Be the parent your child needs you to be. They need you to be in their world. That means interacting and playing with them on their level to prompt them through the tasks and chores they don’t want to do. Here are some tips and examples on using effectively using edutainment with your child.
1. Practice Healthy Competition
The child brain loves novelty. That is why healthy competition and games get them excited. You can help your child accomplish the daily tasks they do not necessarily want to do by adding a fun edutainment component.
Edutainment in daily tasks may include incorporating a game or competition into their nighttime routine to prompt them to get ready for bed, pick up their toys, or brush their teeth long enough.
For instance, when it’s time for bed, create a healthy, fun competition that gets them excited. You might tell them, “Okay! It’s time to get ready for bed! Let’s see who can race to the bathroom the fastest!” Once this task is completed, follow up with “Who can get their toothbrush out and put the toothpaste on the fastest?” or “Who can brush their teeth the longest?” For toothbrushing, when you know the two minutes is up, you can finish first, allowing them to win the competition of brushing for at least two minutes. Then, follow up with how surprised or excited that you are that they won.
2. Be Playful with Your Child
Your child is not going to behave all the time. They are not perfect. When your child throws a temper tantrum, is upset or is insistent on something, add something playful to the mix that takes their mind off it.
If my son throws a temper tantrum, sometimes I pretend in a silly way that I am falling and hurt my foot and he laughs. Or, if he sits in a chair that I specifically told him that I am going to sit in, I playfully act like I am going to sit on him. He likes the silliness, and it detracts and redirects him away from his original temper tantrum or negative behavior.
3. Think Outside the Box
Playfulness and silliness work, but other times creative solutions help your child accomplish their tasks and chores. Homework is one thing that your child may not enjoy. Think outside the box to what excites them and incorporate that into their homework time.
Younger children love tents, so building a tent or fort in the living room together where they can go to do their homework is an exciting way to mask the doldrums of homework. For teens, coffee shops are common favorite hangouts, so going to one where they can have their favorite coffee drink and do their homework is a treat that they will look forward to. Both scenarios change your child’s negative outlook on homework to something positive.
How edutaining are you as a parent? Whatever your level, you can better implement healthy competition, fun, and creative approaches to motivate your child. A child’s way of interpreting things is rarely ever black and white, usually because they are not eager to learn. When you edutain, you help them learn in a behavior that they embrace.
Take a few extra seconds when responding to poor behavior. This demonstrates compassion, empathy, and self-control on your part. Sometimes all you need to do is think about responding in the most patient manner to help re-direct your child. A few seconds can make a big difference.
Ask, Listen, Explain
Patience helps you to establish better solutions for difficult moments with your child.
If your child has a temper tantrum, for instance, take a few seconds to calm down before reacting. Then, ask questions to help determine what is really driving the behavior. Listen to what they say and then explain what they could have done instead.
Patience can lead to understanding and solutions. Be patient and ask the right questions to get your child back on track.
Give a Do-over
A do-over is exactly as it sounds – the chance to do something again. Using patience means giving your child the chance to act in a better way than they did the first time around.
The perfect time to implement a do-over is when your child says something out of anger, such as “You are not my favorite mommy!” A do-over begins by telling your child that this is not the proper way for them to speak to you. You may begin with, “Let’s do this over. What is a nicer way to talk to me when you are upset?” This gives them the chance to explain why they are upset in a different way. It may be as simple as they didn’t want to stop playing to eat dinner. Allow them the chance to re-phrase and then go from there, such as letting them know that they can play more, just after dinner.
When you allow your child a do-over, you use patience with your child and apply patience to the way that you react to their behavior.
Provide Teaching Moments
Many people assume that discipline means “to punish,” when it really means, “to teach.”
When your child makes a mistake, you can either punish, or you can discipline through patient teaching moments. In a soccer game, if a player misses the ball, the coach doesn’t yell and get angry with them. Instead, they explain what went wrong and help the player by letting them know how they can improve the next time.
A parental teaching moment is the same. When your child makes a mistake, use patience to explain what they did wrong and provide them information that will help them improve or not make the same mistake again. A teaching moment provides options and solutions, while punishment does not.
The question to ask yourself today is how patient are you with your child. How many times do you give them do-overs? Try to give them as many do-overs as possible so they can learn how to behave and communicate better. In the long run, both of you learn valuable teaching moments through patience.
Connection
One of the most important things that you can do as a parent is establish a connection with your child. In fact, children need connection more than anything else.
Here are a few ways that you can begin to build a great connection with your child:
Daily Interactions:
- Make one-on-one connections with your child. Instead of asking a question from across the room, take an extra 15 seconds to walk to your child, get down on their level, maybe tap their shoulder or touch their arm, and ask the question. Chances are they will engage right away (instead of ignoring you) and answer you because you have made that personal connection.
