Playful Parenting by Lawrence J. Cohen
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Book Reviews of Playful Parenting
Book Review: What do you know? Goofiness is a skill.
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a great book that I encourage parents to read. Dr. Cohen certainly didn't invent this approach, and I don't believe he's claiming to have, but he does a great job of making the case for the importance of playing with your children. And not just taking the time to play with your children, but also approaching discipline and parenting in a playful manner.
This is all easier said than done. The technique is fairly simple in its basic form: sitting on the floor, parent and child one-on-one, and play, letting the child take the lead and shape the direction of the play. But this really is a luxury for most families these days. Parents are busy and stressed. Some days, getting everyone where they need to go, putting food on the table, and keeping your kids safe is about all that can be asked. But the payoffs are worth it in terms of deepening the connection with your child, teaching confidence, and laughing together. It can also be therapeutic for the parents, as you observe what kind of fantasies or strong feelings are tough for you to tolerate. When is it tough for us adults to give up our dignity and play dumb, play powerless. When we re-direct, is it for our children's sake or to spare us from our own anxiety and frustrations. It's rich stuff.
Children play because it's fun. But it is also a child's way of learning, experimenting, playing with different roles, and communicating. Play is also a way of being close, so playing with your child helps bonding, filling that insatiable need for attachment and affection. A third purpose of play is to process and recover from painful experiences and emotional distress. Dr. Cohen gives the simple example of a little kid coming back from a doctor's visit and wanting to pretend they are a doctor and their parents are the patients who have to get shots. This phenomenon, mastering anxiety or painful emotions through play, takes different forms at different developmental stages, with a common adolescent example being the kid who gets bullied at school and goes home to play a video game in which they shoot and kill people.
I think it's easy to think of degrees of playfulness that are aspects of your personality, something inherent in some people and not in others. But you can actually learn it, and the examples in the book give nice illustrations of how to approach playful parenting. It's just a technique, it's an attitude, and one that immediately makes a difference if put to practice. It's focusing away from rules and instead teaching principles. It's entering the child's world, not worrying about the specific behaviors as much as trying to appreciate what the behavior is communicating. As Dr. Cohen says, "our children want us and need us to loosen up." An important part of this is getting down on the floor, literally, and looking at the world from the point of view of children. It is remembering what it felt like to be a little person walking around in a world full of these giant adults, grown-ups who rush around obsessed with the boring details of rules.
I've been fortunate to have this kind of playfulness modeled for me at my children's pre-school. I've described the preschool to friends, it is a co-op school, and they've joking labeled it `hippie pre-school.' I, myself, was calling it a free-range school. But I wasn't fully on board in the beginning. It seemed too unstructured. The kids were running around playing, doing what they want. It wasn't at all like other preschools I had visited, which operate more like obedience school for kids. I worried that, the kids are having fun but they aren't being taught anything. And then I finally got it. There's plenty of time in childhood later to sit in chairs and be a passive learner, plenty of time to learn your ABC's and math in the grade school years. The important tasks of preschool really should be social learning, learning to interact with other kids, learning to interact with adults who are parents or teachers, and nurturing the spontaneous creative play the comes naturally for all us until it has to be squelched, unlearned in the later grades.
I could go on and on, there are chapters in the book dealing with more specific situations that parents struggle with, discipline issues, sibling rivalries, safety issues, setting limits... all that stuff. Just a great book that provides a different perspective on parenting, explained in a way that- while appreciating the realities of our daily lives- when put into practice is refreshing and helpful for parents and children. It's also a lot of fun.
Book Review: Not just for the NEW Parent
Summary: 5 Stars
Ok, I'll admit it. Judging from the results, I thought I was a pretty great mom. My 20 year old and my 13 year old are both bright, mature, responsible, independent human beings.
But now, being the 43 year old mom of an "oops baby" 16 month old, has allowed me to give it one more try. And I thought the one thing I had really lacked before was being more playful with my kids. So naturally, I bought this book.
The first thing I want to say is, I could only take the book in small doses. Not that it wasn't written well, but after only a little while, it started to sound all the same and I started to tune out. (I think I also read 3 novels along with this book, in the time it took me to finish this).
Having said that, I think I am really glad it took me so long to read it. The things in the book have really stayed with me.
I have always been from the school of natural consequences (and still am, really) but this book made me think about different ways to discipline and the reasons behind the acting out in the first place (generally a disconnect somewhere- He has a great analogy of the child's cup needing to be filled with love and connection).
I don't agree with a previous review about it being for kids over 3. In fact I think this would a be a GREAT gift for a baby shower.
I have an example from just last night. My husband came home from work. My 16 month old is a real daddy's girl, but last night she for the first time did not rush over to him to be picked up. In fact she wouldn't go to him at all. Before reading this book, I wouldn't have thought much about this. My husband started to get a little irritated "Ok, fine I'll just eat dinner, I'm starving blah, blah blah..". I immediately said, "she is feeling rejected because she doesn't get to see you much during the week, so she is doing the only thing she can with her 16 month old mind, she is rejecting you first." Where the heck did that come from? Also I said that if we let this go tonight, it would just get worse every night and pretty soon she would saying, Daddy who?
So I said, "You really need to get down on the floor and connect with her, now, so we can stop this in its tracks" So he did and said, "Ok now what?" cause she still would not even look at him. I did the first thing that came to mind. I took the nearest piece of cloth I could find (a placemat) and did the "where's Daddy?" peek-a-boo. Magic. She started giggling and playing with him and the evening was saved.
