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Fun in Communicating with Young Children |
by Cynthia Lechan Goodman >> more about the author
You know the drill – trying to be cute and engaging you say, “Okay, kids, I’m all ears, and I’ve got my eyes peeled on you.” Steve and Madison imitate a parental posture, wiggle their ears back at you like a smarty pants, and quip “okay, mom, and what country are you from, or galaxy?”
But the truth is, the kids hit one of those proverbial nails on the head. Parents and kids live in different countries; galaxies even, when it comes to communication. Parents are laden down hop stepping amongst the countries of disciplining, instructing, hounding, reminding, protecting, while kids live their lives totally in the country of fun, games, and treats. But just as the respect for the traditional parental teachings is necessary, the creative and positive fun point of view of kids is equally respectable. And many times this understanding can allow moments for parents to build that necessary bridge from “Parentville” to “Kidutopia.”
It’s All How You Look At It
Just think how most of your daily communiqués with the kids transpires. Jasmine’s play date upstairs has kept the girls busy for a while, and you go to check in. The room looks worse than a hurricane’s aftermath. You begin to seethe as you see the rumpled wrinkled dresses on the bottom of the tea party that has spilled brown liquid onto the bedspread that was obviously used as a tent with garment pole protruding from a new hole. Your orders to do right by this scene come out in a bark. But Jasmine is perplexed. In her country of fun, the room is providing a great comfy cushion underfoot of all their favorite stuff and a marvelous ongoing array of the possibilities to be able to most quickly improvise in their story dialogue. “ Well, we didn’t make this mess – it happened when the spaceship crashed and we’ll clean it up right after we get rid of all the zombies and get back from the moon”, and then they shrug with nonchalance. How can you argue with that? You only wanted them to clean up - and they will not only do that, but in the process they will save the neighborhood from Space Zombies!
One Parent’s Catastrophe is Another Kid’s Cartoon
In the kids’ country of fun, disasters are avenues to new exciting experiences—and merit an array of gung ho positive outcomes. Your car breaks down on the way to school. You are probably churning inside with exasperation-- the problems of towing, fixing, transportation necessities. What comes out of you is probably “ Aarghhh……” But the kids are already brimming with neat possibilities: “Oh, boy we can’t get to school, now, we’ll have to buy a new purple sports car, why don’t we all use our scooters!” Here’s a chance to build on eventualities in a fun way. Share a laugh at their ingenuity, the grand selection of possibilities. And the incident can become something memorable for some fun communication later. Because for most kids, the answers to what did you do today are Huh? I don’t remember, I forgot. Nothing. But a little glitch in the day, with those neat ideas is sure to be recalled at family dinner time, or in a brief “chat” before homework time, or chore time before dinner, or even before the bedtime reminders to wash and brush.
It’s not too difficult to make a tradition of some fun communication—especially a secret one that maybe only dad’s share or only moms. You just listen to something they might say more than once, and use it in fun. As Dad and Nate are leaving the park, Nate worried that they had stayed too late at the park, and they would be home after bedtime and mom would be mad, but Dad reminded him that there was no school tomorrow. Nate naturally said, “oh, yeah” and Dad repeated the “oh, yeah” in a grand outlandish fashion. The “oh, yeah”, is now part of anything and everything to be remembered.
It Never Gets Old When You’re Young
Kids love the fun of repetition like this, but not the repetition of things like “ I’ve told you 5 times to put your dirty clothes in the hamper!” Probably the most famous, and repeated kids joke in existence is, of course, banana…(orange you glad I didn’t say banana!). A little time joking—made up or remembered—always brings smiles, giggles a little bit of creativity, and shows the kids you understand their country of fun.
Kids fun is easy and quick—not a lot of words to express it all—it’s mostly laughs and giggles…so, keep it simple, stupid…as they do say. And pick up on the kids cool sense of fun, or you may get this favorite retort, “what, are you blind of hearing?”
But the truth is, the kids hit one of those proverbial nails on the head. Parents and kids live in different countries; galaxies even, when it comes to communication. Parents are laden down hop stepping amongst the countries of disciplining, instructing, hounding, reminding, protecting, while kids live their lives totally in the country of fun, games, and treats. But just as the respect for the traditional parental teachings is necessary, the creative and positive fun point of view of kids is equally respectable. And many times this understanding can allow moments for parents to build that necessary bridge from “Parentville” to “Kidutopia.”
It’s All How You Look At It
Just think how most of your daily communiqués with the kids transpires. Jasmine’s play date upstairs has kept the girls busy for a while, and you go to check in. The room looks worse than a hurricane’s aftermath. You begin to seethe as you see the rumpled wrinkled dresses on the bottom of the tea party that has spilled brown liquid onto the bedspread that was obviously used as a tent with garment pole protruding from a new hole. Your orders to do right by this scene come out in a bark. But Jasmine is perplexed. In her country of fun, the room is providing a great comfy cushion underfoot of all their favorite stuff and a marvelous ongoing array of the possibilities to be able to most quickly improvise in their story dialogue. “ Well, we didn’t make this mess – it happened when the spaceship crashed and we’ll clean it up right after we get rid of all the zombies and get back from the moon”, and then they shrug with nonchalance. How can you argue with that? You only wanted them to clean up - and they will not only do that, but in the process they will save the neighborhood from Space Zombies!
One Parent’s Catastrophe is Another Kid’s Cartoon
In the kids’ country of fun, disasters are avenues to new exciting experiences—and merit an array of gung ho positive outcomes. Your car breaks down on the way to school. You are probably churning inside with exasperation-- the problems of towing, fixing, transportation necessities. What comes out of you is probably “ Aarghhh……” But the kids are already brimming with neat possibilities: “Oh, boy we can’t get to school, now, we’ll have to buy a new purple sports car, why don’t we all use our scooters!” Here’s a chance to build on eventualities in a fun way. Share a laugh at their ingenuity, the grand selection of possibilities. And the incident can become something memorable for some fun communication later. Because for most kids, the answers to what did you do today are Huh? I don’t remember, I forgot. Nothing. But a little glitch in the day, with those neat ideas is sure to be recalled at family dinner time, or in a brief “chat” before homework time, or chore time before dinner, or even before the bedtime reminders to wash and brush.
It’s not too difficult to make a tradition of some fun communication—especially a secret one that maybe only dad’s share or only moms. You just listen to something they might say more than once, and use it in fun. As Dad and Nate are leaving the park, Nate worried that they had stayed too late at the park, and they would be home after bedtime and mom would be mad, but Dad reminded him that there was no school tomorrow. Nate naturally said, “oh, yeah” and Dad repeated the “oh, yeah” in a grand outlandish fashion. The “oh, yeah”, is now part of anything and everything to be remembered.
It Never Gets Old When You’re Young
Kids love the fun of repetition like this, but not the repetition of things like “ I’ve told you 5 times to put your dirty clothes in the hamper!” Probably the most famous, and repeated kids joke in existence is, of course, banana…(orange you glad I didn’t say banana!). A little time joking—made up or remembered—always brings smiles, giggles a little bit of creativity, and shows the kids you understand their country of fun.
Kids fun is easy and quick—not a lot of words to express it all—it’s mostly laughs and giggles…so, keep it simple, stupid…as they do say. And pick up on the kids cool sense of fun, or you may get this favorite retort, “what, are you blind of hearing?”