play when the kids are already asleep? Let me know!