Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:01 Welcome to the Hand In Hand Parent Club podcast. I'm Emily Murray, a hand in hand instructor and a mom of two.
Speaker 1 00:00:06 I'm Kathy Gordon, a single adoptive mom of a now young adult son, a hand in hand instructor, and we are both moderators of hand-in-hand, awesome membership program, the Parent club. Every
Speaker 0 00:00:17 Week we'll be answering a parenting question. You'll hear about hand in hand, parenting's, powerful, respectful parenting tools. We'll share how they help you work with your child's feelings, especially when their behavior gets harder, confusing.
Speaker 1 00:00:29 You can feel good about using these tools. They've brought warmth and connection to our own families and to many thousands of families around the world who are using the hand in hand approach.
Speaker 0 00:00:39 That's why hand in hand and the Parent club exist. We're here to support you and your family so you have more good, sweet, fun times together.
Speaker 1 00:00:48 Welcome back, wonderful parents. Last episode, we posed the question, does parenting have to feel so serious and high stakes? We suggested that you can be playful with yourself in order to kind of stop that moment when you're about to go off track yourself and lose it. So now our question is, what if I'm just not naturally playful? Like what if that's being playful is hard for me? Being playful with your child and yourself starts with what we call feeding Your Funny.
Speaker 0 00:01:22 That was me. I felt not playful <laugh>, I'll tell you more about that in a couple minutes, but we did talk last, last episode about how we can dispel this idea that parenting should be so serious by getting playful to get out in front of our triggers and to help us connect with our child in these tense moments. But if we were not played with, if our parents were really serious and the adults around us and our caregivers were very serious, it can be really difficult for us to be light. Not to mention the added heaviness and burdens of current stresses and overwhelm of life. I, I call these a wet blanket on any spark of playfulness that, that we might be able to nurture. But did you know you can actually learn to be more playful? So in this episode, we're going to give you some tips for nurturing your own funny bone.
Speaker 1 00:02:19 And you do have one.
Speaker 0 00:02:20 It's true <laugh>.
Speaker 1 00:02:23 So I'm pretty fortunate in that my mom was super silly. You know, um, I can remember, you know you when you get those, like why, why, why from your kid, you know? And, um, I would be nagging my mom. Why, why can't I, why won't you let me? And she would just, you know, she'd do this kinda little jig and she'd say, cuz I'm a mean old mama. And she had a way of just lightening the tension between us. But if you didn't have a silly mom, you know, you can channel other silly people. But one of the things I like to suggest is that you watch some old videos of, you know, those comedians who were really good at that physical comedy, like Dick Van Dyke, the original Three Stooges, Lucille Ball, you know, they were like bigger than life and they made an art form and lots of money by making fun of themselves.
Speaker 1 00:03:16 You know, you might also pick up Larry Cohen's book, playful Parenting. Like every single page contains a a another way to be playful. Another idea, another anecdote. Uh, that's what I did when I was, even though I had my mom as a, as a model that I could channel. I remember reading that book and then, and, and like having all these ideas in my back pocket. Um, or you can search our website. That's also something I did hand in hand parenting.org. Put in the word play, playful, play, listen or even put in your particular situation like potty training or school or math, you know, or, um, uh, tidying up or getting out of the house in the morning. So in putting in any of those kinds of search words, you are gonna come up with a whole list of, of articles that we have that, that have lists of, uh, of ideas on how you can be playful in that situation. Um, and in the Parent club community, we have our famous fridge lists that you can download, stick on your fridge, you know, we have, uh, a whole deck of play cards that you can cut up and, you know, p post all over your, make that your wallpaper <laugh>, you know, and we even have videos in the parent club community that can demonstrate how to be playful, such as our very own Emily Gray Murray, demonstrating the playful dare and crabby Mommy Crabby hands.
