On a Friday night after an active day, I found myself staring\u00a0at two large loads of laundry piled on top of the sofa. We parents\u00a0often face moments like this \u2013 a daunting task we do not\u00a0wish to do, especially after a long day. Therefore, I called out\u00a0for my family to help me. Groans and whines soon erupted\u00a0into the room. I prevailed, though, because I\u2019ve found a few\u00a0ways to mix a bit of fun into this mundane chore. Here are\u00a0tips I use that turn children\u2019s protests into squeals of delight.<\/p>\n
As my 3-year-old was trying to untangle a shirt from the\u00a0clothing pile, I noticed how she brought the sleeve up to her\u00a0nose. She looked like an elephant for a moment. I laughed.\u00a0Then I grabbed the clothing from her and began to make\u00a0elephant sounds. My family quickly joined in with my silly\u00a0nature. Soon each of us were taking socks and pants and\u00a0turning them into zoo animals. We put underwear on our\u00a0heads and became robots. My oldest daughter pretended to
\nbe a giraffe and a goat who wanted to eat our laundry. That\u00a0had us chuckling and, more importantly, folding clothes and\u00a0putting them away faster. What a great trick that was! Even\u00a0boring, household chores can be enjoyable with just a bit of\u00a0imagination and a humorous attitude.<\/p>\n
Transitions can be such a challenge, especially for young\u00a0children. They rarely like to stop one activity to leave or move\u00a0onto another, often collapsing into a tantrum before they let\u00a0go of their activity. My kids have never smoothly gone from\u00a0one thing to something new.\u00a0To help combat this, I will\u00a0role-play with my children.\u00a0For example, if we are packing\u00a0up school items and preparing\u00a0to climb into the van,\u00a0we do so while talking like\u00a0Minions or Disney princesses.
\nWhen I wash my\u00a0kids\u2019 hair in the bathtub, a\u00a0task they loathe, we recreate a scene from a television show.\u00a0As we leave a play date or fun activity, we \u00a0transform into fairies,\u00a0ponies or even pirates. My two children love to act out\u00a0and change their voices to be in character. I am amazed at\u00a0how much more happily they change over into our new situation\u00a0or place because of simple but creative role-playing.<\/p>\n
My oldest child\u2019s teacher conducts a daily \u201cbrain break\u201d\u00a0in her classroom. After observing this technique on a recent\u00a0visit to the school, I quickly adopted it at home. When the\u00a0teacher notices her students not paying attention, behaving\u00a0foolishly or acting tired, she invokes a \u201cbrain break\u201d moment.\u00a0In other words, she has the class stand up and stretch.\u00a0Then she puts on music and encourages them to dance. Or\u00a0she\u2019ll put fun trivia questions on the board. These simple\u00a0distractions give the children a chance to re-energize. I invoke\u00a0a brain break in my home when I notice my children\u00a0arguing or not playing nicely. I\u2019ll put on a few songs and we\u00a0will dance around the kitchen together. Or I invite my kids\u00a0to ask questions \u2013 any questions they want. If I don\u2019t have\u00a0an answer, then we place the question into a box to research\u00a0and answer at a later time. Sometimes I just take a few moments\u00a0to tickle them and get rid of their grumpy behavior.\u00a0These lapses from the routine help us refocus and are great\u00a0bonding tools as well.<\/p>\n
These are just a few suggestions that have brought bursts of\u00a0quick family fun moments into our lives. Use them as a guide\u00a0to develop your own. So many possibilities exist that don\u2019t\u00a0require much time or effort. The point is to create more giggles\u00a0in your life and put smiles on the faces you love the most.<\/p>\n
Mandy Fernandez is a writer\u00a0living and working in Pensacola.\u00a0She is mother to two girls,\u00a0ages 4 and 8. You can learn\u00a0more about her and see all of her\u00a0published works at\u00a0WrittenByMandy.com.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On a Friday night after an active day, I found myself staring\u00a0at two large loads of laundry piled on top of the sofa. We parents\u00a0often face moments like this \u2013 a daunting task we do not\u00a0wish to do, especially after a long day. Therefore, I called out\u00a0for my family to help me. Groans and whines […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":741,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","footnotes":""},"categories":[12,72],"tags":[198,197,122,31],"class_list":["post-740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","category-self-help","tag-activities","tag-everyday","tag-family","tag-fun"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tallahasseefamilymagazine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tallahasseefamilymagazine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tallahasseefamilymagazine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tallahasseefamilymagazine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tallahasseefamilymagazine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=740"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/tallahasseefamilymagazine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":742,"href":"http:\/\/tallahasseefamilymagazine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740\/revisions\/742"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tallahasseefamilymagazine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tallahasseefamilymagazine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tallahasseefamilymagazine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tallahasseefamilymagazine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}