I want to be more like Mary Poppins. Instead of yelling at my kids to clean up another big mess, I want to start singing and with that “little bit of sugar” see how the job gets done.
Sometimes I feel more like the wicked witch of the west.
Still, I want to be ‘Poppinesque’, not only because it would make me feel better about my motherhood, but also because I KNOW how important play is. As a pediatric occupational therapist working with children, I use games as an important way to help children be open to their lessons. I know that everything is easier to beat when it is fun and play is the way children learn.
So over the years, I’ve come up with a ton of games that I use with my own children and with other children to make the things we have to do more enjoyable.

I don’t use them all the time, but whenever I do, it turns a potentially bad moment into a fun one.
Play, humor and laughter release a high natural hormone. It’s organic, free, and an all-natural joy-jumper, but best of all, it gets the job done.

STACK IT

I came up with this game, which is a lighthearted way to clear up a mess, when I was returning from a workshop out of town. My young daughters stayed in the company of their very loving but not particularly orderly father. I came home with two very happy and healthy girls, but had to wade through five days of scattered clothing, play parts, stale toast, and other floating debris and debris to get to them. I was delighted to be home and fresh out of a workshop on singing games for children, I wanted to keep my good mood, practice what I would learn, and get the job done.

I decided to tackle the overwhelming task by placing everything, regardless of what it was, in a large pile in the middle of the room and ordering it from there.
Borrowing the tune from “The Bear Went Over the Mountains”, I started throwing everything into the pile while singing
Put everything in a pile. “Put everything in a pile. Put everything in a pile. Put everything in a pile in the middle of the room. In the middle of the room. In the middle of the room. Put everything in a pile in the middle of the room “.

My 5-year-old daughter immediately suspected that this might be a job, but I reminded her that the job has to be done no matter what and that we might as well have fun. She understood and the girls and I started throwing everything out of place on the pile, singing and laughing as we made long, high shots.

Very quickly, the rooms were cleaned except for this large mound in the middle of the living room. We sat around him like a campfire. I picked up each item and in a rhythmic song I said, for example, “A sock, a sock, where does it go?” Someone would answer “the laundry basket.”
We did this for each item and soon reduced the large stack to separate smaller stacks of books, blankets, clothing, toys, etc. They were all assigned piles to store and I swept the floor. So in a relatively short time the house was livable again and we were all still in a good mood.

Since then, we have used this method often when your rooms (or mine) were in this overwhelming state of disorder. Except we put the pile on the bed so the floor and all other areas are clear. Once that happened, the project now felt doable because just that pile on the bed, rather than the ENTIRE room, needed to be tidy up.
I also use a version of this method when my house seems to be full of piles – these piles contain letters, bills, magazines, to-do lists, photos, and all that stuff that sits on flat surfaces. My intention is that since they were in sight, they would be dealt with faster. But instead, they just pile up.

I get a box and put everything in the box so that all my surfaces are flawless again. Then, with a good cup of tea, I sit in my comfortable chair, with a trash can and a small table nearby, and sort and discard until the task is done. I may not have a song for this job, but having a clean house again makes me want to sing!

Mama went crazy

This game is a way to distract children who are fighting and help them regain their sense of humor.
It always amazes me how quickly my daughters get into arguing. You only fight, really, but it can get on my nerves. One day, while tidying up the clothes in the living room, I heard a relative “I didn’t! Me too!” I abstained and, on a whimsical impulse, put my husband’s clean underwear on my head, probably to cover my ears, and continued sorting. There was stunned silence from my daughters and one of them pointed out that I was wearing Daddy’s underwear on my head. I acted puzzled as if to say, “Who doesn’t?” Then they did the same and soon we were parading like on a fashion runway showing the latest in style. The show didn’t last long, but it broke their spirits and we happily carried on with our day.
Another day, inspired by the mounting tensions from another fight, I impulsively started acting like a gorilla. I jumped around scratching and making monkey “EEEEE” sounds. It probably helped me release my tension, but soon we were all fooling around.
Humor and stupidity are a guaranteed fighting factor.

