I’ve spent so much time structuring my family’s future, that I’ve been missing the fun of the present. It occurs to me that my lack of a spring vacation plan might be an opportunity for some “slow parenting,” a term that refers to the movement against over-scheduling children. I am going to try not to rush them out the door to an activity every morning.

I’m clear my kids won’t entertain themselves while I nibble grapes and read a novel in the hammock, so I’m going into the lion’s den armed with ideas. I’m not interested in taking over their play, but in giving them some premises that keep them excited and prevent them from massaging neon modeling clay into my carpets (it happened;  I couldn’t make this stuff up).

If you are in the same boat for spring vacation, that is, a ship to nowhere, here are some ways to entertain little people without leaving your backyard:

Document a Flower’s Life:  Photograph bulbs; then plant them. Write observations and paste photos in a scrap book, and then photograph the emerging plant every other Saturday throughout the summer.

Make a Music Video: Let your kids pick out outfits and make a sign with the name of the band. Put on one of their favorite songs, Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” or The Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine” in our case. All you have to do is record your little rockers with your smart phone. Really, kids can listen to themselves for hours.

Take an Imaginary Journey: Let your kids decide on the destination, the moon, Barbados, wherever, and read about it together on the internet. Tell your explorers to climb aboard a ship (the swing-set or couch) and go there in their imaginations. Tell them to make a friend in their new land and to return home and tell you about their adventures.

It’s not easy to get into a relaxed, play space when you’ve been used to multitasking and operating as your child’s cruise director. Play premises make it easier! Hope you and yours can find some stillness in the commotion this break.

Play can also be used to reinforce nurturing and thoughtful behavior, especially in boys, who are often encouraged to be tough, rough and stoic in this world.  An opportunity to re-imagine typical “boy” play presented itself when my son grabbed his stick-sword, climbed aboard our swing set, and asked me to be first mate on his pirate ship. I put down my computer and succumbed to the lure of the sea.  I mean, really, who can resist speaking in a phony, swashbuckling pirate accent a la Johnny Depp?

As we sailed, my captain informed me we were “out of fruit.”  Aye, we didn’t want to catch scurvy, so we landed on an island to pick lush mangoes from our imaginations. As we plucked, Cyclopes came out of caves to attack us, but my son defended me with his stick-sword and we escaped to our “ship.” In this moment, I was struck by how much boy-play involves battles. (My daughter used to pick up sticks and rocks and envision wands and bunnies).

I decided to see if there might be a way to use the game to teach my son to think before he attacks. The next island we visited was populated by monsters with snake bodies and women’s faces. (Oye, I mean, Aye, I got that image from the Percy Jackson series).  As we landed, my son unsheathed his sword to attack, but I asked him to find out “whether the monsters were nice or mean.” He decided that they were “very ugly, but nice.” Instead of slaying them, my little guy asked them “What’s wrong?” They informed him they were sick and their “tails were falling off.” (By the way, it is hysterical to watch your 3-year old carrying on a conversation with a bush.  I really hope my neighbors didn’t see me talking to the shrubbery too).

“Maybe we can find some herbs to heal them,” I suggested. My son then used his sword to dig up dandelions and onion grass for the “snake-mommies.” Once they took their medicine and their tails began to heal, the monsters rewarded our crew with baskets of fruit and fish.

My son has a deep vein of sweetness inside him. He is going to have plenty of opportunities to toughen up on the play grounds of his future. In these precious years before he stops listening to me, I hope I can teach him to think before he strikes, and to help him value his nurturing side.

And so our shadow story began. We gave our shadows names, a purpose and an obstacle to overcome. We spent an hour, the four of us, traveling on a journey across our front and back yards escaping bad guys, sprinting across non-gmo corn fields, discovering poisonous tulips that suddenly turned into dancing roosters.

By the end my spirits had really rejuvenated. Discovering our shadows was a great find. My son especially liked that his shadow seemed so tall. I liked that my shadow seemed so slim given four months of winter weight gain.

Later in the week we went to a bookstore and I was surprised to find quite a number of children’s books with shadow themes. Where had they been all my life? Books like:

Our Shadow Garden by Cherie Foster Colburn

Nothing Sticks Like A Shadow by Ann Trompert

Boris and the Wrong Shadow by Leigh Hodgkinson

And my favorite discovery, the new book “The Lonely Shadow” by silhouette artist Clay Rice with a story about the friendship between a lonely shadow and a little boy.

