When I worked on a project teaching math to preschoolers in NYC, teachers used a puppet they called “Mr. Mix Up” and he would get EVERYTHING wrong. While counting, he’d count something twice or skip a number… and the kids would scream out ‘NOOOOO! That’s not the right answer!,’ and then gleefully correct him.
To say the kids had a blast playing this was an understatement… They LOVED this game. And, the teacher got to reinforce their understanding about counting in a super fun way.
This is one of those games you can play with your child for a tiny moment of connection. Just get something wrong… and let them correct you.
YOU: Oh, look that stop light turned blue, that means we can go. THEM: Green means go!!
YOU: The sun is shining, I guess that means we’ll get rain. THEM: It only rains when it is cloudy!
YOU: First, I’m going to pour the flour in the muffin tin, and then I will put the milk in the bowl. THEM: You have to mix them together BEFORE you pour it in the muffin tin!
You get the idea.
Follow up your mistake with an exaggerated, ‘are you sure? How do you know?’ or ask them to show you how to do it ‘right.’ They’ll love being YOUR teacher for a moment. This is a great game to play when you find yourself needing to pass the time or keep them engaged, like in a waiting room or at the grocery store.
Get silly with it. Sure, they’ll build on their learning just by talking through and thinking about what is wrong with what you’re saying, but this isn’t about TEACHING them anything. It’s about enjoying a moment and laughing together.
One of the easiest ways to Tiny Parent is to ask questions. I’m not talking about grilling them like a detective on Law Order, DUNH DUNH! – what’s that color; how many birds do you see, what kind of shape is that – but actually starting a conversation with them about something an experience you are sharing with them.
The right kind of question can really get them thinking. Asking “what do you think would happen if…” at a water table, or sandbox, or while cooking, can spark curiosity and wonder about how the world works… it’s the starting point of all scientific inquiry!
They can get really creative with their imagination if you talk to them about what they think will happen next when reading a story together.
When they tell you the answer to a question, digging a little deeper and asking them ‘how do they know’ is a way to get beyond a rote response (and there’s plenty of science that suggests when you explain something to another person, the learning and understanding is ‘stickier.’)
And, when in doubt, simply ask ‘what do you see,’ as a starting off point to focus and observe the world going on around them.
The trick is to go beyond questions that would be followed by a yes/no/one-word answer (like, ‘what kind of animal is that?’ or ‘what do you call that?’). That’s really just quizzing them, not having a conversation. Use any of the questions above, and you are pretty sure to get a good back and forth.
The bonus is that asking these kinds of open-ended questions is one of the best ways to learn language and communication skills. All this AND a simple way to share a connected moment… Winner!
Playing I Spy is a favorite way to Tiny Parent because:
you can do it anywhere 🌼 you don’t need anything special to play it 🌼 kids love it 🌼 And… it’s a really fun way to build in some learning
With toddlers, start up with something simple like ‘I spy the letter S.’ As they get older, you can add a little more challenge and ask things like ‘I spy something that starts with the letter S’ or ‘I spy something that starts with the SSSS sound.’ You can go from ‘I spy the number 5’ to asking preschoolers to ‘I spy a shape with 5 sides’ or even ‘I spy a right angle.’
But don’t just limit this game to language and math! I Spy can get them thinking about how other people think/feel by asking to spy something that would make someone laugh, or I spy someone being kind.
Finally, turn the tables and let them be the “I Spy” master too!
This is the perfect game to play when you have to wait somewhere and are looking for something to pass the time (that isn’t pulling out a digital device). My favorite place to play it is at the grocery store because there are just so many different things to SPY for.
They stay entertained, you get to connect and engage, and there’s a little learning on the side.
Shonda Rhimes… the powerhouse television producer… had a chapter in her book “Year of Yes” where she describes a night at her home. As she is headed out the door to attend an awards ceremony, her youngest daughter stops her and asks “wanna play?” Now, Shonda is fully decked out in designer gear and has a limo outside her door, so playing with her daughter was not what she was planning on doing at that moment.
