Parenting is such an important job and of course you want to do it really well.

But sometimes you don't know what to do when your child is being challenging.

And sometimes you can focus so much on the serious things, that you lose sight of what life and parenting is actually about - which is to be enjoyed! 

Find out how you can bring more silliness throughout your day, and how to respond in those moments when you don't know what to do.

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Timestamps: 

00:00 Parenting can be tough

05:10 Lighten up, play, and be silly with kids's behaviour.

06:25 Connect with your child in silly ways.

14:40 Teach by example.

17:57 Creating special rituals with your child.

20:16 Parenting can be fun

23:01 Keep being you, connecting, and looking after yourself.

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ABOUT ME

I’m Helena Mooney, a Certified Parenting Coach, and I want to make parenting easier for you so that you and your child can thrive!

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Hello, and welcome to parenting with play podcast. I'm Helena Mooney,

and I'm so pleased that you're here because parenting can

be tough. Sometimes, can't it? Whether you're in the

thick of things right now or you vividly remember what it is

like, We can get really caught up

in how hard things are, can't we?

And it's very easy to have that voice

Spinning around in that head of yours, telling you

that you're doing a really bad job, and there's something wrong with your

children, and they're gonna be a nightmare.

And your parents disapprove, or so and so down the

street disapproves of what you're doing, and you're really worried that you're just

completely stuffing everything up. And it just feels really hard,

and you can't see a way out. And, it feels

really heavy, doesn't it? And I know the times

when I have found it really tough. I'll often

have a voice in my head Of my parents

going, I wouldn't have stand for this behavior if I were you. You know,

if my child is having if, you know, if I'm listening to some big feelings

or Tolerating, having a higher tolerance

for off track behavior than my parents would have done.

That's when I suddenly just go, oh my god. I'm doing everything wrong. Right.

That's it. And I can come in, and I wanna set harsh

limits. And I wanna lay down the law, and I wanna Get this sorted out,

and how dare you behave like that? And how dare you talk to me that

way? Right. I need to teach you. I need to

Discipline you so that you become a fully good

functioning member of society, and I can go really harsh

mode. Or other times, I can just be in that sort of spiral

of like, this is just too hard. I really don't wanna have

to do this. Spinning out and just

going, no. I don't wanna have to. And then my child does something minor, and

then I just go off on 1. So

I'm gonna preface what I wanna offer by really fully

acknowledging just how hard it is. And we can come

to parenting with the Absolute best of intentions

and desire to help our children in the best way. And then

our child does something That is so

infuriating that all of those good intentions just go

out the window, can't they? And, you know, you might have gone, right, I'm gonna

have a really lovely day with my child today. And then they do something, and

you go, right. That's it. You're incredibly ungrateful. I'm not gonna do this anymore.

That's it. I'm done. Well, I don't know about you, but I have

had moments of doing that. But

and however we wanna Bridge this segment

is saying that we can get so caught up

in the day to day stresses of it, those voices in our

head, Those huge expectations that we place on ourselves

and that pressure that we've got to do this right, We

need to do the best thing for our children. They need to turn out to

be functioning adults. They need to be able to get along with their friends, do

schoolwork, Empty the dishwasher, become

toilet trained, sleep through the night. It's all of those things that we want for

our children, which are all really, really good. But when we get caught up in

all of those things, we sometimes lose sight of actually

what makes life enjoyable and what ultimately

works best. And that is to lighten

up, to not take Everything so

seriously all the time. And I know I

mentioned this before in a Couple of podcasts ago about episodes ago

about what do we want to focus on, and it is generally the

relationship with our child. That is ultimately the most important

thing. But we can't do that when we're when we're being

really serious, When we have all this pressure on ourselves

to do things, in inverted commas, right, to feel that

we need to Teach our child to discipline them to do all of that stuff.

We can get very serious. And that's not fun,

is it? That's not a fun way to live. If my Husband was serious

with me all the time. I'd be like, oh my god. This is not the

environment that I want to be in. It's not the relationship I wanna be in.

Where's the fun? Now this is not saying that we have to be frivolous

and, erys. And well, maybe. What what actually, what comes up for you?

At the thought of not taking not being serious

all the time. You know, as I'm saying this, I can feel like, gosh. Well,

that means that I'm frivolous, and I'm not taking things

seriously. And if I am

not serious, Then does that mean that everything just falls

apart, that nobody gets fed?

Nobody does anything that needs to happen. Everybody's rude and disrespectful.

