Silly recreation gives families bonding time

By Beverly Bartlett
Louisville (Ky.) Courier-Journal

Laurie Triefeldt Gannett News Service

Hunkering down indoors for a little family togetherness seems like the right thing to do.

But when your family is together, do you know what to do?

Do you get restless if you find a whole evening or a whole afternoon or (gasp!) a whole day with no agenda?

If so, Lawrence Cohen, a Boston-area psychologist who specializes in children, says it may be because you've forgotten how to play.

He means no offense. Most adults have.

Cohen, author of "Playful Parenting" (Ballantine Books, $23.95), argues that children, who are scheduled to capacity these days with structured activities, desperately need unplanned, silly, wrestle-on-the-floor kind of play. (And if you don't remember how to do that, they can show you.)

Susan Vessels, executive director of Louisville, Kentucky's Community Coordinated Child Care (4-C), says such a message is a welcome one.

"People take things way too seriously and weigh themselves and their children down because of it."

In part, she says, the problem stems from the brain-development research that's been done in recent years. While the research is excellent, she says, and may help parents maximize their children's opportunities, it might also prompt some parents to consider every moment a teachable lesson.

An "unintended pressure" has emerged, Vessels says, with people "so focused on advancement and on their responsibility to make sure that their child has all the opportunities" that they've forgotten the value in "spending time on the floor rolling around."

Cohen definitely advocates rolling around on the floor. (See who can take one another's socks off first, he suggests.) In fact, he advocates a general playful spirit. Such as ...

• If your child is balking at getting dressed for school, put his pants on your head and dance around the room a bit.
• If your child says a bad word, tell him not to say "banana cream pie" or he'll be in big trouble. Playfully chase him around the room after he yells it, over and over again.

You know, play.

Cohen knows what you're thinking:

• I don't have time.
• What about discipline?
• Won't my kids be spoiled if I drop everything to play with them whenever they're feeling silly?

His answers are simple:

• It doesn't take any more time to play than it does to nag, threaten and argue, "which we all know doesn't really work anyway."
• Kids are more cooperative if they've been able to work through issues playfully. (After allowing them to toy with the power of certain words — albeit in this case "banana cream pie" — you can sit them down and say: "That was fun but if you say that other word at school you're going to be suspended and it will be very serious.")
• Do you spoil your kids if you feed them when they're hungry? So why do you worry about spoiling them when you give them attention that they need? When you think about it that way, the old parental standby "Ignore him, he just wants attention" makes as much sense as "Ignore her, she's just hungry."

Cohen's book doesn't argue against any of the brain-research or other development-related advice that's out there. In fact, a lot of it is the same. When the Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service came up with seven guidelines to great parenting — based on the research — it included ideas that were much like Cohen's.

The second example was about cuddling, talking and reading to your child. It pointed out the value of play — saying that young children learn, for example, that parents can be close by even when out of sight from games like hide-and-seek and peek-a-boo.

Jill Jacobi, director of The Center at Riverport in Louisville, says play is integral in the center's child development policy.

"At our center, we don't have walkers or swings in our baby room. Our children are down on the floor where their muscles are going to develop."

And staff members, she says, are down on the floor with them.

But the difference is on emphasis. Cohen says that playing with your child also has the fantastic effect of helping you and the child become connected — something that many parents struggle with after their cute and cuddly baby grows into an independent-minded toddler.

"If your daughter calls you a stupid idiot, try being so stupid you can't tell her from a pillow, and try to take a nap on top of her," he suggests in one passage of the book. (Finding ways to start physical contact is a common theme.)

Saretha Williams Clark, owner and director of Saretha's West End Child Development Center Inc., says she was pleased recently to see a magazine article in a parenting magazine about Cohen's new book, which struck a chord with her.

"It really did," she says. "Because a lot of times, parents, they don't really want to play with children."

They don't know what to do. Or they feel silly. Or they are in a hurry. "It's a time factor, and they feel inadequate," she says.

Cohen says that boredom is also an obstacle.

"We talk about children having short attention spans. But they may want to play the same game for hours. It's we who have the short attention spans."