What should I do when my child always wants to win in play?
In this episode we look at the principles of holding boundaries but being flexible with rules to give children the experience of winning which is important for developing self esteem
About our hosts:
Sophia Giblin
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophiagiblin/
A creative entrepreneur who focuses on ways to tackle the
root of children’s mental health through play and secure relationships. Due to
her own challenging experiences in childhood, Sophia went on to establish a
thriving Play & Creative Arts Therapy charity to support other children who
have experienced trauma. Her focus is on helping therapists, businesses and
charities have more of an impact for children and families that they work with
through coaching, strategy, fundraising and mentoring.
Nicole McDonnell
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mcdonnellnicole/
Nicole is a mum to two young boys, who also has over 20
years of brand marketing experience. She is a previous Chair Trustee at Clear
Sky Charity and has past experience on the Ella’s Kitchen board. Her roles have included Marketing Director,
Head of Ella’s-ness, Global Brand Director with responsibility of creating and
building one brand inside and out – including the wellbeing and culture of the
team. Nicole was instrumental in growing
Ella’s into a multi-million pound international business, driven by the mission
of creating healthy children.
About Treasure Time
Our vision is to drive connected, happy parent-child
relationships, for the benefit of the whole family. Our mission and passion is
to educate parents in how to become happy, mindful and confident in connecting
with their own children through play.
Resources
Treasure Time Parents Facebook Group
Value bombs and tweetables:
–
I could actually stand back and let them decide what the rules were –
they would change constantly! – and I would be able to watch their little
frustrations kind of fizzle away as they practiced this themselves – Nicole
– So what happens is when children feel like they don’t win
enough, they’ll change the rules so that they can win – Sophia
– We have been resisting flexing the rules as we don’t want
to let them win all the time, not realizing that in play this isn’t the time
for the lesson, “you can’t win them all!”
– Nicole
– Sometimes I think that we worry or there’s a fear that if
we always let them win, or if we go soft on them, that there’ll be a sore
loser. But the opposite is often true. Children who never have the chance to
experience feeling of winning may never feel good or capable within games – Sophia
– Boundaries sound like very short statements that are not
there to be argued with. So here are some examples. Shoes are for the floor,
not the sofa. Food is for eating, not for throwing, water is for the bath, not
for the floor – Sophia
– Without limits, there is no safety. So children
actually really need limits and boundaries to feel safe. And sometimes we might
feel mean putting boundaries in place, but children really need them, and they
thrive under them. And when they don’t have clear boundaries, they can feel a
bit wobbly and a bit unsafe – Sophia
Shownotes
Sophia
Hey, it’s Sophia, and Nicole. Welcome to the treasure time
podcast growing up happy, today’s podcast is all about holding the boundaries
and flexing the rules in a play scenario. So this means that taking the other
principles of treasure time, making sure you put boundaries in place so that
you can allow the child to have freedom of expression that you contain their
behaviour so that it’s safe and appropriate. It also means being flexible with
rules in games, so that children can make their own rules. Nicole, how do you
find this one?
Nicole
I find this one really interesting. I don’t think I’ve ever
been that good at boundary setting for myself, Sophia. I’ve been a bit of a
people pleaser, people pleaser tendencies. And as a result, I kinda suffered from poor
boundaries until recent years to be honest, so naturally, I did find this one
really hard to do for the children because I wasn’t that practiced in it for
myself 1.39. As for the rules, my close friends from university Rosie
and Amanda call me Monica from friends. As I’m a complete “rules control the fun” kinda girl just
like Monica! 1.58. So it’s funny because I’m pretty good at bending the
rules in like a work setting as I’ve always worked in really creative
environments, you know marketing teams where we’ve been deliberately setting
out to break rules and stand out from the crowd. And it’s been like an
advantage in that scenario. However, at home, I’m a really big fan of neat and
orderly and rule following in the main. So even when we are playing like a
board game or a garden game with the boys, until recently, we didn’t really
flex the rules with them that much once I got my head around that not mattering
as much and the point of the game not being about following the rules and
winning mantra or cause kind of, the fun just was able to flow a lot more to
this flexing of the rules.
I could actually stand back let them decide what the rules were- they would
change constantly- and I would be able to watch their little frustrations kind
of fizzle away as they practiced this themselves. 2.57. So not gonna lie
I do have a tense moment every single time I do this, though, because it
doesn’t feel natural. But it does feel really, really playful. And I enjoy it
when it happens. But it’s not my default mode.
