Playful parenting -- what are YOUR favorite games?

[Kivgaen]

Do you play any games with your LOs that encourage them to follow the rules without engaging in power struggles?

What games have you played?

Some situations that come to mind:

* getting ready in the morning (dressed, breakfast, making lunches, etc.)
* doing chores (make beds, clean room, fold laundry, wash dishes, etc.)
* to overcome powerful emotions (fear, anger, shyness, etc.)
* to encourage independence or to empower them
* to encourage sharing
* to be respectful of others

etc.

What games do you play?

I'll post my answers in a few minutes.

[Kivgaen]

Hungry garbage bag -- I mentioned this before in a previous thread, which got me thinking about making this post. I get a large garbage bag at clean-up time, walk around saying "me hungry garbage bag... me want garbage... ohhh, toys not put away. Me eat toys!"... etc. I chase them around the house for a while after they grab away the toys. Eventually the toy gets put away, and I say "hmm.... toy put away... not garbage... me go find more garbage". Rinse and repeat, till house is clean.

Good barbie / bad barbie this game works well with DD -- take two barbies, and make them argue with each other about the job that I want DD to do (like, make her bed, for example, or get dressed by herself, etc.) Good barbie says "she's 3 already! you just watch -- she can do it all by herself"). Bad barbie says "3! bah! She can't do that at 3... I don't believe it. No way!") etc.

Music clean-up game play a short piece of music (I have the "clean up" song I bought from iTunes) and play it repeatedly with about a 30 second break of silence. When the silence comes, make a race to see how many toys and/or items you can pick up and put away before the music starts back up again.

[crittersmum]

Adopt me! If you can make cleaning up toys fun?!

We don't have any specific games, per se, but we do have hand puppets. Literally. We make our hands into puppets and talk with them. Mine is a bit sarcastic (channeling?) but he can often talk DD into doing things, like closing her eyes and taking a nap. (DD (2) has her own hand puppets, which is hilarious. The other day she was mixing cookie dough with her hands and her puppets starting complaining about how dirty they were.) We can also get DD to follow us just about anywhere as long as her teddy bear is leading the way. He leaps off furniture and hides around posts, just to make it fun.

I'm looking forward to seeing other people's Playful Parenting posts!

[Kivgaen]

Come on, mamas, I know there are more good stories out there than this!

I saw that someone typed in another thread yesterday that they play a getting dressed game, where she pretends that DD's shirt is pants, and pants is a shirt. Today I tried it and it was pretty fun. I put DS's clean underware on his head and said "here's your hat", etc. we had a good time, and everyone is dressed!

Think deep, mamas! We all have our little games. Do share for the rest of us!

[joanna0707]

Did I hear you saying NO??? which I mentioned in other thread, when DS says no I chase him around saying playfuly 'Did I hear you saying NO' , sometimes we wrestle for a while, after few minutes of this DS is usually a lot more cooperative
Yestarday DS came to me saying "NO???" in the same tone of voice I do, it was an invitation to play. I had a big laugh

Lets do this very fast DS loves to do things fast and he loves this word, when we need to get dressed quickly and I don't have time to wait until he is ready I say 'Let's do it very fast' and we start running like crazy "Let's get our pants fast" and we both run in crazy circles " Lets get our hat fast " again running like crazy, making funny faces. It's pretty exhausting but so much fun

[sunnmama]

Not on your list of situations, but playing Red Light, Green Light is hugely helpful for my toddler/preschoolers learning to follow directions and explore at a safe distance. At that age, they both responded much better to "RED LIGHT!" than to "Stop!", even if we weren't playing the game at the moment.

I get my young dc to eat broccoli by telling them that there are little birdies in the trees, and please don't eat the birdies Of course, they can't wait to gobble them up!

For emotions and self control, I would sometimes use stuffed animals and switch roles with dd when she was small and struggling. So, my stuffed animal would hit another in anger, for example, and hers would step in and help me make better choices. She liked that game, because she got to be important and wise

[CarricksMom]

"It's a race" to see how fast we can get teeth brushed and ready for bed.