- Connect with your child as many times per day as possible. Every positive connection with your child means fewer disconnected or frustrating moments for both of you.
- Begin positive connections when your child is young. The more positive connections you make early on, the better they will respond and communicate as they get older. Over time they will have a strong enough connection with you that you no longer need to be right in front of them for them to answer your question.
- Reduce stressful interactions. Good connections reduce stress or cortisol, which is the stress hormone. If you get upset with your child, it makes them upset, too. By improving your connections daily, you begin to eliminate some of the obstacles in your communication with them which also eliminates stressful interactions
Boost their Neurotransmitters!
You can “up” your child’s neurotransmitters to build a better parent-child connection, which means improving your relationship with your child by giving them positive reinforcement in a variety of ways that will allow them to thrive, feel happy, and be healthy.
- Tell your child about something that is going to happen that is exciting, so they can look forward to it. This improves the neurotransmitter Dopamine which is the anticipation chemical.
- Hug your child and let them know they are important. Oxytocin is the chemical that reacts through touching.
- Give your child praise for good behavior or a job well done. This improves Serotonin which is about feeling satisfied.
- Finally, give your child the chance to run and play or engage in a fun physical activity, especially when they are stressed or feel anxiety. Endorphins are engaged through active movement.
The last key bit of advice is to self-assess. How connected you think you are with your child right now? On a scale of 1 to 5 what grade would you give yourself? Put these tips into action and make a better connection with your child because the more you connect, the better.
Attunement
Do you ever feel like you can read your child’s mind? You know what they are going to do or say next because they have had the same reaction before? This is attunement. Improving your attunement skills will allow you to create a more patient and understanding relationship with your child.
- Modify Your Child’s Behavior:
Be attuned to your child’s anxieties and try a creative approach that allows them to focus on positive behaviors and interactions instead of their anxieties or stresses.
If you are attuned to the fact that your child has anxiety about going to school in the morning, for instance, help them relieve their stress by adding some interactive play time with them before school. This will boost their endorphins, so they feel good and less stressed. Allowing them to run off some of their energy in the morning creates a positive and consistent change in their behavior.
- Wait for the Right time
Applying patience is an attunement-builder because when you understand your child’s mood you can eliminate some of the common struggles you have with them.
If your child wakes up happy most mornings, but grumpy after naps on the weekend (like my son!), you are already attuned to expect that behavior. It might be better to wait, or to be patient, until they feel a little less grumpy to talk to them or ask them to do something. You will get better results that way, and they will be less grumpy when they respond.
- Understand Your Child’s Stage of Development
Being attuned to your child’s stages of development will break some of the assumptions that you have about them, which will improve your relationship and understanding with your child.
When you ask a 3 to 4-year old to sit on the floor, they seem to roll around a lot. Are they not paying attention? Chances are that part of their behavior is due to their physical stage of development. Physically, it is uncomfortable in their core muscles to sit on the floor for long without rolling back.
Similarly, 10 to 14-year old’s seem lazy. They look like they do not have enough energy to take the trash out after watching a movie. What’s really going on here? Research shows that they are literally physically, scientifically exhausted. Their body and brain are changing from kid versions to adult versions, which makes them seem less than smart and overly lazy.
By being attuned to their stages of development, you can communicate better with them knowing what to expect and why.
- Anticipate Language Barriers
Being attuned to your child’s development in language skills will help you understand their responses and reactions, and not get frustrated if they only respond to bits and piece of what you ask. If you learned a foreign language for only a few years and heard a conversation among fluent speakers, would you understand it completely or only be able to pick out a word, phrase or topic here and there?
If several children hear, “Molly, can you come here” it is possible that several of them will come running instead of just Molly. This is because they only heard the instructional phrase and not necessarily the name. Kids apply the only language skills that they have at their age of development, which for a 3 or 4-year-old is only 3 or 4 years!
- Practice Response Flexibility
Probably the best thing you can do to improve your reactions as a parent is to practice response flexibility. This means being flexible with your child’s mood and deciding what must be finished immediately, and what can wait. Or, realizing that it is not necessary to be harsh every time something bad happens.
Recently my son decided it was a good idea to do a flip on top of me when I was on the couch and busted my nose. Instead of yelling at him, I used response flexibility and kept my reaction in perspective because I know that he didn’t do it on purpose. He was playing, and I had to keep that in perspective. Explaining what happened to them and using it as a teaching moment is a more responsible way to respond using response flexibility.
Attunement all comes down to how well you know your child and their moods, and how well you know yourself. Start thinking about how you can help your child use the right behaviors by being more attuned to their development, behaviors, language skills and mood, and most importantly, try to practice response flexibility when the unexpected happens. Sometimes your child will learn more from how you respond than from what you say.