Who knew a shadow could be such an amusing, spontaneous and cooperative playmate? I wonder how these characters will develop throughout the season. I’ll let you know. And let us know if your shadow comes out to play.

This was the fourth skirmish of the evening and frustration hardened in my chest like a fist. Earlier I had tried letting them work it out for themselves, but things got physical and I had to step in. I tried ignoring the aggressor; time-outs on separate staircases; empathy mantras like “hitting hurts on the inside and outside”; lectures about how important my own siblings are in my life. I confiscated the toys they fought over and placed them out of reach.

I harbored fears about my kids growing up to resent each other. I felt angry because the seemingly bottomless attention I give my kids didn’t seem to be enough. My sister’s warning about the rivalry that comes with having kids two years apart rang in my ears. I wanted to grab my kids, tear them apart, scream. Instead, I touched my son’s leg lightly and made a weird noise:

“ZZZZZZZZZZIP!”

My kids stopped fighting and looked up.

“What?” My daughter said, suddenly smiling.

“How can you possibly touch him? He has superpowers. He’s got a force field around him that shocks me every time I go near him. ZZZZZZZZZZZZIP.”

“Ha-Ha,” my son chortled.

“Oh my God, you have a force field around you too. You must be Wonder Sibs.”  I proceeded to pretend to be zapped when I tried to tickle her.

The crazed energy of the fight suddenly morphed into a silly game in which I chased them all over the house, trying to tickle them, dissolving into pretend convulsions every time I touched their “force fields.” The kids imitated my behavior, pretending to strike out at each other, but dissolving into melodramatic shakes before they made contact.  The rest of the night was peaceful, and they both went to sleep smiling.

Eureka! I had stumbled on something important.  My parents hammered into me that sibling relationships are sacred, so I had been dead serious about forbidding fighting and enforcing sibling love in my house. But you can’t enforce affection. Families are interconnected systems and my anxiety about my kid’s fighting was lending it a power and darkness that it did not merit. Fighting is itself a form of play, a way of venting feelings and finding solutions to social challenges. Trying to stop it is futile and counterproductive.

I looked to Lawrence J. Cohen’s Playful Parenting to find strategies to lighten up my approach to my children’s fighting. He explains that children fight with each other when they feel another child has taken something “from their cup”: love, attention, praise, accomplishment, self-regard. Cohen suggests that play “refills the cup,” creates a feeling of plenty, instead of a feeling of lack, so children can rise to their most generous selves.

My “force-field intervention” worked; but it would have been even better if I had let my kids solve the problem. Cohen writes, “I try to walk a fine line between stepping in and standing back.  Step in, with a light touch, not a hammer.  .  .We can stay engaged, while still letting children be mostly in charge.” Among my favorite of his suggestions for open-ended, playful interventions:

• Play with your tone of voice.  A silly or ironic tone of voice when your kids are fighting can switch the energy: “Wow, he took red your crayon? That’s shocking.”
• When children are fighting over an object, “grab the toy and run. The two children then bond together to try to get (the parent).” This casts them as allies rather than rivals.
• Promote win-win outcomes.
• Compensate for power imbalances.

In the several months since I have learned to seem blasé about their fighting, my kids’ relationship has improved by leaps and bounds. Yesterday, when they both lunged for the red hibiscus towel, I rolled my eyes and said “What a surprise! You’re fighting over that stinky towel. There is absolutely no way you can find a way share it.” My daughter then announced that I must make a “Towel Sandwich.” She and her brother stretched out on the towel side-by-side, giggling, holding hands; and then I covered them up and dried them with another towel. I pretended to be a troll looking for some mustard so I could eat them, but that’s another story!

Stories seed our children’s dreams. A homemade story gives parents a chance to share hard-won wisdom about relationships: advice wrapped in the shiny foil of fantasy. What I want to teach my children about love is exactly the opposite of what Shel Silverstein envisions in The Giving Tree. I want my children to dream of reciprocal, egalitarian love.

The Giving Tree loves a little boy so much that she gives him her apples, her leaves, her branches, her trunk so that he can pursue his goals. The boy grows, leaves her for other loves, but as an old man he returns to sit on what left of her, her stump, and, as Silverstein writes, “the tree was happy.” Come on: was the tree really happy? No-one is fulfilled when their beloved treats them like a doormat, decoration, or bottomless teat.  (The hilarious Robert Munsch subverts one-sided giving in The Paper Bag Princess).