But she did… because she saw that’s what her daughter needed right then. So she paused, played, and sang “Let it Go” a few times. And then her daughter expressed that she was all good, she had her mom time, so Shonda dusted herself off and continued on to her night.
All of this took about 10 minutes. But it was a powerful 10 minutes, for both mom and daughter.
Find your 10 – 15 minutes. We all have them at some point in our day. Turn off the phone – maybe even stick it in another room so it is truly not a distraction – and just hang out with your kid(s). Make it a part of your regular routine – consciously put away your phone at bath time, for example – or be spontaneous and find your moments (like Shonda did). You don’t need an agenda, or a plan… the only thing you need to do is be fully there for them.
So you can thank Shonda Rhimes for Bridgerton, Grey’s Anatomy… and now, some solid parenting advice!
Believe it or not, I picked up this one from my favorite online yoga courses, @BadYogi Studio. In the middle of a class called “Yoga Nap” (I mean, how can you not love a class like that?!), the teacher (Erin) gave this prompt:
“Be aware of what the face is doing. What is your expression saying? What is it telling your brain? Are you wearing tense or are you wearing peace?”
I heard that question and instantly my face melted into relaxation. Because, even though I was in this restorative class, I was still ‘wearing’ the stress of the busy day on my face… I could feel it in my jaw, my furrowed brow. But once I released the tension in my face… I was instantly more chill.
And it got me thinking just how much our faces reflect whatever stress we have in our lives… and how much of that we pass on to our children.
At some point, we all get anxious or overwhelmed… and it shows.. and then our kids very often pick up on our frantic energy and make it their own. This quote by Tina Payne Bryson in the book Hunt, Gather, Parent says it all: “Emotions are contagious.”
At this moment, for example, we are all living through a particularly unsettling time. We are worried, fearful, and concerned about everything that is happening with the pandemic. But are we wearing that fear and worry? Or are we wearing confidence or comfort? The answer to that question, may give you a clue as to how your children are handling it all. Ask yourself, how is the energy I am giving out impacting the people around me, especially my children?
When you see your child feeling emotionally out of sorts and you want to help them get grounded, one of the first places to explore is whether or not they are reflecting back something they see/feel from us… What emotion am I wearing on my face? See if ‘putting on’ a face of peace changes the moment.
(And if it doesn’t… maybe take a nice, relaxing yoga class and find that face of peace! 🧘♀️
In a neat little study that I once filmed (look for it on YouTube), researcher Kiley Hamlin demonstrated this finding.
She set up a puppet show of sorts, with the main characters as a few shapes – a triangle 🔺️, circle 🔵, or square ⬛ – each with a pair of googly eyes 👀 stuck on them. (The eyes give the shapes a more human look.)
A 6 or 10-month old 👶sees one of the shapes, say a square (though the shapes were randomized in the experiment), attempt to go up a ramp. The square, tries and tries, but just can’t get to the top. Next, the baby sees a 2nd shape come out at the bottom of the ramp. This shape is seen bumping up the square to the top of the ramp – it looks like it is helping the square reach its goal. The baby then sees a 3rd scene. In this one, just as the square is getting to the top of the ramp, a new different shape comes out and pushes it back down to the bottom! No helping the square’s efforts… just hindering them.
The child sees these scenarios a few times and is then presented a tray with two of the shapes on it – the helper and the hinderer. Almost universally, the babies showed a preference (demonstrated by which they touched first) for the shape that was presented as the ‘helper.’ This inclination to the helper is so strong, that they found it to be the case even when they de-humanized the shapes by taking off the googly eyes.
Later, Hamlin and her colleagues tested this on 3 month olds (tracking their eye movement as a measurement for preference since these little babies couldn’t control their reach) and she found that even babies this young seemed to react more positively to the helper!
What does this mean as a parent? On the one hand, it’s a powerful reminder of the remarkable capabilities that even the youngest babies have, and just how much they are tuned into other people. In addition, we hope that our children don’t have enough personal experience with unhelpful people in their little lives as to have learned this preference… which may suggest that we come into the world liking nicer people over mean ones.
