Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 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 0 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 1 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 0 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 1 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 0 00:00:49 Welcome parents here at Hand in Hand. We talk a lot about being more playful in our parenting and in particular the value of roughhousing and parents will often ask us. So this is our question this week. How do I get started? I'm not really comfortable with play, especially roughhousing
Speaker 3 00:01:07 Today. We have a very special guest with us to help us answer that very question. Dr. Lawrence J. Cohen PhD is an author, speaker, and consultant. He specializes in children's play and play therapy. His book, playful Parenting, A personal beloved favorite of mine was the winner of the Napa Gold Award and his most recent book co-authored with Anthony, Dr. Benday, is Unplug and Play, the Ultimate Illustrated Guide to Roughhousing with your Kids. And the pictures are so helpful. It's great,
Speaker 0 00:01:39 <laugh>.
Speaker 2 00:01:40 Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 0 00:01:42 Well, Larry, since we we're just thrilled to have you here and since you've written the ultimate guide to Roughhousing
Speaker 2 00:01:48 <laugh>, right.
Speaker 0 00:01:50 Tell us why, you know, tell all of our parents why roughhousing is so important, and how can a parent who might be new to this kind of play get started?
Speaker 2 00:01:59 Well, I was a late comer to roughhousing. Uh, I guess I would say that in my mind, roughhousing meant bigger kids pick on you and beat you up, you know, that was kind of my experience as a kid. And so I was hesitant about it when I became a father. And then I saw how much fun my daughter had doing physical play with other people, and I thought, I don't wanna miss out on that. So I pushed myself to get up off the couch to have that kind of high intensity, high energy, physical, interactive play. And that's what roughhousing is. As I got to do it more as I got into it, um, I realized it's not fighting. It's not violent. It's really more like dancing than like fighting. You really have to tune into one another, like when you're dancing with someone. So that's the first step to getting started is recognizing that, um, it's exciting, it's fun.
Speaker 2 00:03:01 You don't wanna miss out. You don't wanna leave it. A lot of, uh, parents say, oh, my partner's the one who rough houses, or they say, oh, it's just not, you know, it's too dangerous. So push yourself, get off the couch and do it. Set up a place where there's no sharp corners and sharp edges and priceless antiques so that you can have a spot with some mattresses or mats or pillows and just get started. And what you do. What do you do? Fall over a lot. Throw pillows back and forth. It's not too fancy. I wrote a whole manual with my friend <laugh>, but, uh, you can get started with a few pillows and just the simplicity of falling over. Let your child feel that power of knocking you over. Uh, a great beginner game is, um, there's two I'll share. One is you can't get past me, so I'll do this with my granddaughter.
Speaker 2 00:04:00 Uh, she's seven. We've been doing this for a few years. I'll stand in front of the bed and it's sort of a low bed, and then she has to somehow sneak past me or wrestle her way past me to get to the bed. And it's so much fun and she gets to get that, uh, problem solving. But, you know, it's not serious problem solving. It's playful, it's fun. She gets to figure out if my legs are really wide so she can't get by. She goes under them. And if my legs are really skinny so she can't get under my legs, she goes around them. Um, another one great for beginners is you can't get away from me or in, in unplug and play. We call it body lock. So I've got you and I like to just really exaggerate and you'll never get away. You'll never get away.
Speaker 2 00:04:50 I've got you in my patented frankenheimer maneuver <laugh>. And then of course they squirm away. I I'm holding my own arms so that I'm, you know, holding like this and they squirm away and it's like, ha ha ha, I've got you. Uh, how'd you get over there? And double takes. Always make children laugh. Um, so you have the fun, you have the togetherness, you have the shared laughter, you have the child being, uh, victorious and they get, that builds them confidence. A lot of parents are afraid of that as, you know, um, oh, we can't let the child thinking that they're more, uh, that they're stronger than mom or dad. Um, well, they know it's play. They know the difference. They know it's play and they love to feel confident like that.