Sophia
Yeah, I think we can get a little bit confused with flexing
the rules with children. And sometimes I think that we worry or there’s a fear that if we always
let them win, or if we go soft on them, that there’ll be a sore loser. But the
opposite is often true. Children who never have the chance to experience feeling
of winning may never feel good or capable within games. 4.29 And that
really is there’s power as children is that they should be able to win games or
you know, they’re good at play. They’re better than us. But it’s only when you
feel capable and successful that you can really lose graciously. And that’s
where we might start to see difficult behaviour with children where they feel
it’s really unfair or they might have real kind of dysregulation if they don’t
win. And that can sometimes be linked to a bit bigger feeling, which we’ll
discuss today. But that’s why in our treasure time sessions that we teach
parents to do we suggest not using games that have typical fixed rules like
board games, etc. but finding games that children can create rules for
themselves, so they can experience winning under their own rules if that’s what
they need to do.
Nicole
Yeah, during this lockdown, we’ve been playful experimenting
with setting really clear boundaries at the end of every day when we do like
play in the garden. And we’ve tried hard in this periods and this lead up to
doing this podcast I tried really hard to flex the rules in that situation. As
my youngest son Harrison, he was particularly getting really, really frustrated
easily when he wasn’t winning and it kind of just spoiled everybody’s fun. So
given this typical, we have really enjoyed letting the boys kind of take the
lead as we’ve ebbed and flowed with the rules of playing it, 321 and out, all
the games that we’ve enjoyed when the sun’s been shining, and they’ve evolved each
game and even midway during the actual game, they’ll be like, Oh, no, it’s now
this or it’s now that you’re like, oh, right okay, thanks for letting me know!
Because it’s hard to keep up sometimes. But as we’ve been turning our focus to
watching them as we play alongside them, rather than just to win as a
competitor in the game it has been so much more fun because we’ve you know,
we’ve still enjoyed playing it, but we’ve got to watch in their excitement we’ve
watched when they’ve decided to take risks and when they’ve wanted to bend the
rules as they’ve wanted to, and liked to win you know and seeing them feel good
and take control it, it makes us feel good. It’s a lot more chilled and
relaxed. You know, it’s just a more enjoyable experience for everyone in the
family. So it really it really works. My husband, though, will be slightly
nervous saying all but it’s, you know, it’s that it needs to learn not to
always want to win. And that’s, you know, I think that’s really really common,
you know, he will lose and So it’s really common for people to feel like that.
So that’s in the back of our mains. So and that’s why you know, we have been resisting flexing
the rules as we don’t want to let them win all the time. Kind of not realizing
that in play this isn’t the time for the lesson, “you can’t win them all!” You
know, it’s not the time for it. 7.00
Sophia
Can I put a question back to you, Nicole? With Harrison does
he win all the time? In the play? No, he doesn’t win all the time. But when he
doesn’t win, he gets really frustrated. And that’s when he changes the rules!
Sophia
Yeah
right, so what happens is when children feel like they don’t win enough,
they’ll change the rules so that they can win. 7.33 Because let’s think
about what it really feels like as a child to not win or not win as often. And,
you know, typically we can see this with siblings, especially the younger
sibling, because as good as the oldest, they’re not as advanced. The older
sibling is faster or bigger or stronger or quicker. All of those so when it
feels not fair, that’s the feeling right? It’s so unfair that I didn’t get to
win. And when children they could get quite triggered by it as he as he sort of
explained and it can really spoil the fun, if you like. So I would suggest that
what that is, its just tapping into some more difficult feelings that the child
having of maybe not being good enough. And that’s not necessarily because for
any other reason, other than it’s beyond their capability to win against people
that are bigger, stronger, quicker, faster.