Sometimes to get DS to pee we get a stuffed animal or whatever thing he is into at the moment and "show" the thing how to peepee and flush, etc. Works for getting other things accomplished as well.

To take a bath "let's pretend we're at the beach."

[LynnS6]

Lately one of my games with dd has been 'jump starting' her. She's been going through a whiny phase and it drives me crazy. Not only will she whine when talking, but she'll sit there and kind of whine/moan over and over again. One day I said, "uh oh, it sounds like your engine isn't starting. What are we going to do? Maybe we'll have to jump start you." Then I lifted her up in the air and back down. She kept up the whine, so I did it again. By the 3rd or 4th jump, she was laughing.

When I was getting my kids dressed, one of our favorite games would be 'finding' their body parts. So, i'd start to put their pants on and 'lose' their feet. Then I'd act very surprised when they came out of the clothes.

"See if you can do it before I count to 10" is another favorite game. It eases transitions. So, when we go from reading and the kids then have to get into bed, I'll say "see if you can get into bed before I count to 10" (or 'before your old mom can get up off the floor'). The beauty of this game is that I can slow down or speed up the counting as need be.

I've got others but it's late and I can't think of them now.

[Kivgaen]

Originally Posted by LynnS6

Lately one of my games with dd has been 'jump starting' her. She's been going through a whiny phase and it drives me crazy. Not only will she whine when talking, but she'll sit there and kind of whine/moan over and over again. One day I said, "uh oh, it sounds like your engine isn't starting. What are we going to do? Maybe we'll have to jump start you." Then I lifted her up in the air and back down. She kept up the whine, so I did it again. By the 3rd or 4th jump, she was laughing.

Brilliant! I'll have to do that next time my DD is in a whiny phase -- it drives me crazy too!

thanks for the great ideas! post more when you think of them, I love the suggestions!

[butterfly_mommy]

Some that come to mind are

Don't eat that I will but DS vitamin beside his plate and say "I'm just putting this here but don't eat it" with a twinkle in my eye. He graps it and gobbles it up. Other variants is DH will hand the vitamin to DS and say "Can you give this to Mama, but don't eat it" The other day as I was getting him into his car seat he was finishing his last bite of granola bar and he said "Don't you eat that, don't you eat that" then he ate it

Let's show _______ how you take your medicine This works great for getting him to take any kind of medicine or supplements. I just pick anything near us, the dog, a car, the fridge magnet, a toy, etc and tell DS that the item would be really impressed with his medicine taking skills and lets show them.

[GoGoGirl]

My SIL plays health inspector.

I saw it a few weeks ago, when she was at my mom's house with my nieces. It was time to go home, but they didn't want to stop playing with the play kitchen. So my SIL called them on the kitchen's phone and announced that she was the health inspector, and that she was on the way to see if their kitchen was clean. If not, she would have to shut it down. They ran around like crazy to put everything away before the health inspector came.

She said she plays it with other cleaning up situations too. She's so much fun .

[Kivgaen]

Originally Posted by GoGoGirl

So my SIL called them on the kitchen's phone and announced that she was the health inspector, and that she was on the way to see if their kitchen was clean. If not, she would have to shut it down.

I can just see how this would totally work with my DD -- shes at that exact age where she loves playing pretend with any kind of phone!

[simplycrunchy]

Love all these ideas! Getting dressed has been a battle at our house so we started giving dd (2 1/2) choices- she gets three diapers, three pairs of pants, three shirts, and three pairs of socks to choose from each day. I lay the three diapers on the floor and she will hop on one and say "Not this one," so I put it away. Then she'll hop to another and say "Not this one," and I'll put it away. She'll hop to the one that's left and say "So, this one!" and we'll put it on her. We go through the same process for each piece of clothing. She giggles and gets dressed without a fight.

