Mommy Is A Silly Creature: How Laughing With Your Child Helps Power Struggles

Playlistening with Ravid Aisenman Abrahmsohn

The other day my oldest daughter who is 10 came home from school very tense. She was hot, tired and hungry, but there was also something else that was bothering her, and she wouldn’t say what. After I fed her and let her cool down a little, it was time for her to start doing her homework.

Mom making owl faces and being silly with her two girls in article about using laughter in parenting strugglesShe is usually pretty good about getting her work done in an efficient manner. This time it was almost out of the question.

She was growling at me and her younger sister, and looking for reasons to shout, quarrel and fight with the both of us. I could see that there was no easy way out of this one.

Silliness Helps Soothe Stresses

Somehow, and I can’t even recall why, I started to make very weird sounds and faces, and even weirder laughing noises. Those made her laugh really, really hard, which kept me going like this for another 15 minutes (which is highly unusual amount of silliness on my behalf!). I didn’t say a single word other than those weird sounds and faces. I could tell that this laugh of hers was not only out of amusement, but also her need to take some of the heavy load off, and at some stage I felt like she wanted her mommy back, and had enough of that strange looking and sounding ‘creature’.

After this session was over, my little daughter who was partly witnessing this asked for us to do it again, but my older one said: “No, I can’t, I have homework to do.” She went straight from there to her desk without any prompt from me, and managed to get all her work done.

Help Calm Return

In the evening right before bedtime, she was telling me a little bit more about her day. She still didn’t want to tell me about the other thing that was bothering her, but she seemed to be much more calm about it, and I assumed I would probably hear about it in a later stage, as often happens with her.

I am not usually a silly type of person, and I must admit that this Playlistening was not the easiest thing for me to do. But I was amazed to see the affect it had on my daughter, and like always this is what kept me going.

Play can really bring you closer to your child and turn challenging situations around. But what if you don't feel playful? Read What If I'm Just Not A Playful Parent? and then try the suggestions in Games For Parents That Are Too Tired to Play

Ravid Aisenman Abramsohn, Parenting by Connection, IsraelRavid Aisenman Abrahmsohn is a certified Hand in Hand Instructor from Israel. Read more of her experiences in How to Come Out Ahead When Your Family Faces Big Challenges.

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