You know? I'm not doing my job well if I don't take it

seriously. And, of course, there's a difference between taking things seriously and

being serious. And there's times when

we need to be serious. But, generally, Life

is much more enjoyable when we are

light about things, when we are playful and silly.

And, you know, I work with a lot of moms who go, okay. Well, what

should I do in this particular situation?

My child's being disrespectful, or they're whining, or they're

asking for another biscuit before dinner, or they're refusing

to get in the car, or, you know, the myriad of everyday

scenarios that we all have to deal with.

And often, my answer is, just pick your child up and kiss them all

over, And just blow raspberries on them. Because

the reason why I say that is, a, it completely interrupts

that pattern, That spiral of your child refusing to do

something, you getting more and more annoyed, your child getting more and more

entrenched in their refusal to do the very

simple thing that you know that they can absolutely do. And you're really

caught in that battle of the wills. And sometime well, a lot of the

time, we then expect our child to be the one

who breaks that sort of pattern, and then does what

they're told so then everything then runs smoothly. But it does come

down to us. We cannot expect our children to be the ones

Who recognizes that this is not a helpful situation and to do

something different? Children are not capable

of of that. Often, we're not capable of it, but it is

down to us. And so when in those

heat of the moment situations where you're getting really frustrated,

A great circuit breaker is to just connect with your

child in a really silly, ridiculous way.

And so if you can think about things in advance about what you would like

to do, it then makes it easier in those challenging

situations that you don't have to think. You can just go and this is

why I like it. I just kiss I just pick my child up and just

kiss them all over because because then I don't have to

think. I don't need to to know what words to

say, or I could just say, oh, come here, my lovely. And I just

pick them up and kiss them all over. And then it often will

completely it will shift everything. And it can go one of

2 ways. It can either Be brilliant.

Your child just soaks up your warm, beautiful

attention. They giggle. They feel

warm and connected with you, and then they're happy to have

their cars you know, have the straps go into the car seat and have the

straps put on. Brilliant. That's great. You've given your child

what they need. They needed that loving connection with you,

and they needed to release some stress by giggling. Brilliant. Job done.

Or you could find that your child gets

really annoyed that you're doing that. Now when I say to do this, I don't

mean to do this when your child is already clearly

upset and furious And in upset

feelings, that's not the time to then start kissing them all over because

that interrupts the healing process that they're already in.

And it's not connecting because you're not meeting your child where they're at.

I'm talking about, you know, when they're whiny, or they just don't wanna do

something, or perhaps They say something like a rude word,

and you're going, okay. I don't really know what to do with this right now.

What do I what do I do with this word? That's the time. It's those

times when you're going it could go either way. And so

if you could have it that play is your default, that

Loving them is your default. I mean, picking monkeys and

whatever. Now your child could then say, no. I don't want Kisses,

and they could say it in a playful way, and that's brilliant. And then and

then you could do okay. Well, I'm just going to snuggle into your

beautiful tummy, because I just love you so much.

And that could be great. We've escalated you know, in our

household, it's escalated to licking. Well, sometimes

they'll then lick me, and I'll lick them. And that's gross but hilarious.

And that just changes the whole interaction, and then

we all get on with our day in a much more upbeat,

playful, fun way. It's fun. But those times

when your child go, no. Get off me. I don't like

you. Go away. Then It's

very obvious then that your child is not willing to be

playful. They're not in the frame of mind where they can be playful. And so

then that clearly shows you what they really do need, which

is a cry with you to have a rage. You set a

loving limit. You're with them. You're for the empathy, and then

they release their feelings that way. But I think

that if you can be playful as much as you can as your

first response, That's first of all, is what your

child needs, but it also just makes things way more enjoyable

for you. Because, yes, you can be very serious as a mother.

You can do everything right and, like, be very studious about it all.

And that's great if that's how you wanna be. But if you would love to

have more fun and playfulness in your life as a whole,

You can absolutely incorporate that into your parenting.

And it may not be textbook. It may not

be what Somebody else is doing, but you

know your child really well. You want to have

a life that you enjoy and interactions that you

enjoy with your child. And, obviously, by then doing

this, it brings lightness to everybody in the

family, and your children will behave much better.

They will want to cooperate. They will be happy to do

something that, You know? They may not particularly want to do, like getting in a

car seat, but that's okay because mommy loves me. I've had a

laugh. That's fine. And it just imbues

playfulness into your family. And it's not

specific games. I mean, I obviously talk about specific games. And if you

do want help with specific games, come on over to helena mooney.com,

and you can download my free five Brilliant games.