Speaker 3 00:05:40 So Larry, I was also a late comer to, um, roughhousing and playful parenting was a huge part of my transition from someone who like, I really dreaded it. Um, and now it's one of my most favorite things. Um, and I look for opportunities to play more. Um, I could, I'm still working on amplifying it to, to be more physical, but, um, I realized it doesn't have to be a big deal. Just like your, your examples there of just grab a pillow. Like it can just be sprinkled in depending on the day and the resources I have or, you know, I have a teenager now, so we do our own little version of the, you can't get past Me. That's not quite as direct, but there's, there's still, we get some physical contact, a little bit of jostling. Um, so how about for parents for whom being physical is difficult, maybe they're physically challenged or have a chronic condition, um, or just not feeling well, or are just too pooped to play. They're just, they're just done. Um, any suggestions for kind of rekindling or kindling, some, some kind of play that, that works in those conditions too?
Speaker 2 00:06:50 Absolutely. I totally believe it's for everyone and that we can adapt it easily for everyone. And so a few things, if, you know, if you're exhausted or you're, you have some limitations physically and you can't do the kind of running around or wrestling, pillow fighting, well, one thing you can do is, um, or you, you may enjoy is slow motion fighting. So this is wonderful for the nervous system cuz we all, in our modern era, we're all activated in our nervous system all the time, pretty much, you know, maybe if you're deep into some meditation or react, but otherwise forget it. And so our nervous system is telling us fight. There's dangers out there, fight, but what's the, the dangers aren't things we can fight, right? It's the news, it's the homework, it's the family conflict, you know, so slow motion combat. So I punch in slow motion and you block in slow motion and we might even choreograph it like we're going to do a movie and you can even, you know, take a pic, take a video of it, and you take it in slow motion or you take it in time lap so that it looks like you're really fighting fast, but you're going slow and it's, and there's no danger because you're going slow like that.
Speaker 2 00:08:14 Um, and your nervous system is like, that's just what I wanted you to do. Now I feel better. Um, you can also sit safely and comfortably on the couch and with a, with a watch and have your child do a obstacle course and you time them and you coach them and you cheer them on and, um, they build, they take a lot of time to build a obstacle course out of pillows and chairs and, and rugs and things and maybe some part of the floor as lava. And so they have to leap over it and it's an exciting obstacle course. And they get that physical play and the interaction comes a little differently than a pillow fight. The interaction comes from you, um, cheering them on and timing them. Um, you can do it where you send them on missions and they have exciting, uh, missions.
Speaker 2 00:09:05 This is great for children who are fearful and have some, uh, anxiety about maybe going into a room by themself, going to another floor, by themselves going into a dark space. Um, you make it into an exciting mission and you're the mission commander so you don't get your hands dirty, right? <laugh>, you, you can do this, um, with whatever your physical capacities are. Um, there's some roughhousing games you can do lying down on the bed. So you lie down on the bed and the child lies on top of you and you just rumble a little bit like there's an earthquake coming. Um, and or you, you know, you kind of shove them off the bed. It's kind of like the flos lava again, um, where you can alternate between pushing them off or rescuing them <laugh>, um, as little or as much exertion as you want. Um, and you know, just like you talked about with a teenager, you know, like sometimes just getting in close, just giving a little shoulder bump. It's a playful little hello. Um, you know, as kids get older, we have, we just tend to have fewer and fewer playful interactions more and more. Why haven't you done your homework interactions? And we can just, like you said, just, uh, very simply and in a second or two, uh, reset the relationship with just that little tip check, you know, our shoulder bump.
