Sandra Dodd

7. Think about what is REALLY important and keep that always in the
forefront of your interactions with your children. What values do you
hope to pass on to them? You can't "pass on" something you don't
exemplify yourself. Treat them the way you want them to treat others.
Do you want respect? Be respectful. Do you want responsibility from
them? Be responsible. Think of how you look to them, from their
perspective. Do you order them around? Is that respectful? Do you
say, "I'll be just a minute" and then take 20 more minutes talking to
a friend while the children wait? Is that responsible? Focus more on
your own behavior than on theirs. It'll pay off bigger.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Brad Holcomb

-----Original Message-----

> Do you
> say, "I'll be just a minute" and then take 20 more minutes talking to
> a friend while the children wait? Is that responsible? Focus more on
> your own behavior than on theirs. It'll pay off bigger.


This is something I've been working on a lot over the past few months.
There's a specific type of play that I don't enjoy with my 3 y/o son. He's
into dinosaurs and dragons and beasts in general, and has a lot of plastic
figurines, and sometimes he just wants to sit and bang them together
enacting battles. The outcome seems to be based on rules I don't fully
know, gleaned from movies and shows he's seen (one rule he reminded me of
last night: King Kong *always* beats T-Rex). But the game really is just
about one toy hitting another, and the struck toy flies across the room and
is dead, but then comes back to life after a dragon toy goes over and
breathes on it.

I prefer to wrestle, build stuff with blocks or megabloks, line up toys and
knock them down with balls or blocks, throw balls or pillows at each other
or up and down the stairs...just about *anything* other than banging plastic
toys together and saying "grrrrrrrr" 'til my throat hurts. And even when
I'm happily doing toy monster battles with him, it just never seems I'm
doing it "right". He gets frustrated easily about my Battle Ineptitude.

So when he's immersed in battle, and I walk by and he says, "Hey Daddy,
wanna pay wid me?", most of the time (until recently) I delay. It seems
like at that moment, suddenly I can see my entire Honey Do list extremely
clearly in my mind, and half the list sounds appealing to do *right now*.
Generally I'll say "in 5 minutes, after I take out the trash" or something
similar, and about half the time it turns into 15 or 30 minutes, during
which I'm hoping he'll have switched to something else before I plop on the
floor with him.

I really only realized this a few months ago, so I'm working to rebuild that
trust with him, and Pam's tip #7 reminded me to give it more attention. I
started re-reading Playful Parenting a couple weeks ago, and that's helping.
-=b.


--
Brad in Boulder, CO
http://holcombs.org

Sandra Dodd

-=-So when he's immersed in battle, and I walk by and he says, "Hey
Daddy,
wanna pay wid me?", most of the time (until recently) I delay. It seems
like at that moment, suddenly I can see my entire Honey Do list
extremely
clearly in my mind, and half the list sounds appealing to do *right
now*.-=-

I couldn't figure out how to play Barbies, so I would find other
girls for Holly to play with and do all the necessary driving. I'd
help her get things shse needed, and keep her Barbie clothes
repaired, and help her sort things out and take care of things. When
we moved, there was a little room under the stairs with shelves on
the walls and that became Barbie Land. I kept it safe and clean and
a friend who sold carpet brought over a bunch of samples that Holly
could have for flooring and seating.

There are alternatives to playing everything a child plays always,
but some people seem to expect to play nothing with their children,
and I hope Pam was talking about them, not people like me who played
all but one thing. (I hope.)



Sandra

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Pamela Sorooshian

On Dec 2, 2008, at 6:33 PM, Sandra Dodd wrote:

> There are alternatives to playing everything a child plays always,
> but some people seem to expect to play nothing with their children,
> and I hope Pam was talking about them, not people like me who played
> all but one thing. (I hope.)

Yeah - I didn't do well at certain "play pretend" activities - playing
dress-ups. I also never seemed to be playing right. Funny, because I
loved to play pretend as a little kid, myself. Those are my best
memories - dressing up and becoming someone else for a while! I just
could never do that much with my own kids. So, instead, I became a
great resource for them - I would find all kinds of cool dress-ups at
thrift stores, for example.

-pam

Kim H

<< There are alternatives to playing everything a child plays always,
> but some people seem to expect to play nothing with their children,
> and I hope Pam was talking about them, not people like me who played
> all but one thing. (I hope.)>>

I feel the same in regard to Lewi's 'characters' (that's what he calls it). It's much harder for me to get into than any other play and I often find I'm dragging the chain when asked to play it. I try to though as much as I can and I try to really get into a feeling of enjoying it (and mostly I do) because I know it won't be long and he will no longer be asking me to play this sort of imaginary game.

Thankfully I love to play lots of otehr stuff with him so it's pretty OK most of the time.

Kim H


----- Original Message -----
From: Pamela Sorooshian
To: [email protected]
Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2008 4:18 PM
Subject: Re: [AlwaysLearning] #7 of Pam Sorooshian's "how to"



On Dec 2, 2008, at 6:33 PM, Sandra Dodd wrote:

> There are alternatives to playing everything a child plays always,
> but some people seem to expect to play nothing with their children,
> and I hope Pam was talking about them, not people like me who played
> all but one thing. (I hope.)

Yeah - I didn't do well at certain "play pretend" activities - playing
dress-ups. I also never seemed to be playing right. Funny, because I
loved to play pretend as a little kid, myself. Those are my best
memories - dressing up and becoming someone else for a while! I just
could never do that much with my own kids. So, instead, I became a
great resource for them - I would find all kinds of cool dress-ups at
thrift stores, for example.

-pam





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BRIAN POLIKOWSKY

When on of my kids wants me to play something I am not good  or I just don;t know how to play , usually pretend things with lego, playmobil, little people, thatn I take pon my self to set up the sets.
With dolls too. I get them, brushed, dressed, clean if needed, it is like organizing them.
That makes my kids happy and I can deal with it because honestly I am not a good pretend player.
With Thomas I would set up tracks and organize engines in a row. They will them bang and get them apart but that is OK if they want to do that.
I will just keep on organizing.
 
Alex Polikowsky
http://polykow.blogspot.com/

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/unschoolingmn/

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