By Kathy Eugster, MA
We like to think that because children like to play, they will behave appropriately during playtime, but playtime troubles are very common. Children often exhibit playtime troubles like grabbing toys or other objects from others, refusing to share, not taking turns, and being verbally or even physically aggressive.
Here 13 solutions from Play Therapist, Kathy Eugster, on how you can effectively improve playtime troubles with your kiddos.
1. Stay Composed
Try to maintain a calm demeanor even if you are not feeling calm! Children often mirror their parent’s emotions and modeling self-regulation skills can be very powerful to help your child regulate their emotions. For example, when your child starts to get emotionally aroused, you can model more regulated behaviors by slowing your movements down and taking some slow, deep breaths yourself.
2. Identify The Root Cause
Understanding the underlying cause of the inappropriate behavior and what your child needs will help you address the behavior constructively. What is your child trying to communicate and what does your child need? More structure, direction, and limits on behavior, or more autonomy and freedom to take responsibility for making their own choices.
3. Set Clear Limits
Children thrive with consistent limits. During play, parents need to kindly, but consistently, set limits for inappropriate behaviors. Parents may need to be patient, but children will learn over time, when limits are repeated consistently, which behaviors are acceptable and which are not.
4. Teach Emotional Expression
Help your child learn to put words to their feelings by identifying, with a simple feeling word, whatever feelings come up for your child during playtime. When your child has an emotional vocabulary, you can encourage your child to use their words to express how they feel and what they need.
5. Model Positive Behaviour
Children learn by observing you, so, role-modeling appropriate behaviors is important. For example, if a conflict comes up during play, you can model appropriate ways to handle conflict by saying something like, “I understand we both want this toy, but let’s find a way to share or take turns.”
6. Use Play As A Teaching Tool
You can role-play scenarios where you and your child practice sharing, solving conflicts, or acting politely or assertively. When you take on a role, for example, as a helpful king or a wise bear, you will be teaching and modeling appropriate behaviours for your child in these play situations.
7. Reinforce Positive Behaviours
It’s very easy to forget to reinforce children when they behave appropriately, so, notice when your child has behaved in an appropriate and positive manner and reinforce this behaviour by saying something like, “I really like how you waited patiently for your turn. That was very kind.”
8. Offer Choices
Children feel empowered when they are offered choices. If they are acting out, you can offer simple options to redirect them to more appropriate behaviours, for example, “Would you like to play with the blocks or the cars now?”
9. Be Flexible, At Times
When you and your child play together, especially just one-to-one, you can choose to be more flexible and less demanding in playtime compared to other times. Of course, you would never ignore unsafe or destructive behaviors, but during playtime, you may choose to ignore your child’s minor inappropriate behaviors, such as, forgetting to say “please” or “thank-you”, changing the rules of a game to their advantage, wanting to do things their way, or speaking or acting like a much younger child.
10. Take Breaks When Necessary
If your child becomes overwhelmed or their behaviour doesn’t improve, it may be time to take a break by calmly removing them from the play area and saying something like, “We’re going to take a few minutes to calm down/to feel better/to have a break.” Sometimes you just have to “ride out the storm” and all you can do is to just quietly be with your child as they start to regulate their nervous system. Once your child is ready, they can return to the play and try again.
11. Reflect And Discuss
After playtime, talk to your child about the inappropriate behavior. Discuss what happened using simple language to help your child understand. You can even do a bit of planning for what to do the next time they feel overwhelmed.
12. Be Patient With The Process
Changing behaviours takes time! Children are still learning to navigate their emotions and interactions. Also, be aware of what behaviors are age-appropriate. For example, you would not expect a three-year-old to follow the rules of a complex board game.
13. Finally
Inappropriate behaviour during playtime is a natural part of growing up. As a parent, your role is to guide and teach your child how to navigate these situations constructively. With patience and consistency, you can help your child develop the skills they need to play and interact with others positively.
