One of my favorite parenting-related blogs, Child of Mind, is running a weekly "parenting challenge" where each week, there's a particular approach/technique for small-child discipline that they're exploring, and requesting the readers' feedback on.
The first one is playful parenting - the idea of using humor and play to guide your kid's behavior, instead of coercion/threats/punishments/rewards. Specifically, when faced with a situation where your child tends to put up resistance to something you want done (brushing teeth, getting dressed, taking a bath) you avoid the upcoming power struggle by saying "Let's pretend..." and make up a scenario where the troublesome activity turns into a game/fantasy. Let's pretend that if you put on the red shirt, you turn into Superman... let's pretend that this bathtub is a pond and you're a frog...
I like this one and although Annika doesn't quite understand "pretending" yet, I do try to use humor and laughter to bypass temper tantrums and power struggles, and I can definitely see using this technique as she gets older. Unfortunately, right now the main sticking point with her is bedtime, and I haven't figured out a "let's pretend" scenario that would encourage her to go to sleep.
I do wonder though - at what age do kids start to see through this and/or stop enjoying it? I would guess sometime around 5?
1 comment:
I used techniques like that with my campers who were 10. Now, they're aware of why it's a game but it worked to get them to do things like a) clean their cabin (best one got a prize) and b) clean their trunk.
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