It is not insignificant that Silverstein’s tree is a “she.” His allegory glorifies a form of feminine, martyr- love that has a long history in Western culture. In Hans Christian Anderson’s telling of The Little Mermaid, for example, the mermaid gives up her family, culture, tail, and voice in pursuit of the prince she saves from drowning. When her beloved chooses another, she has a chance to kill him and regain her underwater life. Instead she casts herself into the sea to dissolve into sea foam, yet instead turns into an angelic sprite.

This vision of love as the angelic sacrifice of self is what I want to counteract in my storytelling. When our daughter, at age 4, watched Disney’s “The Little Mermaid,” she frowned at the end, asking, “Why does Ariel have to leave her daddy and sisters? Why can’t Eric come live with her?” Indeed. Why not? In the stories you make for your kids, anything is possible.

In the bedtime stories I tell my children, surfers and mermaids rescue each other from sharks; aliens fall in love with earthlings and work out compromises that allow them to live between two worlds; lovers make each other magic strength potions; to love is to give and to take. True love is two people sacrificing and changing for each other. This message is as important for my son as it is for my daughter.

So, think of all you have learned of love, curl up with your child, and pour your heart into a fantasy. I can’t promise that your child won’t date some bad-eggs in the hormone haze of youth, but hopefully when your child needs it, she will reach inside and find that Valentine you left so many years ago.

Thinking we were too old to try again, we settled into a pleasant emotional space with our newborn family. But 12 months later something got us thinking we should try again. What got us thinking was not societal pressure, nor a desire to recycle all of the “stuff” we had accumulated. We simply wanted our son to benefit from the joys of siblinghood that we enjoyed growing up, and explore his days with a partner in crime.

This intuitive desire to create a sibling unit seems to be just what the developmental psychologist ordered. While some research indicates that being an only child builds confidence, other research concludes that having a sibling supports healthy development. An article in Times Magazine explains that having a sibling greatly enhances a child’s conflict resolution and negotiation skills; his sense of patience and acceptance.

The fruits of our new labor have come to bear in a big way in recent months as my children enthusiastically play together, scheme together and defend one another. My husband and I delight in watching this love affair unfold. Remember those early months when you slip into new love with someone? You don’t want to leave their side, their not-so-funny jokes seem hilarious, and nothing they do repels you. Despite a few momentary melt-downs and frequent bursts of roughhousing, my boys’ new bond seems impenetrable.

Of course we’d like to take some credit for laying the foundation for this relationship. For over a year my husband has been telling my son “Future Stories” at bedtime. These are stories about both of my sons and their shared adventures. He weaves into these stories practical lessons, emotional journeys, and fantastical experiences. Often my son will even ask for a Future Story and won’t be satisfied until his little brother is made co-protagonist.

And so on this Valentines Day, while I deeply appreciate the wonderful love I have found with my husband, and am ever grateful for both of our stealth reproductive systems, I am especially delighted by the very special love between my sons.

We hope to turn our Future Stories into a series of children’s stories where two brothers learn what it means to grow up with their most endeared yet most frustrating ally. In a few years that will be our Valentines gift to them.

If you would like some tips on creating a Future Story that has the dual power of engaging and lullabying, let us know. Gene (my husband) is happy to share his tricks of the trade.

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February is Black History month, and I’d like to tell my 5-year- old daughter about The Little Rock Nine, the brave African American high-school students who faced down racist mobs and the Arkansas National Guard in order to integrate the Little Rock Central High School over the course of a year in 1957. It’s easy for me to tell my children an allegorical story about prejudice in the tradition or Dr. Seuss’s The Sneeches. It’s much more challenging for me to make this true story work for a 5-year old. My children are white and live in an affluent, multicultural community: I’m not sure they grasp what racism means, let alone segregation.

That’s why I’m so glad I stumbled upon Becky Birtha’s Grandmama’s Pride in the Montclair Public Library’s Civil Rights display.

Ms. Birtha’s wonderful book tells the story of two black sisters who go to visit their grandmother down South in the summer of 1956. The story’s young narrator notices that her mother steers her to the back of the bus, pulls her away from the lunch counter and the water fountain. Her aunt teaches her to read and as her literacy burgeons so does the realization that “Whites Only” signs forbid her entrance to bathrooms and restaurants. My daughter was outraged as she sounded out the signs and made this realization along with Birtha’s protagonist. Ms. Birtha also convey’s her narrator’s pride in her grandmother’s peaceful resistance to segregation.