Nicole
Yeah, totally, totally, totally. And I think it is, is, you
know, majority of the time he can keep up with his brother because he is pretty
smart. He’s very fast and nimble. So sometimes he can win the races or bounce
higher on the trampoline. But there’s a great little example of when we were riding
our bikes, you know, there’s two years between them. And, you know, I know a
lot of children in Harrison’s class have just learned more recently, you know,
to ride without their stabilizers, you know, it’s not uncommon for it to take
you know, it spans a couple of years. Well, you’ll learn to play debate without
stabilizers. Harrison did it very, very early, because we came back from a
holiday at center parks where he had a stabilizer so and then he wanted a
bigger boys bike and he wanted to be like Callum. And literally we got home we
hadn’t even unpacked the car. And he got, he was like when in the garage, I
want to get my bike out and we had to take a stabilizers off. By the end of
that day, he could rate his bike without stabilizers because he was so
determined to be the same as his big brother. And so yeah, I totally get what
you’re saying that is and that drive sometimes it is driven in a really positive
way the baking experience you know, he never gave up you know, it’s really
really well managed, he had that self confidence and self esteem that he was
going to give it a go and make this work. And it was an It was a one on one
situation it was in the bike, playing solo if you like, but that determination
when it’s put into a family setting or a friend setting isn’t as controlled,
you know, the feelings of frustration just spill out.
Sophia
Yeah, so it’s, it’s, as we said, it can be that comparison thing
and just a bit of frustration of not being as advanced and it feels a little
bit unfair. And, you know, can tap into that more difficult feeling of sort of
not good enough. And so I
think we just we need to give kids break when we’re playing with them. Because
we don’t want to perpetuate that feeling of not good enough because what can
happen over time when have lots of that feeling is, we see it in the films all
the time how the hero has to go through lots of trials and tribulations to
achieve ultimate success. That requires a lot of resilience and everybody’s an
individual and not everyone has enough resilience to keep losing all the time
and not have an impact on their self esteem. So it can feed into those bigger
feelings of not being good enough. But the good news is that through play we
can children those experiences of feeling great and capable and winning.
10.51
Nicole
Which is great, and quite, quite an easy thing to do. It’s
just thinking of physically doing it isn’t it’s just giving that a go. So Sophia,
how do you think we as parents can strike that balance of holding kind of firm
boundaries and being flexible with the rules? Because sometimes it does feel
like a slightly mixed message. Surely some rules are made not to be broken, or
is that just an expression? How can children distinguish the difference if we
flex the rules? Because like, for example, we don’t really want them to
obviously steal from somebody or we don’t want them to throw food at the dinner
table. I mean, sometimes like a rules a rule, is it not?
Sophia
Well, boundaries and rules work together in a place
scenario. So I think let’s just be really clear here on like, what’s general
day to day life and what’s a because in play, the rules can be slightly
different. Generally, rules are made to be abided by, and so are boundaries. So children in general life
don’t get much opportunity to test the edges of rules and boundary. It’s, this
is the rule and you stick to it. So that’s why it’s really important that we
create dedicated play space so that children can skirt around the edges a bit
in a safe way to see what works for them as well as an individual. 12.20
And this is important because it allows you to make up their own rules and be
in charge but in a really safe way when you have time together, which isn’t
usually possible outside of a play scenario, where children have to do as we
say, but let’s talk about boundaries for a minute because this is an incredibly
important part of raising children or working with children or any kind of
dealings with children. Boundaries can look like really broad statements to
keep children safe from harm and also to keep the household running in a smooth
and consistent way. Boundaries
sound like very short statements that are not there to be argued with. So here
are some examples. Shoes are for the floor, not the sofa. Food is for eating,
not for throwing, water is for the bath, not for the floor. So you can see
they’re very short statements for what things are supposed to be where, and
that there’s their non negotiables, right. So when a child is breaking that
boundary, we can just restate that boundary really short and simple.
13.14
Nicole
That really helped. But those were some of the very first
few that you gave me when they were much younger, where we chatted about water
is to stay the bath, not to be thrown out of the bath. And it was I just kept
having to say it and say it as this little short sentence and it took awhile,
but then it started to be respected and they started to understand why mummy
would be annoyed when it would be a swimming pool on the floor. It was slippy
and it was lady and that’s not safe and but at first for them they didn’t see
any of that. They just saw that they were having a lot of fun. You know
splashing in the bath.
Sophia
Yeah, exactly, which is why we just keep it very short and
simple. And they may not understand it at first, but over time, then you just
need to say the short boundary and they get it, they stopped doing it. And what
we do with boundaries is that we don’t flex them because there are boundaries,
and they’re non negotiable. And they’re there to keep us safe and to keep
everything running in order. But the same goes for rules. So rules are normally
there to keep us safe from harm. And there are plenty of rules that we have to
abide by. So for example, the law, that’s their rules that we have to abide by.