Speaker 0 00:10:54 That's awesome. I, I know, you know, I've told Larry before that, uh, I discovered playful parenting about the same time I discovered hand in hand and playful parenting. Really what I love Larry, is that you g you give us like specific ideas to, uh, implement the hand in hand tool of play listening and, and, and special time and, you know, taking that less powerful role. And as my son got older, we, I, I found ways we used to play this game, uh, uh, it was called, uh, don't push me off the Bed or Don't Fall off the Bed, where I'm like trying to push him off the bed and I'm saying, don't fall off the bed, don't fall off the bed. <laugh>. And he, you know, so, uh, yeah, that was, you know, a, a great game that we could play that was safe as he got to be nine 10 and, you know, inches and metal foot taller than I, so
Speaker 3 00:11:43 <laugh> I'm not sure if Playful Parenting had this, but I was so excited to find and unplug and play the index in the back where the names of the games are right there. So you can just flip there and be like, what was that, what was that game? And it's right there. So as you know, tired, crispy parents <laugh>, right? We, we have the, all of these right in our pocket and they're, they're available, so we don't have to think we can just pick one,
Speaker 2 00:12:07 Right? It's also, I, what I love about the illustrations in that book are that kids like my granddaughter, and I've heard this about a lot of kids, they can just flip through it and say, let's try this one.
Speaker 3 00:12:20 Whoa. I hadn't thought about that option.
Speaker 2 00:12:22 Right? My, uh, sister-in-law told me that her daughter would say, it's time to do a little r h, which is for Roughhousing, and that's when she was about five years old. And, um, and she'd find the thing in the book and then point to it. Um, so yeah, that's really fun.
Speaker 0 00:12:42 Well, uh, Larry, usually at this time in the podcast, we offer parents one small thing they can experiment with or try at home. So do you have a favorite tip or idea from your new book? Unplug and Play?
Speaker 2 00:12:56 Sure. I would recommend the Sock Game and the Sock game. You get on the floor, everyone gets on the floor with their shoes off and their socks on, and you sit down with your feet all together in the middle. Um, it's fun with two, it's more fun with three, it's kind of wild with five <laugh>. Um, so you say 1, 2, 3, go and you try to get the other person's socks off while keeping your own socks on. That's all there is to it, but it's like, yeah, you're laughing just hearing about it. It's impossible not to laugh during this game. It's great for grownups, great for any age kid. Um, you have to play offense and defense at the same time to get other people's off and keep your own on. Um, and another thing I like about it is a lot of families do this and they just make up their own rules.
Speaker 2 00:13:48 A lot of people call me and it's like, is it okay if we have a thing where you can take the socks and go hide them somewhere? It's like, of course that's okay. It's like, you know, it's, this is not the rule, you know, the official rule book. This is just the, you know, get you started like the fire book. So the, some of the best roughhousing games I've ever heard of were created together by parents and children where you couldn't even point to who created it. Um, like that, I'm gonna push you off the game. I'm gonna push you off the bed and rescue you. Which 1:00 AM I doing? You know, this kind of, I imagine this evolved between you as you're just horsing around. And so the Sock game starts out like that, but it can turn into whatever you want.
Speaker 3 00:14:40 Thank you so much for being here today with us and for sharing your gift of inspiring play and for sparking fresh ideas for us and kind of refilling our, our toolbox today.
Speaker 0 00:14:54 Great.
Speaker 3 00:14:54 It is my pleasure. Um, next time on, um, the podcast, we're going to be actually answering questions from parents, so we'd love to hear from you. What are your questions? It can be about anything, but, uh, we're happy to answer questions about play too and how we've figured it out over the years. So, um, let us know where your questions are too
Speaker 0 00:15:17 And we'd love to hear if you try the sock game or any game that you tried. So, uh, that's our one small thing for this week. And again, yeah, Larry, thanks so much for being here with, with us. Um, we here at Hand in Hand just love the work that you're doing. We so appreciate you and, um, feelings Mutual. Great. We'll see you on the next podcast or in the Parent Club community. Bye-bye.
Speaker 1 00:15:45 Thank you so much for tuning into the Hand In Hand Parent Club podcast. Please like and 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 0 00:15:58 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.