Speaker 0 00:04:48 Thank you. Thank you very much. My video debut, um, and really that video is an example of one of those mock threats that we talked about in the last episode. It's this style of playfulness that can really transform the moment. Um, I've shared before in lots of hand in hand, um, venues that I really, really had a hard time shaking that I must be serious. I must be in control feeling. Um, it was like the powerlessness of play felt like too much at first, but I've, I've persisted and practiced and practiced this, um, this particular tool of playlist listening. And it's really, it's really my favorite tool now. Um, and that, um, that classic Crabby Hands game that I demoed, um, in the video with my daughter in, in parent club. Um, I use that when I'm, I'm starting to feel naggy or cranky and snipy back at my child. So I make my hands into crab claws and I turn into a crab and playfully try to catch my daughter and snap her with my crabby hands. And, you know, she gets to shrie and run, or she tries to snap me back with her own clause. It's so helpful to dissolve that tension both for her and myself.
Speaker 1 00:06:11 Yeah. And you know, like you said, Emily, like in that moment of powerlessness where you can't get them to do something, it, it almost feels counterintuitive to do something that makes you feel silly. Yeah. Bumbling, you know, but that's really the essence of it. Like, when we can be silly and bumbling and make fun of ourselves, it really like it, it diffuses the power struggle because, you know, you're like this, you're, you're, you're, you're beating your <laugh>. You know, you're sort of beating your heads against each other. Hmm. Um, uh, and you know, when we take that less powerful role and make fun of ourselves, it can really diffuse the tension. And then often then you do get a cooperation. So when you feed your funny by, first of all discovering what makes you laugh, and then be willing to be silly and make fun of yourself, you can actually create a culture in your family where it's fun to make mistakes.
Speaker 1 00:07:08 You know, our kids can feel this pressure, uh, especially when they start going to school and they get out in the world, they can feel this pressure of like, they have to be good, they have to be perfect, they have to measure up, they have to be light. So when you're creating this culture in your family where it's fun to make mistakes, where it's fun to make fun of yourself, you know that that's so such a gift we can give to our kids. So for an example, you know, you might get up in the morning and wake your kids up wearing your underwear on your head. They ask for the milk, and you take out the pickles and you can't figure out how the milk turned green. You know, you fall off your chair, you accidentally sit on them, you know, you, you walk into a wall, it's time to leave and you walk into the closet. Laughter and particularly this ability to laugh at ourselves. It, it helps lift the tension and it provides that greater connection that it's just gonna make parenting so much more fun. It's, it's gonna make family life so much more fun. And you often get cooperation in that, you know out. Once you do that, lifting that tension through play
Speaker 0 00:08:19 That the one you mentioned about accidentally sitting on them or accidentally bumping into them, that's been a favorite of mine as my oldest has, you know, gone into the teen years. It's such a great excuse to throw just a little bit of silliness into a, a moment. Um, so useful. And so next week we'll talk about some things we can do to make this whole parenting thing easier on us. Um, we'll, we'll talk more about where this high stakes feeling might come from and how we can begin to lift that not enough, uh, feeling that is often so heavy on us as parents.
Speaker 1 00:08:59 And one small thing we'd love for you to try this week. Watch a video of something that makes you laugh, preferably, you know, some kind of physical comedy. And then do something silly to make fun of yourself in front of your kids. Making them laugh will make you feel like play is your new superpower. So we'll look forward
Speaker 0 00:09:20 To seeing you next week.
Speaker 1 00:09:22 Bye-bye.
Speaker 0 00:09:23 Thank you so much for tuning into the Hand In Hand Parent Club podcast. Please liken, subscribe to hear more and to connect with us between these episodes. Come on over to hand in hand parenting.org to join the parent club where you can get coaching classes and live support.
Speaker 1 00:09:36 Come join our vibrant community of parents in the parent club who are committed to getting the support they need to be the parents they wanna become. We'd be honored to support you too. This podcast and the Parent Club are part of Hand in Hand Parenting, a nonprofit organization that supports parents all over the world. We are here for you when parenting gets hard.