Can't think of the title of it. Five brilliant games is the, not

the actual word of it, but booklet. And then that will give you specific

games that you can play in specific situations,

which are great, and they've been my default. They've been my go to games with

my kids for years. What I'm talking about

is just a general attitude of not taking

parenting and life always so seriously.

Because, yeah, there's so much seriousness out there in the world, isn't there? There's

so much heaviness and misery,

But you don't have to have that at home. You can be an

awesome mom by just being silly and playful and putting

music on and dancing. And I'm Sure you're doing loads of this already,

so my encouragement is just to keep doing it. I remember my

mum coming to stay with us once when we were living in Australia, and I

had some friends over, might have had a glass of wine, but I

can't really remember, but I might have done. Anyway,

we just put music on. My mom was sort of sitting there rather bemused.

I wasn't drunk drunk if I had a glass of wine. Just, you know, just

a little edge. And, and we just put some music on, and

we were just dancing around. And, for

us, that was quite a normal thing to do is to have music on

and dance around. I think I needed the wine to

do it in front of my mom. But, but but for my mom, it was

like, She was quietly bemused by it because there was no

way in the world that that's what my mom would have done with me.

Certainly wouldn't have been the way that her mom would have been with

her. And so those simple things that perhaps now we go,

oh, yeah. I just Dance around the kit you know, dance around the kitchen with

my children might be a really, really normal thing for you to

do. But for me, it wasn't. Certainly not growing up,

but I like to do that with my kids. Actually, I haven't done that so

much recently. It's funny. Now they get older, you do some things a bit less.

But when they were little, Just putting on an awesome song. I

loved the, Justin Timberlake can't Justin Timberlake

can't stop that feeling. Whatever. Can't stop the feeling. I love that. It's fun. It's

from Trolls. And it's just whatever whatever song you love,

put it on and dance and sing with your children.

And and that in itself, that's playful. That's fun. That shifts the

mood. If you're getting if you're bringing picking your children up from

Daycare or school or you've had a busy day out, and you're just like,

oh my god. They're all getting feral here, and I've gotta put dinner on.

Put some music on. Have some lightness. Enjoy

yourself. If things are going stress if you're home

with the kids and it's all going again, I'm sure you're doing these things already.

But just to remind you of just these really simple things,

like a good song and a good dance, it just

Shifts the whole energy. You do that for 1 song,

then the kids are often gonna be really happy, and then you can get on

and do all the serious things that you need to do.

The other thing is that we can get very caught up in thinking, I need

to teach my children Good manners. I need to teach them

how to study. I need to teach them that this

behavior is not acceptable. I need to teach them.

And it really is a case of children

children, pick up on what we do and not what we

say. And

that heavy pressure of I need to teach them, I need to shape them, I

need to discipline them, It's very heavy. And, yes, we need to

do all of those things, but we don't have to do them in a serious

way. They will they will Pick up. You know? If you're a

decent person, your child will be a decent person because that

is what that's the environment in which they're they're living.

So focus more on connection,

play, lightness, Giggling,

silly, just you know, in the confines of your own home, you can

lose all sense of dignity and just be really ridiculous

and silly. Make fart noises. Lick,

your child's face. I did do a a,

Instagram about how, sometimes we, we have played a

spitting game Well, we'll just end up spitting on each other, running

around. And it's gross. It's disgusting, but it is utterly hilarious.

So it's just those silly little things. My

Colleague Kiara, she is brilliant for all of this playfulness, and, you know,

she just rolls up a, you know, a sock or something and

just throws it at her Child every now and again. You know, just those little,

silly, playful interactions, that's

what keeps The connection going, your helps your

child with their feelings and just ultimately makes

life And parenting, way more enjoyable.

So it becomes less drudgery and less

serious and less oh Oh god. Now I've gotta do this. I really can't be

bothered, which, you know, we all have times of that. But just

see what you can do each day. Just something really simple

to just make things a bit more fun, it you know, I talk a lot

about special time and saying, you know, you can do a game in 5 minutes.

Doesn't even have to take 5 minutes. It can take you

just throwing something at your child. I wish I'd

kept more. I'd I'd done this, but I I found this from another hand in

hand instructor, was, just keep your child's small

socks And keep them rolled up, and then you have them as like little balls

that you can just then throw at each other. Sometimes you can have a little

sock fight instead of a snowball fight. My kids are waiting for No. There's no

snow happening this year at the moment in England. Very disappointing. So in

absence of snowballs, have little rolled up socks and just start chucking them at each

other. Do that with your teddies. Make sure they're not the ones with the

beans in the feet. They're really annoying because that that would hurt if that

didn't. You know, just What can you do to be

silly and to have fun? And your idea of

silliness will probably be different from my idea of silliness. You're probably horrified

by the thought of spitting on your child. And to be fair, it is gross.

