The Playful Parent: 7 ways to happier, calmer, more creative days with your under-fives

The Playful Parent: 7 ways to happier, calmer, more creative days with your under-fives
Julia Deering

The Playful Parent offers a new solution for parents and carers looking for a calmer, happier and smarter way to parent the under-fives.This activity-led parenting guide shows how to get young children involved and learning, thinking and growing, helping and cooperating without any need for ‘the naughty step’ or punishment at all, but by making play the beating heart of family life.Julia Deering offers support and advice to busy parents, combining down-to-earth practicality with hundreds of simple activities, tips, tricks and fixes, guidance, prompts and brilliant ideas that show parents how to tap into their child's playful instincts. You can use The Playful Parent to:• Make your little one’s good behaviour become their normal behaviour• Remove those parent/child battle-of-will situations• Help steer clear of the flashpoint furies and melt-down moments of the ‘terrible twos’• Run fuss-free errands with your toddlers in tow• Tackle tricky transitions such as bedtimes and car journeys with ease• Develop your child's independence and unleash their natural creativity• Bond with a child in the first language they know: playWhether you've forgotten how to play or you're still a child at heart, The Playful Parent equips you with all the know-how you need to make play work for you and your family; transforming parenting during the early years into a more enjoyable, rewarding and memorable experience.Includes:• A guide to the principles of play and how to use the 7 Ways to Play concept• Advice on how to organise your home – and your life – for maximum play with minimum stress• Over a hundred uncomplicated and irresistible activities for your 18 month – 5 year olds• A Family Favourites chart so you can record favourite activities and start building daily and weekly planners

Contents

Cover (#u74b41266-37e1-597c-a922-cc8bc186ea5e)

Title Page (#u2c5c54a6-9ce2-56c4-b31e-133c8453989d)

Introduction

What should a four-year-old know? (#ulink_df435510-9c45-5292-8e21-f2257f7fcade)

The power of play (#ulink_3923e9cc-56d8-5672-9440-6afd897cf19f)

Why 7 Ways to Play? (#ulink_054cc00b-0c72-5439-9e2d-9dd4f12b2baf)

How to use this book (#ulink_08421242-dff5-54a9-9466-afcbfbd79ff6)

A quick guide to baby and preschool play (#ulink_2fa3a30b-7361-500d-aad2-6f9795e2b250)

Ready steady play (#ulink_a35b7cd4-5d01-56ec-99ea-c7c403252ca6)

Chores: not Bores

10-Second Set-ups

Invitations to Play

Invitations to Create

Make and Take

Stay and Play

Sanity Savers

And finally . . . (#litres_trial_promo)

A play planner for your family favourites

Useful websites and further reading

List of Searchable Terms

Copyright

About the Publisher

Introduction (#uf45518ce-7164-5b8b-a3c3-0c2ec9501020)

What should a four-year-old know? (#ulink_d553e2d6-031b-523b-92de-06542997bf74)

‘I was on a parenting bulletin board recently and read a post by a mother who was worried that her four-and-a-half-year-old did not know enough. “What should a four-year-old know?” she asked. Most of the answers left me not only saddened but pretty soundly annoyed. One mom posted a laundry list of all of the things her son knew. Counting to 100, planets, how to write his first and last name, and on and on. Others chimed in with how much more their children already knew, some who were only three. A few posted URLs to lists of what each age should know. The fewest yet said that each child develops at his own pace and not to worry.’

Written by a preschool teacher in the US

As both a parent and also an Early Years educator myself, I think I would have felt pretty annoyed by those mums’ postings. Maybe you have a toddler or a preschooler, perhaps your child or children are older now, or maybe you’re about to be spending some time with a young child, but whatever your situation, think of that child at four years old. What do you think they should know?

Here in the UK, the question ‘What should a four-year-old know?’ is being answered on a slightly larger scale than on a parenting bulletin board, as the current Government and its advisors are suggesting reforms to our education system that will focus on getting four-year-olds ‘school ready’. That means a bigger emphasis on them knowing basic reading, writing and arithmetic before they even start in Reception. There’s even talk of a new baseline test for five-year-olds in England – adding a competitive twist to the whole thing; just as the mums were doing on that preschool bulletin board. So, reading, writing and arithmetic – that’s what the Department for Education think our four-year-olds should know.

Many Early Years experts, teachers, nursery staff and parents – myself included – are fighting back with a counter opinion. What we think four-year-olds really need to know is that they each have a brilliant talent; one that will absolutely get them ‘school-ready’, but not by achieving certain levels in the 3Rs. Instead, this talent will help them gain the skills they really need to start school. These include social and emotional skills to get along with others, curiosity about the world, practical skills, the ability to listen and understand instructions from grown ups, independence with personal care and the ability to spend time happily engaged with objects or in an activity without their parents.

And the talent? Well, it was my daughter, aged six, who put it very clearly. ‘Mummy,’ she told me, ‘you know, all children have a talent.’ When I asked her what that talent was, she replied – very matter of fact – ‘All children can play. That’s their talent.’

And I believe that’s what a four-year-old should know; that they can play.

In her response to those parents on that bulletin board, the US preschool teacher also recognised the talent of a four-year-old. She knew it had little to do with reading, writing and arithmetic levels and all to do with their brilliant skills at play. Here are a couple of things she felt a four-year-old should know:

‘He should know his own interests and be encouraged to follow them. If he could care less about learning his numbers, his parents should realize he’ll learn them accidentally soon enough and let him immerse himself instead in rocket ships, drawing dinosaurs or playing in the mud.

‘She should know that the world is magical and that so is she. She should know that she’s wonderful, brilliant, creative, compassionate and marvellous. She should know that it’s just as worthy to spend the day outside making daisy chains, mud pies and fairy houses as it is to practise phonics. Scratch that – way more worthy.’

