Playing
12th February 2008
Day 12: 29 Days of the Everyday
I should start a collection of photos of the Mr. Potato Heads Lucy creates. She is such an artiste with them. My favourite came this evening when she gave him a set of eyes and six arms. It was actually rather creepy looking…
Are you good with playing with your child(ren)? Do you enjoy it? I don’t mean tossing toys at their noggins or setting them up with puzzles and turning your attention to Dr. Phil at 5 p.m. (*cough*). I mean the nitty-gritty-sprawled-on-the-floor-making-up-Little-People-voices-
playing-kitchen-pretending-to-be-a-horse playing.
I am horrible at playing. For whatever reason, I have no patience for it. My imagination may be wild when it comes to *ahem* secret fantasies and making up stories about our neighbours, but it sort of piddles out my ears when it comes to getting down to an almost 2-year-old level.
Eric rocks at this. He and Lucy will make up ridiculous stories about driving cows around the train station, and nose-diving dinosaur airplanes destroying Weebles, and building duck-eating monsters out of blocks. I have literally hurked tea up my nose laughing at the commentary he comes up with. He has no problem just playing for hours with her.
Lucy loves it. She goes to Daddy for playing and make believe.
I, on the other hand, excel at doing stuff with Lucy. We buy groceries or go to Tim Hortons for a tea n’ treat. We bake cookies. We do laundry. We paint or colour or sticker. We play outside (AKA: shovel the driveway). We garden. I like to teach her things through real experience. Playing makes me want to jab forks in my eyes after 0.3258 seconds.
Eric likes to…blow crap up with her. I am quite obviously just breeding to get more help around the house.
Are any of you like this? Not the blowing crap up or breeding (although kudos for that!), but find it difficult to do the playing thing? I definitely think boys are better at playing toys etc. I don’t think they ever grow out of that…
Thoughts?
Possibly related posts:
Our family parallels what you described to a Tee. I am the doer of things with Nate as well, and begrudging player, and Mark happily and patiently plays with Nate. But this works well, because I think doing chores would cause involuntary self fork-jabbing in Mark’s eyes.
Hi, I’m Poppy. Nice to meet a fellow non-player. I have no imagination. Not a creative bone in my body. If I try to make myself…like you I’m looking for the fork to poke myself in the eye.
Like you I am a teacher by experience. Getting kids involved in real life activities such as helping with dishes, helping with laundry, going grocery shopping, working in the flower beds, strawberry picking, green bean picking, apple picking, baking, cooking and whatever other activity I am doing I will find a way for Kylie to join in and help me.
There are only 2 or 3 things I can tolerate for longer than 15 minutes in the play category. 1. puzzles 2. coloring 3. storybook reading. Thankfully Kylie loves independent play and can entertain herself quite well. She will spend long periods of time “cooking” in her kitchen, caring for her babies, using her Leap Pads, draw on her easel.
It’s really good that you and Eric balance one another with Lucy. You give her one type of experience, he gives her another.
Whew! Glad to hear I am not the only one! I have severe mother’s guilt over this one as I am sooooooo bored with playtime. I swore I wouldn’t be like this (I remember very distinctly begging my mom to play and she would last all of five minutes!). Sometimes I think it’s because I have a boy and find it hard to play trucks and trains and cars. I am good at the physical play: wrestling, “racing” (my 3.5 year old loves doing laps around our main floor, preferrably with his dad but will settle for mom), and of course crafttime,colouring and reading. I also do a lot of dancing with my little guy and baby. Almost every night after dinner we put on some music and dance around and sing, and it is a huge hit with my older son.
I hate Mom Guilt. It just comes with the baby, eh? You give birth to a child AND the guilt at the same time.
I also enjoy dancing, crafting, colouring, stickering and reading to Lucy. It’s the true toy part I struggle with.
In true girly fashion, however, I do love changing the clothes on her (formerly my and Eric’s brother’s) Cabbage Patch Kids. I could do that ALL DAY.
I try to do both fun activities and daily chores together. When my husband is glued to the hockey game, which our 20 month old son is not the type to just sit and watch, I’m the one giving the horsey ride or smashing cars/trains on the table. I’m sure there’ll be a time that he’ll want to be with Daddy more so I cherish my time with him now. When my son pulls me by the hand to come play with him I take that opportunity to see how he’s learning. Sometimes I lay down on a pillow to just watch and talk to him.
I too am bad at playing with my kids. I love making cookies with them but getting down and actually playing with hot wheels, dinosaurs or whatever do they are into that day I cannot do my hubby can and the kids love it. But man does the mommy guilt ever make you feel bad.
For me it kinda depends. If I’m in a mode where I have tons of stuff I need to do, I find it hard to get into play mode. Like you, I tend to involve the kids in my activities, rather than play games with them. Ed’s more likely than me to build elaborate block towers with the kids, or create a fort out of pillows. But I’m more likely to take the kids with me when I go to the store.
I do occasionally do craft-y stuff with my daughter, since she’s really into stuff like that and wants me to help her. It’s a bit of a struggle sometimes, but I do mostly enjoy it.
The one thing I do more than my husband is get all theatrical when I’m reading books to the kids. I’m much more likely to use all sorts of different voices, make sound effects, and stuff like that.
I guess it all evens out.
I wonder if it’s because I’m first generation Canadian, but I’ve never felt it was a parent’s “job” to play with their children.
Of course, you do it if you want to, but if play bores you witless, you find some other way to interact: reading, puzzles, crafts, baking, gardening, as the other commenters have done. There is NO need to feel guilty about not enjoying playing. Play is only one of the many things you can do for and with your child each and every day. As far as the child is concerned, pretty much anything you do with them that involves smiles and laughter is play, anyway!
I run a daycare, and, yes, I play with the children — but generally, only so as to get them started. Then I ease myself out and let them take over. Play is the *child’s* work: they don’t need me in there directing. (When I do play, I take directions, I don’t give them — except to ward off aggression/conflict as required.) I do a lot of sitting on the floor watching, often while reading (!!), and a LOT of doing some task while they play. I am always available to them, but I do not make myself indispensible.
In fact, I firmly believe that children who are accustomed to having an adult’s undivided attention, to the point where,after their second birthday they still can’t play on their own for more than 5 minutes, or need constant praise to finish a simple task, are ultimately handicapped in life.
We heap far too much unnecessary guilt when we buy into a form of motherhood (parenthood) that doesn’t fit who we are. Be yourself: THAT’s who your child needs as their parent. Love your child, your way: that’s all the require of you.
[...] combine this with not liking to play, and you’d think I just dislike motherhood — so not the case. Just certain aspects are [...]