October 3, 2023 • 36 mins
Meghan Englert is a therapist and a Playful Parenting Coach and she’ll share what playful parenting is. Her tagline is, "Bond more battle less!"
You will learn how to incorporate play into your parenting and why getting on the same page as parents is so powerful.
Meghan shares stories and her journey towards a more peaceful family.
You can find her at: MeghanEnglert.com
Her Facebook Group: Judgement Free Parent Zone
Follow her on Instagram & Facebook
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
What is playful parenting andhow can you have more fun being
a parent?
Today, I'm joined with Meganangler, who is a therapy.
Therapist and a playfulparenting coach and she'll
answer those questions in.
This episode.
Megan helps.
Us parents bond more and battleless.
Yes.
She shares how she decided.
To incorporate, play into herparenting.
(00:21):
As a way to really get throughto her kids.
Kids while having fun.
And they call a side note shegot on the same page with their
husband to create a moreCollaborative and less stressed
family environment Welcomeeveryone this is healthy
relationships tickets forparents the podcast have saved
your relationship fromparenthood My mission is to help
(00:44):
parents have a thrivingrelationship And be great
parents at the same time my nameis jason Polk and i've worked
exclusively with couples as atherapist and coach for over
nine years on this podcast ishare my experience
professionally and personally aswell as those of our amazing
guests without further ado let'sget right into our talk with
(01:04):
megan
Jason (01:05):
I wanted to have you on because your title is the
playful parenting coach and justthat title in and of itself
Sounds awesome.
Can you tell us about that?
Tell us about what you do?
Meghan (01:17):
Yeah, it's a fun title, and I don't even know where it
exactly came from.
It, I think one day just came tome as far as that's what I like
to do with, parents, not kids,if you can imagine that.
And I used to be a playtherapist.
I used to do play therapy withkids and families all the time.
Because as as a therapist, whenkids come to your office and
they talk about things and theyneed to get need to process
(01:39):
something.
They're not going to lie on atiny couch and put their feet up
and talk about like how theirmother was a narcissist and all
these things.
They're not going to talk aboutthose things with words.
They're going to use toys andplay them out.
And so because I truly believethat play is our very first
language, that's how we learn tomanipulate things, how we learn
to interact with the world andwith the people in it.
(02:01):
That's what I like to gravitateto is play and using that to
help parents get their needsmet, meet their parenting goals,
and also just get through thedifferent childhood challenges
with a little bit of fun.
And my tagline, I like to say isbond more, battle less.
With the play, we're stillsetting boundaries, we're still
creating safety, we'll startlearning something, but we're
(02:23):
doing it while laughing andconnecting together.
Jason (02:26):
nice and then so you work with Parents, correct?
Okay,
Meghan (02:33):
I teach them the techniques to work with their
kids.
Jason (02:35):
Okay.
And do you normally have,parents together?
Or is it individual?
Or just depends?
Meghan (02:41):
It really depends on the dynamic in the house.
Sometimes I have worked withparents who are separated and
sometimes they want to work onthings on their own.
The more I can get peopletogether.
The better, the results are,because when they're on the same
page, it just goes so muchbetter.
When everything's on the samepage, too, sometimes I even talk
to teachers or other therapiststhat I'm working with, that
(03:01):
we're all doing the exact samething, and everything's
consistent, so it's notconfusing for the child,
whatever goal we're working onand whatever, techniques that
we're using.
But I, I found the best resultswhen more than one caregiver is
together for the sessions.
If possible.
If it's not possible, we recordthe sessions and I send it out
to whoever hasn't, wasn't therefor that session and then we can
have questions answered afterthat.
(03:22):
But having them part of the planis really helpful.
Jason (03:24):
and just so I know your tagline you said bond more
battle less,
Meghan (03:28):
Yes.
Jason (03:29):
okay That's great.
And then yeah, so you obviouslyyou're talking about bonding
more with your kids But I alsoassume this is what I make up
and this is the mission of ourpodcast.
I Assume you're not againstparents bonding as a couple
Meghan (03:47):
Oh, absolutely.
No, that's all part of it.
Bonding as a family with yourkids for sure.