But in the moment, hilarious. You know, it doesn't have to be

pretty and perfect. It's just fun and silly.

And, and that's just gonna make life a lot

easier and parenting a lot easier. And We are

gonna go through hard times. You are gonna struggle at

times, and it will be hard when play is hard

to access. But if you have done all these little

things, and you've got all these little rituals that just you and your child do,

that you do when the time's gone well, then That

will help you come out of those harder times, or at least navigate those

harder times easier, because you've got that That little

connection point that you can just be silly about. Sometimes,

you know, we chew our food and open our mouths. It's disgusting,

again, but it's silly. And what I think what

struck me was seeing my mom watching us.

There was never that sense of being allowed to do that. It was

always, you know, I'm the mom. You're the child. And I know things are

very different now, which is great in many ways.

We don't have that sort of barrier. But if you are sensing, well, you know,

should I do this? Or that never even occurred to me. You know?

Find ways to be really silly, because, yeah, my mom never

had that with her parents, and I did my dad at all. It was all

very strict and very stern and very proper.

And, you know, great. They had good relationships. But there's something

more enjoyable about just being silly. And

your child will respect you. I mean, my children You'll

respect me even if I have played the spitting game with them every now and

again. You know what I mean? So,

don't worry about that. Don't take everything so seriously. The

when your child is going through a hard time, Find those moments of silliness.

As I said, if you don't know what to do in a situation, what I

do with my child sometimes is well, especially when he was really little. He's now

9, I can't do it quite so much, but sometimes I still do a variation

of it. Just pick them up and just start kissing them all over going, oh,

I love you so much. Is that a is that a hitting hand? I'm

not I'm gonna kiss that hitting hand. Are you saying that rude word?

I'm gonna kiss you all over the face. And it's just

funny. It breaks the ice. It reconnects you. They get to release

some tension through giggling. Life will move on

a lot more enjoyably and easily when you do that. So I

hope that helps. I'm sure you're doing many of these things already.

For me, I think coming from My family,

we never did that. So for me, it was more of a conscious decision that

I had to make, and now it's just flows most of the time,

not all of the time. So, for some of you, this might be, you

know, I'm teaching you to suck eggs. But for others, just really consider that,

yeah, parenting doesn't have to be serious all the time.

And even in those hard times, You can still find

moments of silliness and play and joy and

laughter because that's what makes life so much more

enjoyable. Alright. I hope that's helpful. I'd love to hear. Come on

over to helenamuni.com. If you wanna have a

session with me, I'm working on releasing my

Updated. It was annoying to amazing. I'm changing it now. Just updating

it and putting new videos in there and just rejigging things

to make it much more comprehensive and much more helpful for you. So if you

really want some help again, what do I do in these situations?

Come on over to helena mooney .com, and, you'll

find everything there. And particularly if you're finding it hard to access playfulness,

because it there are times when it is really hard to feel playful. And

that's a really good indication of something's going on for you. What is

it? Let's work through that. Release some of the hurt,

Some of those upset feelings or some of that just real general pissed offness.

And then you can go back to your your children and your family refreshed,

renewed, and and able to be playful. So,

getting the support emotionally to be

playful is such a key part of this.

But, again, it doesn't have to be serious. We have lots of giggles in our

sessions. My mom was just overhearing. And, when I was up at my

mom's, she's going, you're laughing a lot in your sessions. I'm going, well, yeah.

Because, you know, we need to make things a bit more enjoyable,

but Also, going through the hard stuff too. It's not,

putting a a happy spin on on hard times. It's

Listening to the hard times, dealing with the hard times, like with your children or

with you, but also having that playfulness as well.

Alright. I hope that's helpful. Just even to consider, what can you do that's playful

this week? And as I said, if you don't know what to do with your

child, just kiss them all over, See how that goes.

And and, Yeah. And then and

then you'll see, but not if they're already in the midst of a big cry.

That's not helpful. But, yeah, don't take

parenting so seriously. You're doing such an awesome job. Your

children are learning from you as you

now. And, and they're gonna be great

because they've got you. So keep keep being you.

Keep connecting. Keep looking after yourself, and, find

ways to have fun throughout your day. Alright.

I'll, I'll see you next week. Alright. Take care. Bye.