Showing your child segregation through the eyes of child makes it real for them, and keeps it developmentally appropriate. I’ll take this lesson from Ms. Birtha into my storytelling. Even history requires literary devices! I will tone down the violence of the white mobs because it’s just too much for my 5-year-old. One of my story’s protagonists will be Carlotta Walls LaNier, the youngest of the Little Rock Nine, as she grows up in segregated, inferior black schools. I’ll also point out that at least one white student at the school had the moral courage to befriend the young black heroes.

How do you talk to your children about America’s history of racism? How do you tell the stories of Black heroes and Civil Rights leaders? Which African Americans are your heroes? Share at Storygins.

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The premise of Monster High is that there is a special school for the offspring of legendary monsters.  It sounds like a cool outsider fantasy but from what I can see of the website copy and videos, these monster princesses are anything but counterculture. For example, “Draculaura” complains, “Since I can’t see my reflection in the mirror, I have to leave my house not knowing if my clothes and makeup are just right.” Many of the Monster High “books” seem to be fashion manuals. I take solace in the fact that my daughter’s favorite character is the zombie and nerd, Ghoulia Yelps. I asked her why she loves the toy: “They are teenagers and they are half- monster!” Neither my daughter nor I have watched the TV show, and I’m trying to hold that line for as long as possible.

My sister Amy, who was once an avid Barbie puppet-master, has grown into a fabulously fierce woman and curriculum specialist at a public school in the Bronx. When I asked her if I thought these dolls were good for little girls, she said, “My students are obsessed with Monster High. I think the fact that the monsters say there is a whole other world of ‘Normies’ out there strikes a chord with them.  Maybe it’s about relating to a community of ‘others’ who know they are special and magical.” Monster High blends the important message of outsider pride with gender conformity in its products, leaving this parent ambivalent.  In the end, I let my sister buy my daughter one of the dolls for Hanukkah.

Like her mom, my daughter is a fantasy addict. I don’t want to be authoritarian about her fantasy world. Forbidding a plaything only makes it sexier. As indifferently as possible, I let my daughter know that I thought there were other fantasy goddesses cooler than the Monster High set, like Storm from Xmen and the Greek Goddess Athena.

I also started telling her a series of homespun stories about girl superheroes called the Secret Sisterhood of the Green Stone, in which our protagonists put their energy into defending their community from alien outlaws and oil spills instead of primping. I can’t insulate my child from cultural junk I don’t approve of. But I can subvert and resist the prevalence of narcissistic princess stuff by creating homespun heroines that reinforce values like bravery, compassion, independence, service, and persistence.

Calling all fantasy nerds: do you create heroines for your kids; do you know of a cool graphic novel or fantasy series for elementary-school girls?

As with any party, the food, drink and company are all essential, but with a child’s party it is the entertainment and party favors that really count! I thought about my son’s interests (music, dance, play acting) and our family’s talents and then crafted a centerpiece activity for the children to enjoy. This activity combined original music (my husband is a musician, of Groovelily fame, who loves to create musical stories with our sons), storytelling and group play acting (that’s where I come in) and an enchanted forest (my son’s theme of choice).

The kids listen as the eagle prepares to take off into the sky; they're next.

Right after pizza and cake, I took the children on a musical story adventure through an enchanted forest. I was the narrator and director. The children were the improvisers, actors and acrobats.  My husband on drums and a friend on piano accompanied my story, perfectly conveying the feeling of each moment. The sudden appearance of a wicked witch flying her broom above lent itself to a sudden crash of the symbols. While the innocent frog hopping along below inspired a rhythmic march of the piano.

Our enchanted forest story lasted for a good twenty minutes until the musicians requested something a bit edgier. So we moved onto a slick trumpet-playing cat, in search of the hippest jazz club in the city, whose trumpet is suddenly stolen. All in all, I was able to engage the kids in a solid 30-40 minutes of focused and fascinated play.

The unintended consequence of all of this was that I had a blast. Flexing my spontaneously creative muscles in front of an audience of children, with no judgment, was pure joy. And even better, through this playacting I built a new bond with each of the children. The next day at school one child, who normally whispers a very uninterested  “Hi” at me, had a glimmer in her eye when she saw me. Another boy who came for a playdate, and who is normally shy around me, immediately insisted that I go down to the basement with the kids in search of the mysterious monster. Connecting with them through their own language, the language of story and play certainly paid off. I have twenty new friends!!

