One night, home alone with my son (who was 3 at the time), I was tired of playing the same games and suddenly figured out that we should make an obstacle course in the living room. Like a lot of memories, this one is so vivid because we had a blast doing it. I’ve recently thought about all the ways I play with my kids and realize that I love just making stuff up on the fly.
As adults, we often put off or avoid playing with our kids. Despite what you’ll see on this blog, I do it all the time. Particularly with my daughter - but that’s a whole other story. Anyway, the reasons why we avoid play are endless and don’t matter right now. But if we can flip our mindset into improvisatory play and avoid the “because I have to” trap, we’ll enjoy our kids and ourselves much more.
This is not intended as a list of games or activities although I do mention some specific activities I’ve done with my kids. Rather, this is a list of techniques you can grab onto and throw into playtime to make it more fun for adults. A lot of this may be obvious but my gut tells me a lot of parents don’t play like this.
I’ve debated myself about posting this kind of lame list. All of these things are part of specific activities you can look up in online or in books. I get frustrated with that, though, because I don’t always have the materials, tools, or desire on-hand to tackle someone else’s project. I’d much rather just use whatever is available and go for it.
* Sorry there are no numbers for this list - this WP template is eating them and I haven’t bothered to figure it out.
So here are 10 ways I improvise playing with my kids:
- Repeat things. Repetition is the earliest of learning methods for children but also one of the easiest improvisations. Repetition in “Simon Says”. This must be a baseline human behavior because, as parents, we all repeat what our children utter and our natural play with them is to have them copy us. And who can forget the annoying copying game?
- Do things with variation. When kids get in a play groove, they don’t like to change what’s working. On the other hand, Dad will get bored and try to change the rules. If you’re going to pull that on them, at least make it an improvement on the game. I’m a classically trained musician, so all sorts of musical terms come to mind when I think variation. Transposition, truncation, elongation, rhythm, inversion, retrograde are a few musical terms that have application in real life. We’re talking higher, lower, shorter, longer, upside-down, and backwards - easy and fun ways to change up the activity.
- Backwards - talk, walk, run backwards. Draw or write with the non-dominant hand.
- Upside-down - walk around the ceiling by staring down at a mirror. Walk on hands.
- Rhythm - skip rather than run, crawl instead of walk. This is all about timing - change speeds and intervals in whatever you’re playing.
- Other variations can be changing colors, changing sounds, opposites
- Throw in something random and unrelated. Adding something unrelated forces everyone to be creative. A stuffed animal knocking on Barbie’s door. Use daddy’s shoe as a Barbie car (haven’t done that one yet) It helps if the random item generates some laughs.You can also combine two different play systems - Barbies and R/C (radio control toys), Legos and Hot Wheels, playing house and building forts.
- Take something away. Like the game of Jenga, what can you remove and what happens next? I may have been high at the time but I’ve spoken English several times without uttering any consonants. Play balloon volleyball without your hands. Marco Polo. Blindfold and clothespin tasting (no sight, no smell, texture only) - now, unlike a lot of activities I mention here, I haven’t tried this one yet.
- Explain things. Have your kids explain things to you - let them be the expert or the storyteller. Ask open-ended questions like “what happens next” and “why”. Listen and observe - especially with very young children, there is no need to correct their assumptions and inferences about the world. As they get older, you’ll need to step in more and correct their knowledge and language but doing so with respect will help keep a good relationship with them. My role in my family is “dad knows everything” - whether that’s true or not is besides the point. That’s another blog post.
- Destroy it. Ah - my favorite, rescuing broken appliances and electronics and taking them apart. Or blowing them up with fireworks. Or melting them with a MAP torch. Or whacking it with a hammer (eye protection required). Some of these require much adult supervision but they’re also the most fun. I don’t think this is just a guy thing either - in her own way, my daughter likes to break and whack things.
- Build it. What can we MAKE? Living room forts, king-size bed pillow-tents. A few years ago, I needed several large sheets of cardboard for a project. I bought 10 sheets of cardboard (can’t remember the price, but cheap) from the local paper wholesaler. With the leftovers, we created an expansive habitat in our living room. Instead of habitat, make an obstacle course. Use blue tape on a wood floor and improvise a shuffleboard by sliding pennies. Swords and shields out of newspapers. Paper airplanes and paper dolls. Kitchen experiments (edible and non-edible). There is a vast commercial side to building toys - Legos, K’Nex, crafting kits, etc. Having some of these things around is always a good idea. Being creative with items on hand is a bonus and will open your kid’s head to more play possibilities.
- Record it. Another blast from the past for me - I would spend hours with my cassette recorder as a kid. Kids still love to do it but now they’ve got video, too. Other times, I’ll take still photos and, with the kids, mess with them in a paint/photo program.
- Categorize things. There are usually more than two ways to describe anything. For the wee ones, two states is enough - big and small, loud and soft, fast and slow, under and over, etc. As they get older this moves into “I Spy” games - I quickly get tired of these because all I ever hear is “something <some primary color>” When it’s my turn, it’s “I spy with my stinky eye, something round under something pointy” I guess I could call this “use all senses”, too, since it would expand the categories outside of the visual. Driving the freeway with my son and his buddies in the back seat, we’ll play “dude or chick” and try to guess the driver’s sex before a car passes us by. I’ll give them the target by watching my rearview mirror.
- Be silly. I’ve known some parent who take themselves too seriously around their kids. Not me - my brain sometime flips into Dadaist mode and I go totally off-the-wall with my kids. I think they enjoy dad laughing at himself more than they enjoy my oddball tangents. There’s plenty of embarassing video of me with pullups on my head and dancing half-naked in the living room (that will not be posted here so don’t ask). I have to say that some of the most creative things I’ve come up with occur in these moments.