This happy talent of children – play – can actually be seen from birth. When they’re not sleeping or feeling sleepy, feeding or feeling too hungry, or feeling colicky or uncomfortable because they need a nappy change, babies are instinctively and naturally playing. Play is the language of infancy, toddlerhood and the preschool years. So, if you want to properly understand your under-five and help them to know what any child of their age should really know, you’d better learn the language of play. And this book is where to do just that.

The power of play (#ulink_caf42a08-8fb1-5020-946c-06f298cc99e9)

As a teacher and creative play specialist with over twenty years’ experience working with children and their families in a variety of educational settings, I am evangelical about the power of play to promote learning. I have seen little ones simply thrive physically and mentally when their days, weeks and months are, above all else, playful.

Over the years I’ve worked with thousands of children in a huge variety of locations – from classrooms, gardens, woodland, parkland and playgrounds to museums, art studios, venue foyers, libraries, kitchens and even school dining halls. Whether I’m producing materials and ideas for families to use together in a gallery or at home, or I’m leading a session for a group in a herb garden, my raison d’etre is to provide young children with an enabling environment – somewhere Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) guidelines describe as a place where they feel safe, comfortable and ‘at home’; where they can investigate, explore and learn in a way that is best for them. And that is always through play.

As an Early Years practitioner, these EYFS areas of learning and development guidelines inform all the sessions I plan, all the materials I produce – and because over many years I have experienced how young children learn best, I always deliver Learning and Development objectives with playful teaching methods and through playful activities.

For example, if I’m thinking about how to include the teaching of Communication and Language in my sessions, I’ll plan for plenty of playful opportunities for families to talk and sing together, where a little one can talk with their grown up, learn new words, experience non-verbal communication and listen to rhymes, songs and stories. When considering Physical Development I try to include opportunities for the children to playfully practise their fine motor skills and gross motor skills doing practical activities. I teach Personal, Social and Emotional skills during my sessions too, and offer plenty of opportunities to develop skills like sharing, taking turns, listening to others and recognising others’ feelings while playing. I also make sure I develop slightly more formal EYFS Specific Areas of Learning – things like Numeracy, Literacy, Expressive Arts and Design and Understanding the World – which can all be promoted through play.

Throughout my professional work, wherever I’m teaching, play is central to my planning and practice. This way, I know that the children in my care are happily and naturally learning, gaining all those essential skills that will make them really ready for school when the time comes.

By now, you might be thinking – hang on a minute, all this play sounds well and good for a teacher doing their job, but how exactly does this fit in with parenting? Family life is just too busy for all that play-planning and all those ‘Areas of Learning and Development’. I know, I know. This was my thinking too. When I became a parent of two young children – only seventeen months apart – and then went back to work, albeit part-time, I also wondered how on earth I could integrate all this great and important play, in which I strongly believed and promoted professionally, into our everyday family life. I remember thinking that, sometimes, it would just be easiest to hand over my phone to my toddler when on a journey to the supermarket, for example. And what about the TV? How handy was that for keeping them still and quiet while I dashed off those vital emails, or loaded the washing machine?

It was then that I decided to change the conversation just as Don Draper from Mad Men would say. Instead of trying to fit all this play into our busy life, I decided to flip it on its head and instead try to see our busy life as a series of opportunities for play. Play was so important to me professionally, I just knew I could make it work personally. In fact, using this approach transformed my experience of parenting two young children into a more joyful, fulfilling and memorable experience than I ever could have imagined.

Using play didn’t mean that I suddenly became the in-house entertainer, and it didn’t mean I played with my children all day long. No, I just wanted to get my children involved and learning, thinking and growing, helping and cooperating as a matter of course throughout our normal busy day – and I realised that I could do this all under a kind of banner of play.

So, for example, loading the washing machine became a playful activity that my toddler just loved. Sometimes, he would help with a fun socks-sorting game and sometimes we’d sing a silly washing machine song as we worked. (There will be much more singing in this book, so be prepared.) And if I needed to make a phone call or try to get his baby sister to sleep, for example, instead of putting on the TV, I might surprise him with a little tote bag containing a few unexpected things – just some small toys he’d forgotten about. As I experimented with more and more ways to weave play into our everyday life I began to realise that some of these ideas actually freed me up a fair bit, because once I’d set them off with something irresistible to play with, my children would often find their flow and they became really rather good at playing independently. Some of the ideas actually saved my sanity – like when I arranged their clothes into silly positions on the floor in the mornings. When they were laid out like that, there was never again an argument about what to wear, and when to get dressed. I was so pleased because those arguments had been proper two-year-old ones, with rage and tears and stamping – you know the kind . . . Now they just laughed, said ‘silly Mummy’, and got dressed.

Parenting with play really paid off for me. I realised how much easier it was to motivate my children, and get good behaviour from them, when I applied playful positivity to the situation, rather than by trying to be all authoritative and go down the battle-of-wills route. My feisty and smart two-year-old got that I was being playful, of course, but because she, like all children, had this innate desire to play, she was more than happy to comply – to help tidy up, or clean her teeth or whatever – because it was all done in a fun and gentle, playful and mutually respectful way.

So this was me, beginning to find my feet as a parent, bringing my teaching experience to bear when I could, experimenting with different ways to make play shape our everyday. Some ways to play were time savers, some were sanity savers. Some were ideal for filling a bit of time, instead of putting on the TV, and some brought out top-notch creativity in my children or developed their independence. I discovered a sense of peace, purpose and fun in parenting despite hearing so many others with children of similar ages bemoaning the ‘terrible twos’, shouting at their kids, ignoring unwanted behaviour with a ‘boys will be boys’ comment or just going on and on about how hard it all was.