[vrclay]

Nose wiping/blowing - we use the tissue as the "Mocos(mucus in spanish) Monster". The mocos monster is hungry, he needs you to give him your mocos. It sounds silly, but it works every time.

[AmyKT]

Originally Posted by Kivgaen

Come on, mamas, I know there are more good stories out there than this!

I saw that someone typed in another thread yesterday that they play a getting dressed game, where she pretends that DD's shirt is pants, and pants is a shirt. Today I tried it and it was pretty fun. I put DS's clean underware on his head and said "here's your hat", etc. we had a good time, and everyone is dressed!

Think deep, mamas! We all have our little games. Do share for the rest of us!

We do this. An example from this morning: DD didn't want to put on her second sock, so I start trying to put it on her hand. --Does it go here? Noooo, she'll say with a grin. --How about your nose? Giggle, giggle, noooo. --so where does it go? Foot! and she offers up the foot.

Sometimes works with teeth brushing, too. I brush all the wrong parts first.

DD goes through phases where she hates baths, and what usually works is to toss in some previously non-bath toys. Like her animal figurines. The kitties are bathing! oh, my! and kitties don't even like water! oh, no, and there go the crocodiles! We must save the kitties from the crocodiles!

Whew! I needed this boost today. Just remembering that I manage to do a few things well has made me feel better. I'm going to try some of the other ideas, too. I really like Good Barbie/Bad Barbie and the sock puppets.

[mckennasmomma]

If I need my daughter to follow me somewhere, I will take a few steps in that direction, stop and hide behind a corner, piece of furniture, etc, and pop out and say peekaboo. She'll follow me a few steps, then I run to the next hiding spot and pop out again. She loves peekaboo and thinks it is so fun to follow me when we play it.

Fun thread!

[MtBikeLover]

One day, I was sick of the sibling fighting and I said "Whatever you do, do not hug or kiss each other." And then of course they do. Then I kept it up and said "Oh no, I told you not to hug and kiss. What am I going to do with you. You stop it right now." This led to more hugging and kissing and laughing. Then I said "All right, I am going to call the police and have them come and talk to you." I pretend to call and then I pretend to be the police so in a man's voice I say "I thought your mommy told you to stop hugging. Ok, here is your ticket." At this point, they are cracking up laughing and begging me to call the police again because they find it hilarious.

They get out of whatever funk they were in while they were fighting and get along great after.

Just a note so everyone knows I am not using police to scare them - my kids are not afraid of police and this isn't done to make them fear police. They find it hilarious and love the tone and getting the pretend ticket. They frequently play this way with each other and run around giving tickets so this is just an extension of their play.

[MtBikeLover]

Another one I do when they aren't listening to me and I have asked 500 times for something...

I say "Oh, I guess you must not be speaking English today. I guess I need to ask in another language. GJKGJ ajdkjakl iwejfij jsdjjwo (I say just a bunch of sounds together)."

I keep this up for a bit until they are laughing and paying attention to me then I say "Ok seriously now, I need you to ________."

[K-Mom3]

I LOVE this thread! What great ideas!

It made me remember Mrs. Piggle Wiggle. Those books have lots of great ideas. So today, in the spirit of Mrs. Piggle Wiggle, I told my kids that they had 10 minutes to pick up the living room and the cleaning fairy would come check and if they did a good job, she would shake some fairy dust on them. They were so excited! They cleaned up a storm and then my three year old went right into the kitchen, picked up the floor and told me that she was ready for the cleaning fairy! I think it is partly the novelty of a new game, but....what great results! I love it!

[nd_deadhead]

In our family, tantrums don't work. I might change my mind following negotiation, but NEVER because someone threw a fit! My kids knew this very well.

So if I said no to something, but they kept asking to do it, I would say "Do you think if you make a big enough fuss I will change my mind? Give it a try!" It became a game - they got to whine, scream, beg or whatever for a minute or two, then I would screw up my face in concentration, then say "Nope, it didn't work". Usually it would get them laughing - though I had to pick the times I thought it might make things better instead of worse.