So children do need to know how to stick to rules, of course. But when we’re
thinking about rules in a treasure time context or in a play context, we are
thinking about how we can create play opportunities where there aren’t rules
because it gives children the ability to go into their own imagination and
creativity and get what they need from the play. And what I mean by that is not
there are no rules it’s an absolute free for all. It’s just that there aren’t
rules in the play about how play is the play is executed. You let the child to
choose, so this means flexing the rules of traditional games and allowing the
child to take the lead. And
then I think there’s a question that we have to ask ourself, which is, why is
it so important to us that our children are sticking to the rules in play? And
at what point are we potentially tapping into our own inner child who still
finds it unfair when we don’t win? Because that is a genuine question that we
should be asking ourselves too, is it that I don’t like it when my child wants
to flex the rules to win because it reminds me of when I was a child and I
wasn’t allowed to do that, but that could be a real thing as well. 15.30
end
Nicole
So interesting isn’t it, multi layered. So it can be hard to
work out whatssometimes right and what to do for the best. So for our
listeners, what does healthy boundary setting look like at home? What rules are
say great to flex in a play scenario, Sophia?
Sophia
Yeah. So I think it’s important that we don’t get confused
between rules and boundaries outside play, boundaries and rules outside of play
are non negotiable. And the boundaries within play a non negotiable as well.
Boundaries are there, they’re set by parents to keep children safe, to keep us
safe, to keep our houses and everything within it. And to keep everything
running in an orderly fashion, it’s really important that you have boundaries
so that you can manage your stress levels as well. So if you’re managing your
stress levels with good boundaries, that has a knock on impact on your
children, their stress levels will be lower too. So even if you know an
activity will be good for the child to do by themselves, and that goes back to
the last session, we talked when we were talking about allowing the child to
solve their own problems, you know that that’s good for their development, you
may still have to put a boundary in place depending on the time and if it’s
appropriate. So for example, you talked about this. I know you really want to
pour the milk into the cereal. Hmm. So I know that you want but there’s a
boundary here, but Mommy needs to help you with that and I don’t have any spare
hands right now. So this time Mommy will pour the milk to make sure it doesn’t
make a mess and at the weekend we can pour the milk together. Do you see how
the boundaries just kind of come in to contain the activity? And so yeah, it
might be okay to do that. If it’s the weekend and you’ve got time, but in this
scenario, as a boundary, I need to help you and I can’t help you right now.
Nicole
So yeah, it makes complete sense. And when you’re explaining
these things in a sort of short, concise way like that, it does make sense.
It’s not confusing the child, you know, we sometimes we don’t give them enough credit
for what they will understand when we explain it carefully and clearly. I think
that’s, you know, I’ve certainly been guilty of not explaining myself, you
know, just kind of saying, this is the way it is. And I think that’s where
there’s been a bit of rubbing tension whereas when I have been explained, you
know, leaving the park brilliant example. I’d like to, rather than saying it’s
time to leave the park and they don’t want to leave it and say, but it’s time you
know, it’s dinner time we’ve got to go, actually saying something more like I
know you really want to stay, I want you to leave the park now, because I need
time to make dinner when we get home. And you know, it’s not about it being time
for something necessarily. It’s just helping explain to them that there’s a
reason for mummy making this decision.
Sophia
Yeah, exactly. We kind of miss out that bit in communication
with children. Normally, we’re just like, this is the way that it is. And if
you don’t follow the rules, then there’ll be consequences, you know, and
children are still learning about the world. So now this, this takes a real big
like language. It’s a language shift and it’s a mindset shift into being very
clear about why you’re doing everything. Why am I saying that you’re not
allowed to do that. And that takes a lot of self reflection. So until you do
that piece of work, which is let’s be honest, a long and an ongoing piece of
work all the time, it won’t be second nature, the first time you do it, you
have to listen to this podcast and then listen to it again. And then practice
it Treasure Time. And then like, over time, it will become part of your natural
language. And you’ll notice it will become part of your language as well. They
will really understand boundaries very clearly when you speak in this way, but
it does take practice.
Nicole
And it does take practice. I do love it when you know,
Harrison, you know, he’s six will come up and say, Mommy, Calum has just broke
a boundary. You know, and I think, wow, you know, you know what a boundary is.
