Before we get to silliness, join me for a moment while I set the scene.
Picture this: It’s Sunday night, and you’re standing in the kitchen staring at your long to-do list. There are groceries to buy, dinners to prep, fruit to cut (OMG so much fruit!), laundry to fold, dishes to wash, and school bags to pack for tomorrow morning. You’re exhausted from a weekend of making those magical memories with your kids — you know the ones I’m talking about. When you plan some fun activity, pack their favorite snacks, and make sure to play their favorite songs in the car, and yet, despite all of that effort, the back seat of your car sounds like there are two chimpanzees fighting over the fact that they each are breathing the same air.
The magical memories have been made, and now, you’re just doing your best to make sure everyone in the house is set up for a good week ahead, and as part of that, you ask your 7-year-old to take their laundry basket to their room and clean up their LEGOs. The 7-year-old immediately throws themself on the floor and has a full meltdown asking, “Why do I have to do everything here? You’re making me do too many things!” In that moment, if you’re like me, the magic turns into rage, and your to-do list turns into a weapon. In the blink of an eye, my volume has been turned all the way up, and the overwhelm of my to-do list becomes a shame bomb. It often sounds something like this: “ALL I ASKED YOU TO DO WAS TAKE ONE BASKET TO YOUR ROOM, AND CLEAN UP THE LEGOS MESS THAT YOU MADE! I AM OVER HERE DOING A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H, etc. (the number of letters you scream will depend on how many items are on your to-do list) AND YOU CAN’T EVEN CLEAN UP YOUR OWN MESS? FINE! I’LL THROW AWAY ALL THE LEGOS!”
Okay, let’s pause, and take a breath. If you’re reading this and none of it sounds or feels familiar, this is me giving you explicit permission to stop reading now. But if you’re reading this and it sounds or feels all too familiar, welcome to the tribe, mama, and please… keep reading.
READ: Mom, Why Are You So Mad?
Back to our scenario: What the heck just happened? Your child had a very normal reaction for their age, and you had a very normal reaction for your level of overwhelm. That’s it. That’s what happened. You’re still a great mom, and your kid is still a great kid. Chances are that despite the greatness that’s still within you, both you and your child now feel disconnected, confused, sorry, and/or crappy. If you’re anything like me, that feeling is terrible. It eats away at my confidence in my mothering, and in the spots of confidence it removes, those spaces are replaced with bits of shame and guilt. What I would like to offer is something that has helped me decrease the number of times this happens in my day-to-day life.
Let’s do it… let’s talk silliness! Being a silly mother goose has helped me reduce the blowups and increase the cooperation of my kids. What does that look like? It looks different depending on the child I’m talking to and the situation at hand. Let’s start by rewinding to our earlier scenario. You ask your child to take their laundry basket to their room and clean up their LEGOs. The child immediately throws themself on the floor and starts to have a full meltdown. AH! The internal pressure in your body is rising because this response feels like a threat to your mission for the night — get prepared for the week. Before your temper boils over though, imagine you throw yourself onto the floor next to them (in a playful, not overly mimicking way), and after you’ve taken your own big breath, you look at them and say, “I bet you can’t do it in less than 2 minutes!”
Suddenly, these boring tasks that didn’t make your child feel connected to you become a game. Not only does it become a game, but it’s a game you’re playing together. You’re keeping the time, cheering them on, and hyping them up while they are doing the thing that needs to be done. Voila! Like magic, the LEGOs are off the floor, and the laundry basket is in the closet. Most importantly, there was no meltdown or outburst. Your child feels connected to you, and they are excited that they beat the timer — everyone wins!
Maybe this sounds crazy or counter-intuitive to you. Maybe it feels like going against the grain when it comes to requiring cooperation out of children. It took me a little bit to let go of the idea that my children should just listen to me and do what I say simply because I’m an adult and their mother. Once I realized that frame of mind was just going to help me raise “obedient” kids, not “cooperative” kids, it was an easy decision to lay down the pride of being the adult. We don’t need our kids to be blindly obedient and to fear that not wanting to do something will land them in a state of disconnect with us as their parents. At least, that’s not what I want. What I do want is children who understand that part of life is doing things we don’t want to do, and that just because the task itself may suck, we can still find ways to make it more fun. I want my kids to feel connected to something bigger than obedience… and I’ve found that being silly is helping me accomplish that.
Please know that I’m not guaranteeing silliness will fix all your problems — it most certainly will not. And I know that it’s not always appropriate to be silly to fix a situation and that sometimes, consequences must be put in place, and/or a sense of seriousness must remain because an issue may jeopardize the safety of your child and/or others. That’s why we need a toolbox of ideas to use with our kids, and silliness is only one of the many tools we can utilize. For some other tangible examples of silliness that you could use with your kids, please see the list below.
- Needing your kids to get dressed for school and/or bed. “Okay, it’s time to get dressed. I’m going to close my eyes and if you are dressed for school when I open my eyes, I may just do a silly dance!”
- Getting your child to do homework. Turn it into a game show. “It’s time for our contestant Joey to come on down and show us what he knows! Joey, if you can finish this homework correctly in (give an appropriate amount of time so they’re not rushing and messing up their answers), you will win a new sticker!”
- Turn mealtime conversations into a game. Instead of asking, “How was your day?” come up with a game that can help you get the information you want while including them in a fun way. For example, “We’re all going to go around the table, one at a time, and we’re doing to say something hilarious that happened to us today. If we can all listen to each other’s stories, we will get to tell knock-knock jokes the next time around the table.”
I could continue to write specific examples, but the truth is that silliness will depend on what feels best for you and your kids. So, think about how to increase cooperation and connection rather than obedience and blind direction. Go on now, go get silly!