IN SEARCH OF THE GRUMPY FLE

This game helps to cheer up a child to get out of a bad mood and lighten the moment.
When a little one is in a bad mood, sometimes I like to act surprised … “Are you in a bad mood? That seems right. Usually you’re in a very good mood. Oh, I know what’s up, you have a grumpy bug hiding on you. I’ll get rid of it for you. “Then I proceed to look for the mistake. I check the ears, the armpits, I look at the shirts, the inside pockets, between the toes, acting exasperated and determined. “It has to be here somewhere. I know!” By the time I “find” him, the little boy giggles and often helps me search. Together we pull the “grumpy bug”.
If we are not careful where we throw it and the error spreads to another person, we also have to look for it. Often times, especially in the classroom, everyone claims to have the error and there is a lot of laughter and searching.

I end the game silently looking for the “love bug.” We have to look in many places. Maybe it’s in the pot. Maybe it’s on the soft blanket. When we “find” it, I ask the child to Handle it with care and place it somewhere on his body, in a pocket or next to his heart.
“When you have the love bug, everything will be fine”

IMMEDIATELY WASH THAT MOOD OUTSIDE THE ROOM:

This game removes the bad mood that is infecting children and clean the floor at the same time. You have to be in the mood for a bit of chaos but as my friend Jane, who homeschooled her four children, would tell you, it’s worth it.

On a day when irritability has been contagious because someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed, yelled at someone who then yelled at someone else and the mood passed until everyone was in a bad mood, Jane filled a bucket of warm soapy water. Then, start spreading it around the room. As you can imagine, there is nothing more attractive to a child than water and bubbles, and children would grab the sponges, conveniently placed, and begin to spread the water, as well as slip, slide and circle on their buttocks. Jane knows, as I do, that all that erratic movement is very good for developing coordination in young bodies. Your vestibular system that controls balance is stimulated and your internal sense of which way up is reinforced, even if it involves a few laps.

Also, if he got too crazy, he would bring step two, the rinse water, and then step three, the towels. Everyone is given a large towel to dry the floor as they please, which could include the towel mounting and sliding technique. When the towel set gets old like any other set, Jane would dry up the missing parts of the floor, throw the towels in the washing machine, and carry on with a lighter heart and cleaner floor.

YOUR HONORABLE GARBAGE TAKER ABROAD:

This game is a way of getting work done and making everyone feel important, needed, and appreciated.
I discovered it one day when I was waiting for my children and their visitors to help me with a garden project of planting peas. I thought with certainty that they would enjoy it and was surprised that they seemed reluctant to join in the process of poking holes, putting the little round pea seed in, and covering and pressing the soil over the top.

Then I thought about how people at work were starting to get new degrees. The janitor was now the maintenance engineer and the secretaries were deputy directors. Same job, different titles. However, the new titles show more respect for work. Custodians maintain and secretaries administer.

I announce the available positions. “Let’s see for this job that I need an Honorable Hole Putter-Inner, a Gracious Seed Depositor, a Superior Soil Cover-Upper, and a Princely Press-It-Downer. I was delighted (and in awe) when they all took a title and burst into activity.
Now I know instead of asking someone, “Would you grate the potatoes?” I say, “You can be the Great Grater”

RACE AGAINST THE CLOCK:

The intent of this game may be obvious to children, but as a fun challenge and way of doing something, it almost always works. It’s amazing.
Says so. Let’s say my daughter had to go upstairs to get her sweater before we could all leave the house. She feels too lazy to make the effort, but if I say to her, “Can you run upstairs, grab the sweater, and be in the car before I get to number eight and three-quarters?” and start counting 1 — 2, go up the stairs. She is up for this speed and agility challenge and to do, in a fun way, something that needs to be done anyway. If you do it quickly, I’ll comment, “Wow, you did it at 7:30!”

I find that loud counting keeps them from being distracted, although I admit that if the count is high I sometimes start counting, use the times when they left to do something else, and then start counting out loud again when I hear them. it’s coming – “sixteen …. sixteen and a half …. sixteen and three quarters ….. seventeen ….”

I also have the opportunity to play the game. I remember when my youngest son said, “Can you run down the stairs and get me a glass of water before I count to 10 and a half? One … two …” and I took off. It was fun to face the challenge and I noticed that it raised my energy level!
Once my daughter used it on me in a new way. We were driving home after a trip and I waited too long to start and was already tired with 4 hours to go. The children were also restless and at one point I exploded them and started screaming.
“Mom, my then five year old daughter said calmly and sincerely,” Let’s see if you can calm down by the time I count to seven and she starts counting. When she saw my face relax and my mouth curl in amusement, she said, “Good mom. You did it at six!”