That’s brilliant, you know, it took me 40 odd years to learn that. So again,
it’s just this. Like you both can learn together. And it’s just this great
blueprint from you know, knowing the boundaries between work and home or
knowing the boundaries within relationships or making time for yourself and you
know, it, could it is just a really great skill within treasure time to put in
place that the whole family. I find it’s that I found it’s just been one that
we’ve been able to talk about learning together really openly.
Sophia
Yeah, exactly. And I think you like learning why it’s
important to explain boundaries to your children, but also you’re learning it
for yourself why it’s important for me to have boundaries and keep you safe.
It’s not just because I feel like it today is because actually, there’s really
good reason why you can’t run out into the middle of the road. It’s because you
know, that’s a very fairly obvious one to keep you safe. But why can’t my child
pour the milk in the cereal? Well, the fact is, we’re about to walk out of the
door and they’ve done it before and they will pour the milk all over the table
and they’ll get it on their school uniform. They’re all the reasons but we
don’t have five minutes to list all the reasons. So sometimes you just say no.
But if you say you need mommy’s help with that, and mommy doesn’t have any
hands right now, but at the weekend, we can do it together because we have more
time. That’s a very clear boundary and it helps explain to the child
Nicole
It is and while we’re in this lockdown situation, you know,
you’ve said before Sophia we’ve got slightly more time to experiment and play
and let the child take the lead. And you know, today was a really good example
where I may be let that happen more than I actually had time for us. So there
was a it was quite funny. There’s a little science experiment of vinegar and
sitting in an egg setting in vinegar. It’s been there for four or five days,
and it’s lovely like it changes color, there’s loads of bubbles, and the
eggshell disappears and to really like elasticated cover that just slides off
the egg and the egg is spongy like a stress ball would be and they’re touching
it because they say oh yeah it’s really spongy and then I can see thinking oh I
should go over there and they move away from the sink. And then they press it
too hard and this you know, raw egg that’s been sitting in vinegar for four
days is all over the kitchen floor. And with you know within an hour, Harrison
goes and does watering his sunflower seeds that he’s planted and he said Oh, I
forgot to water the mummy and no worries Harrison well you get the jug and you
get the water and you know, occasionally they’ll help water the plants in the
house. But he ended up putting in too much water and I was thinking don’t
interfere don’t interfere and he tried to put it back out and then the soil
when the pour onto the floor, back into the jug with some of the water and he’s
like mummy I’ve made a bit of a mess what should I do to clean it up? Should I
use that pointing to the tea towel or should I use that to the kitchen roll, a
cloth and he was and I thought was really good he’s making their you know I
could do without all this cleaning up happening today because we’re trying to
juggle two times tables and work and, and all the meal prep and everything. And
the same has happened in the morning with the cereak wanted a second ball, and
he’s going to help himself and I thought I’ll let him do it but it’s quite to
near the top and it’s a big box and the inevitable happened and there was lots
of rice krispies or cocoa popd all over the counter and on the floor, and we
just referenced our day of mistakes and we had a good giggle we were like I
said, I think this is your day of mistakes Harrison isn’t it, remember that one
mummy had and he just kind of gave us off smile and I’ll be honest, there’s a time
where I would have raised my voice and just started grumbling about all these
things to them. And adding unnecessary stress to all of us because in reality,
we’re not going anywhere, you know, the soil can be cleaned up later, as the
breakfast cereal can be cleaned up later, you know, you can just you need to
let go of being perfect or aspiring to be perfect, you know, you need to be
good enough in this situation and literally turn a blind eye to some of these
things and just not worry about them. And I think that’s half the challenges of
us you know, setting clear boundaries and flexing the rules is sometimes, it
won’t or go to any kind of plan. And it’s being relaxed around that, you know,
being creative going with the flow because it’s not easy. Sometimes when you feel
that you’ve got 100 things to do or certainly, you know, it was, it was great
for me to be able to draw back on the day of mistakes and bring humor back into
it, rather than focusing on, you know, any of the negatives, which I could so
easily have done.