Duh, simple you say? Yeah, maybe. That is was playful parenting is all about. But I really would not have thought to do that if I had not read the book. My husband thought I was a genius (Ok, I didn't tell him I got it from the book!)
One more thing. The author really gets that playing with the kids can be boring, time consuming, and worse. And he talks about his mistakes in this process too. He does not in any way talk down to the reader.
Book Review: Terrific..a valuable parenting resource!
Summary: 5 Stars
I got more out of this book than I thought I would. I was expecting some hints on playing with small children. But the idea of play as a form of therapy had never crossed my mind. But I am delighted that it did. My son is nearly 5 and suffers with social phobia and selective mutism. With that in mind I jumped ahead to the chapter on 'Encourage their confidence' and discovered the "Poopyhead game". What a fabulously fun way to give a child a bit of power in such a safe way. I tried it with two 5 yr olds. One quiet and shy, the other boisterous and confident. They got to break a funny rule and laugh at me. They felt strong..it was obvious. These kids got that from a completely non physical game. I went from there to the chapter on 'Learn to roughhouse'. My husband plays it with our son, but I wanted some ideas on it for me as this is said to be a wonderful confidence game for shy kids. Well I got a few rules to help create a safe environment and an insight into the emotions attached to the game - playfullness, confidence, determination and power to name but a few, and how I might bring those out. Add to that the connections based on love and trust and it's a winning conbination. I then flicked ahead to the chapter on discipline. I certainly expected (and got) a non smacking approach..but this..it was different, and it worked! I'm used to using 'time-out' with varied success. My son reacts to that just how the author writes it. Word for word. So I gave this new approach a try. Success. The idea of instilling good judgement with clear limits from a young age is empowering to kids and builds confidence. It also lends itself very easily to prevention rather than cure. I've had the book for about one week. I've tried a few new approaches to parenting from the book, and for my son it has switched on the power within. This socially phobic child has attended a pre-school Christmas party (approx 60 people), a visit to a friends house (10 poeple)and sat alone on Santa's knee for a chat and photo for the first time. He did all this with an enthusiasm and confidence unseen in him. I am bursting with pride at his achievements of the last week and our household is much happier and calmer for it. I've still got much more reading to do and am loving the new stratedgies to manage time old parenting issues. My only criticism is that the reading can be a bit heavy going at times. For a book about play, it's not what I would call a light read. But really, it's certainly worth persisting to find the gems within, and I'm looking forward to it.
Book Review: Very Insightful, Helps me manage my irritation/frustration with my toddler
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is a sanity-saver. When you realize your child's "bad" behavior/acting up is no reason to despair or yell, and begin to see the real reasons they might be behaving obnoxiously, you automatically become much more compassionate, level-headed, and effective in your responses. It takes some getting used to, but play IS a better way to parent, even when you're feeling overwhelmed and in no mood to play.
One of the more eye-opening points for me is that when a parent is in punishment or overreaction mode, it's often an adult temper tantrum (parent isn't getting his/her way - even if they're right - so they have a fit that may or may not physically resemble the child's but is essentially the same thing: an emotional blow-up to either attempt to control the situation or inappropriately express anger/frustration). So true for me. Cohen's words and examples showed me (gently) how, in addition to being ineffective (which I had figured out, prompting me to buy the book), my reactions to my child's behavior are often immature and unfair. That was unexpected! It made a huge difference in my relationship with my child.
He quotes the physician's oath to "First, do no harm" and considers it a basic tenet of parenting. I feel like the reduction in my yelling/punishing and increase in my playfulness is not only avoiding further harm, but helping her in her development as well. And I'm much happier, too. I still lose my temper and yell sometimes, of course, but the time it takes to rebound back to a calm, gentle mommy has been reduced tremendously, and I always acknowledge to my child that I shouldn't have behaved that way and that I'm sorry. Modeling the kind of behavior you want to see in your child is considered one of the most important ways to teach your children, and now I practice what I was once so good at only preaching.
Book Review: The only parenting book anyone needs past age 1.
Summary: 5 Stars
Wow. There's no real way to describe how deep and rich this book is. The basic concept is so simple, and even just reading the first chapter changed my attitude toward interacting with and disciplining my toddler. But then the more you read the more you really understand just how desperately kids need and want our connection, and that many of the traditional ways of disciplining kids (even "positive parenting" methods like time-outs) just create distance and can backfire. So, of course it works with a toddler. I mean, the biggest problems with toddlers are changing their diapers without fits and getting them to stop throwing food off the high chair. But it also works with older kids. I've been trying the tips out on all the bigger kids at the playground and have been amazed at the results. It's basically just reframing the way you see kids and what their motivations are.
Some reviewers have commented that Cohen talks too much about what he's done. Well, of course he has! He's a therapist who uses play. By telling his own stories about what he's done with clients and with his own daughter, it gives you examples of how to think on your feet and figure out what a kid needs without being a therapist yourself.
I have been recommendiing this book to every I know, even people who aren't parents but just interact with kids. I just think that if everyone who deals with kids could read this book it would make everything so much easier and more fun for the adults *and* the kids. And that we'd all have closer connections with our family members. So this is going to be my standard gift for people having children from now on. It's definitely worth the money.