Here are some tips that will help you to create your own birthday party story adventure:

Build the structure ahead of time. While I knew that I would have to improvise a bit in the moment, I laid out the story line on paper and referred to it throughout the story. Of course it began with “Once Upon a Time there was a frog who was happily jumping along a path inside an enchanted forest.” It is important to immediately introduce the character doing something physical.

Include characters with a variety of physical characteristics. If you have a frog who jumps, perhaps you don’t need a bunny who hops. Give the kids a snake who slithers, a butterfly who flies invisibly, a unicorn who gallops. Get all parts of their bodies involved.

If you get stuck, ask the kids what happens next. You’ll be happily surprised by what they come back with. And even if you are not stuck, use this technique to keep the kids engaged, and to bring the creativity to the next level. (Word of caution: don’t forget to ask the birthday boy for his idea first!).

Get into role yourself right from the beginning. The kids were watching closely to see if I really believed the story. When the wicked witch appeared I looked up at the sky with shock and fright. When the wise owl gave his magical instructions perched high up on a branch, I pulled out my best yoga-balancing pose, closed my eyes and gave my instructions in a deep-throated voice. The children did the same in their own way.

Don’t forget the opportunity to teach a moral lesson. In our story, the wicked witch was turning the forest pollution, the garbage that the animals recklessly left laying around, into dirty, sticky slime. (Enviro-mom just can’t help herself!)

If you’re shy, make it “kids only”. While I have a good amount of theater acting experience and have taught close to 200 hours of life skills and literacy classes to elementary school children, even I preferred not to perform in front of parents. Consider making the party a “drop off” and know that you will not be judged!

Gene Lewin on drums feeling the rhythm of the story & movement of the kids

While we don’t all have easy access to a musician, this activity is something you can weave into a party with or without music. Success is based on your ability to commit to both narrating and acting the parts with enthusiasm and joy.

Oh and the party favor: we customized a CD with all of the kids favorite songs, with our son introducing each track and whose favorite song it was. Good thing I married a musician who also knows sound editing.

Please let us know if you try this out at your next birthday party. And don’t forget to subscribe to this blog for ongoing tips on ways to bring story and imaginative play into your parenting this year.

Getting Goofy is Good for Parents Too

You don’t have to sit still to tell a story. On a temperate day this week, I took our kids to an empty playground to play “Superpower Challenge,” a game my husband invented and I adapted. The idea is to give your kids age-appropriate physical challenges, and then to bestow imaginary superpowers upon them as rewards.

We named a tree “The Oracle” and pretended it whispered challenges and rewards into the ears of each player. My 2.5-year-old climbed up a slide and gave himself “Rainbow Power,” the power to slide down a rainbow to anywhere. My daughter told us we all had to “fly” (run) around the park 2 times to win the power to talk to birds. (I was panting.) To transform this imaginative play into a story with structure, I asked the kids to use their superpowers to solve a problem. My five-year-old daughter wanted to “make people pay attention to too much pollution and global warming; make people protect the earth.” We staged a superhero press conference in Washington, DC, and used “our powers” to make a dramatic entrance: sliding down a rainbow (a slide). Then we used our powers to translate the warnings of the dolphins, eagles, penguins, and polar bears to the President and the Congress. (Pretend politicians pay attention to children and animals).

Fantasy play is more than a serious calorie burner.  Some children are kinesthetic learners, they learn best through movement and touch. A movement-story is a great way to teach a fidgety kid how to communicate and solve problems. Movement stories combine three types of play: body play, imaginative play, and storytelling.

The state of play—relaxed, stimulated, and receptive—opens profound learning possibilities.   Dr. Stuart Brown, a pioneer in the field of play research, contends that play is critical for children and adults because it makes them more adaptive: in his words, “play lights up the brain and. . . .allows creatures to explore the possible.” In his lecture Serious Play, he says “The basis of human trust is established through play signals.” Research shows play makes grown-ups more innovative, more collaborative, and more motivated in their work. Yet many parents are profoundly uncomfortable getting in the play state, even with their kids. We sit, exhausted, on the sidelines of parks and gyms, pounding on our smart phones and letting “professionals” engage our kids in play. We stretch ourselves scheduling classes and driving from point A to B. Goofy parenting is a dying art form.

I am almost always tired. The surprising thing about playing with my kids is that it reinvigorates me when I think I have not a drop of energy left. Kids need to play on their own. Kids need to play with other kids. Sometimes kids need to play with their parents, and that play can take many forms, including stories. Parents might be the ones who benefit most from this shared play. In the words of Dr. Stuart Brown, “The opposite of play is not work. It’s depression.”

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