Sophia
Yeah. And I think he’s really good that he was then willing
to help with the cleanup, like, what should I do next? Because that shows a
real respect and also ownership of what he’s doing. So rather than just kind
of, so I think that’s another fear that people have is that if I allow my child
to do these things, are they just going to be belligerent and break rules for
the sake of it and then I’m left clearing up a mess, well, actually, your child
can take ownership for the whole thing. Obviously, they’re going to need your
help at some point. And that’s part of the boundaries, right. So it’s like,
well, if, if you’re watering the plants and you make a mess, then you are
responsible for cleaning up that mess. There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s
a good boundary to have. It’s a good thing to learn in life. So we can use that
when we’re, you know, 18 years old and going off to university and we learn
that when we use pans and stuff, we don’t just leave them lying around someone
else to pick them up, its good life skills. Right?
Nicole
Yeah, they are life skills. And it’s very interesting
because the more boundary setting that we’ve put in place at home, and clear
communication of those boundaries and responsibilities to children have
actually become more and more responsible. So we’ve got one in place at the
moment, we’re like, Well, actually, we’re living at home in lockdown we’re not
as rushed in the mornings and, and at certain stages of the day. So let’s teach
the children some of those life skills. So for example, the boundaries that we
and we rewrite our boundaries as a family probably, like maybe every two three
months, we sit down with the kids and, and probably have five to eight things
on a list and the top one never changes. You know, no kicking hitting shouting
name calling anyone at any time for any reason it’s a red boundary, it’s not to
be crossed. And there’s something negative does happen if that if that if that
boundary is crossed, all the others are just boundaries that we should respect
is what we talked about. So we’ve put in place that we’re not to go downstairs
in the morning unless we’ve made our own bed, brush their own teeth, and
changed, put clothes on changed our pajamas. So that’s been fascinating how
they have really really just taken it on they’ve been fantastic about it.
They’ve made their beds nearly every day there’s been a couple of days where
they’ve said oh ive forgot and and we said well that’s okay. It doesn’t matter
go up known do it is you know, we all forget sometimes. And, you know, a few
weeks in, they’re just making their bed as routine practice. It’s like oh,
that’s fantastic. So we’ve moved on to the next thing which is clearing your
plates after dinner and lunch because men tend to they just get up and leave
the table and they don’t do that and many families that their kids may be
already doing that. Fantastic but it’s not something that my boys have really
ever done. It’s been a bit occasional and hit and miss but no, they know they
take their plate, they make sure it’s clean, they pop it in the dishwasher and
they’ve been occasionally then helping up with washing pots and pans and
occasionally set in the table. So it’s just
drip feeding all these things in but I definitely can look
back and I think they are better behaved and take more responsibility. The clearer
these Boundary setting has been they’ve almost like I don’t know, it’s almost
like it’s been a little bit of a relief for them. Like oh I know now, it’s
really clear to me what’s expected. And, and that’s easier to follow us. And if
you’ve got short sentences of what is and what isn’t how we do things around
here, it’s easy, and it’s less stressful for everyone.
Sophia
Because its consistent. And it’s not based on your mood that
day as to what happens, you know, it’s very clear. And there’s a great quote by Gary Landreth, which
says, without limits, there is no safety. So children actually really need
limits and boundaries to feel safe. And sometimes we might feel mean putting
boundaries in place, but children really need them, and they thrive under them.
And when they, when they don’t have clear boundaries, they can feel a bit
wobbly and a bit unsafe. And that’s when you start to see behaviours where
children can really grasp for control. 29.40 And this can even look like
things like stealing or hoarding or excessive organization or sometimes being
controlling in relationships and friendships or with siblings, and it comes
from maybe that feeling of being out of control. So when they have really clear
boundaries, they can just relax a bit. And a lot of these challenges can be
reduced by keeping safe boundaries for your child, but also for yourself. So
that this is again, it’s always a two way street, isn’t it on treasure time
podcast?
Nicole
It is. I didn’t realize how much it was. Yeah, a little bit
of time thinking about my behavior,
Sophia
That’s the tiring part. I think we’re just on automatic most
of the time. So when we can just be reflective, lots of this stuff will shift
really quickly.
Nicole
That does, that’s the thing is, is all of these things, a
little bit of time and attention. But it’s not a lot of effort to make these
subtle changes that do make a really big difference quickly.
