Do I have to play with my kids?

Do I have to play with my kids? A deep dive into how to connect with your kids and teach them about God's love

Playing with our kids--Do we have to?  How much is enough?  How much is too much?  Should we feel guilty if we don't?  Is there something else we can do instead?

Mama, first of all, you are doing great.  And second of all, we don't necessarily need to play with our kids.  We need to have a relationship with them.  And this episode is all about how to build that relationship whether or not you do it through play.

Transcript

Hey there, Mama. Today we're going to talk about whether or not we have to play with our kids. And this question comes up, because there's a lot of schools of thought on it in parenting circles. And what it really comes down to is No, not necessarily you do not necessarily have to play with your kids. But when we decided to become parents, why did we decide to do that? We didn't just want to produce individuals, and then you know, thrust them out into the world, we wanted to have a relationship with them, just like the father has a relationship with us. He didn't create us just so that we could go about our business and be productive. That wasn't the point. That's the same thing when we have kids. And this, this should go without saying, but play is one way to have a relationship with our kids. And one way to build connection. That being said, it's absolutely essential for us to build connection with our kids, and St. John Bosco. He ran a school for boys. And he learned so much through this process of how they learn about our Lord. And one of the things he said is that it is not enough to Love A Child. It's not enough to Love A Child, but they must also know that they are loved. And how does this relate to connection with our kids? Well, the first place that our children learn about love that place where they build their capacity to love, where they learn, to receive love, and to, in fact, just believe in its existence, is in their home, growing up, it's in how their family treats them how they are loved, and how much they know they are loved. And so the work we do in loving our children is so powerful that echoes through their whole life, and not just into their lives, but into the lives of all the people that they're going to be loving. So what does that mean that it's not enough to just love our children that they have to feel loved, it means that we have to connect with them on their level, it's not enough just to express our love, it's not enough to just provide for them and give them an education, we have to figure out how they feel loved. And that is subjective. So the first thing we have to do is drop our expectations of how we think they should feel loved, the things that we do that we think they should be grateful for. And instead to approach this with curiosity, and figure out what actually helps them to feel loved. So what it comes down to is that the core of connecting with your kids is about moving through the world at their pace, following their interests. So how do you do that? The first step is observation. Take some time, and you don't even have to really do anything except just watch your children and observe what is catching their interest, the kinds of things that they are doing, that they find fascinating, the kinds of activities that seem to be catching their interest, all of these things are going to help you to figure out how you can engage with them. The second step is to actually show interest in what they want to do, to follow them in a sense, to ask them questions about what they're doing, and maybe join in. If you see your kid, you know, turning over rocks, just come and do it with them. Ask what you're looking for, or what you're making. And the last step is just to be fully attentive in this time, it doesn't have to be an extremely long time. As long as your focus is really strong. You're not multitasking, you're not trying to check your phone. In the meantime, you're not thinking about what you're going to be making for dinner, but you're giving them your full attention. So I think a lot of times we get really intimidated with this idea of trying to build connection with our kids, we think we have to do these big things like vacations and expensive outings or I really hate the idea of core memories. Because I think it puts a lot of pressure like I see people will sometimes like post on social media that they made a core memory with their kid. And it's usually something like they went to Disneyland, which can be well, it's quite a big deal to some families. But it can just as easily be a meaningful connection building time when you're doing something as simple as looking for worms, or going on a walk together. Or reading a favorite story not just once but over and over because that is the particular thing your child is looking for. I think sometimes do we get a little intimidated with this idea that maybe we have to do like crafts or something you know, that would be Pinterest worthy, but it doesn't have to. It doesn't have to be a photo perfect moment. It can be something just like making food together learning to cut an apple, we can do real life with our kids. And the quality of connection can be based in whether or not we are giving them our full attention and engagement while we're doing these things. And you can tell you can tell if your child is authentically enjoying it. So often, we feel like we're having trouble connecting to our kids. And it's because we're trying to drag them into our interests instead of the other way around. But when we follow them into their interests, that's when the magic happens when we slow down our busy life, to go at their pace, which is so much slower than you can imagine. That's when the magic happens. And then the last thing is, we so often get intimidated, because we think it's going to take a long time. Like if we want to build this connection, we need to set aside a whole day for a special one on one time. And that's just not true. I think it's really good to do that kind of thing every once in a while. But even if you're just doing 10 extremely high quality minutes a day with each of your kids, that is going to make such a huge difference in your relationship. And yes, sure, plan those special times this special outings, but they're not essential. They're helpful, but those day to day moments of deep connection are where it's at. So don't be intimidated by this. Just move at your child's pace, follow their interests and give it your full attention for short bits of time every day. And watch your relationship grow. There's no one size fits all way to do this.