Sophia
Absolutely. And as
always, my favourite thing about treasure time and the treasure time play that
we teach people is that it gives parents the opportunity to practice these
skills together with their child each week to learn how their child reacts and
responds to these sorts of things that we’re talking about like boundaries and
rules. And then naturally, people will start using these principles in day to
day life like you have Nicole, it becomes the way that you frame your life at
home. You have things like clear boundaries, flexible play, allowing the child
to lead, being aware of our own reactions and feelings are also allowing
children freedom of expression and accepting their feelings. And that happens
then just all the time naturally, once we can practice it, parents practicing
these things during 30 minutes of play a week helps it just to leak out into
normal life and it will just become part of your way of being. So something
that I recommend that everybody who listened this podcast does off the back of
this episode, and all around rules and boundaries, is allow your child to teach
you a game. They and that game might be a game that you already know. But
you’re going to pretend that you don’t. You’re going to get a game that
immediately game without rules. So a good example here is like with a deck of
cards depending on how old your child is. And you can let them teach you a
game. And they might try and teach you new rules to game like snap. That’s
okay, just go with the child rules. Or what you could do is you could get a
game that that typically does have rules, and then just give your child a free
pass to make up their own rules if they want. So a good example of this is top
Trumps, because you never know what the child has in their hand, you don’t
necessarily know if the child is lying or cheating. Or they might say, Oh,
well, I win that round, because actually, I’ve got the lowest points, you know,
they might start making up rules like that, and just go with it and just be
like, Oh, you are so good at this game. You are really beating me here. And you
can you’ll notice that children who need to experience winning a bit more will
sometimes bend the rules in their favour, and that’s okay. There’s nothing
wrong with that. In this type of play. Just allow them to do it. Because it’s
part of what they need to do and children who don’t have that need probably
won’t do it quite so much. But just give them permission to make up the rules
and play by their rules. For that game, and your job, as always, is just to
notice what they’re doing. And be curious, just like David Attenborough
watching his wild animals.
Nicole
It’s really great advice. I love hearing it all over again
and the opportunity to chat to you because you just, you just don’t learn these
things as a one off if it doesn’t work like that does it takes patience and
practice and the great thing about this is because it’s all about focusing on
your child, like your most precious thing in your life and it is just so much
fun and wonder like stopping and watching them like this. It’s really good. And
we did actually do the game with a deck of cards, but we chose Uno. And it was
hilarious, because they you know, they change the rules of cards that you know,
if it’s normally a pickup to it was that you had to give two away it was
because it was the opposite of what it usually is. It was so confusing as an
adult, but it’s funny because the kids are just like, Oh yeah, they totally get
it. And they, they had a lot of fun. And sometimes if Harrison was a winning,
or it wasn’t going the way he wanted it to, he did just change it halfway
through as well. And that’s okay, you know, and the rest of us just went along
with it. And it was good fun. It was good. It was really just lovely to see
them enjoy being with you and playing and knowing that it really doesn’t matter
what the rules are, as long as you’re having a bit of fun together and enjoying
each other’s time. So yeah, I can’t wait to hear what other parents they think
of how their children reacted to being given a deck of cards.
Sophia
Yeah, absolutely. And like, like you said, all of these
skills take practice. This is lifelong learning and it’s so specific to your
child. But just for everybody to remember that you are the expert in your child
and every child is different. And really this is all about as Nicole said, the
relationship between yourself and the child, the play is a vehicle to allow
that to happen in the best way possible.
Nicole
Brilliant. So next episode, really exciting we’re going to
hear from one of our treasure team parents, one of our first parents that have
been through the beginning of the course. She’s called Anna and she lives in
Washington DC with her two sons, husband, dog. And yeah, Anna is going to be on
telling us and sharing next week about her experience of treasure time.
Anna
Just wanted to commend you both for the excellent work you’re
doing and to provide you with an update that it’s taken me some time to get
through the first modules of treasured time. And I finally got my box ready and
tomorrow will be your first session! So I am inviting Luke later today to join
me tomorrow and I will let you know how it goes. I’m super excited about it.
I’m already implementing some of the things I’m learning and I look forward to
growing closer to him and seeing some more improvements in his behavior and
just that he can grow up healthy.
Sophia
Thank you so much for listening. Make sure to tune in for
our next episode is going to be a good one. We’ll get to hear all about Anna
Luke’s first treasure time session together. We’d love it if you could head
over to iTunes and subscribe to the podcast and give us a lovely five star
review and some words to help us keep reaching more and more parents with our
treasure time podcast. Thank you so much and bye for now. See you in the next
episode.