Because when you're doing aplayful technique with your
child to meet whatever parentinggoal that you have you're a team
working together, doing thattogether.
And you're bonding with yourchild at the same time.
There are definitely some thingsthat you can do one on one with
your child so you get thosetimes as well.
(04:07):
And sometimes some games andsome activities you can do as a
family unit as well.
Jason (04:11):
In the pre, interview you mentioned being like a united
front like having a plan thatyou can agree on.
And, can you talk about that?
Meghan (04:22):
Yeah, for sure.
For sure.
Yeah.
An example I think we gave whenwe talked about this was with my
daughter and sleep coaching.
And as a prime example of, it'snot a playful plan exactly, but
it was a time where we needed tobe united front.
And for backstory, my daughterwas in the NICU for a while and
she had seizures, but when sheleft the hospital, they stopped.
However, in my mom brain, I waslike, I can't.
(04:44):
I can't stop thinking aboutthat, that entry into life for
her was really difficult.
And she wasn't sleeping like atall.
She was waking up six or seventimes a night.
She wasn't napping maybe 20minutes a day.
She only wanted to be on ourbodies in a carrier, upright,
bouncing to sleep.
And obviously that wasn'tworking out for her benefit.
(05:04):
I wasn't working out for ourrelationship as parents, as a
couple, it wasn't working out asa family unit either.
No one was sleeping.
Everyone was grumpy.
And we need to do something, butbecause of her health history, I
was afraid to just go in onsleep coaching without having a
plan that made sense and talk,talking it through.
And we did, to be fair, we triedit on our own first kind of go
(05:25):
in and check on her when wecould, situation and then back
away, but we were doing it indifferent ways and it was
confusing her and it was makingthe sleep cycle worse.
We thought we communicated aboutwhat we needed to do, and we
thought we were on the samepage, but we just weren't.
So having a third party, who wasa sleep consultant that we work
with, creating a plan for usthat was written down, so we can
see step one, you do this, steptwo, you do this, step three,
(05:46):
just all those things, and we'redoing it at the exact same time,
and having her to go back to belike, we did it this way, is
that okay?
And she's oh, yeah, that's fine.
It was a pick up, put downmethod that we used together,
but we did the exact same planand within a week, she was
sleeping through the night, 12hours and then napping, caught
up afterwards.
And she was finally, and thenshe ate better.
She actually started gettingweight better.
She was happier.
(06:07):
We were all much happier afterthat.
And from that moment, I learnedokay, so we think we're on the
same page.
But we really have to talktogether about our parenting
plan to really assure ourselvesthat we're on the same page.
And since then, and also becauseit's also what I do when we
create a plan for our kids, likemy son at three was just
screaming all the time for noreason in particular, just like
(06:28):
the sound of his own voice.
But it was really hard.
We made a plan for when he madethose screaming sounds and I
wrote it down, I wrote the wholething down.
I check with him first.
Does that sound good to you?
We practice it as a wholefamily.
What to do when you scream.
We pretended he was upset.
that and all those things justso he could see what the plan
was.
And then I don't even know wherethat plan is anymore.
We made it to four withouthaving to use the screaming plan
(06:50):
anymore.
So it ended up working butbefore then we were doing
different things.
We were like, I would say, ifyou need to scream, go scream
into a pillow or, and he wassaying, stop screaming or, ask a
different way.
So we weren't being consistentwith how we were approaching the
plan.
And when we created a playfulplan with that as a family too.
Making it more fun, and welaughed about it, and got silly.
(07:12):
And also, of course, number one,being on the same page, it
really panned out.
Jason (07:16):
Yeah.
That's great.
Can you share,'cause I am, I'mso curious an example of the
playful plan.
'cause it seems like youmentioned role playing, you have
family meetings
Meghan (07:26):
yes! Playful plans are really fun.
I generally create plans overthree...
different areas.
So one is practicing new skills.
Maybe that's something they needto work on if it's potty
training or just coping skillsin general or conflict
resolution, sibling conflictresolution specifically also
too.
Another one is prepping forupcoming changes.
If something's coming up thatthey need to get ready for, your
(07:47):
kid has a hard time withtransitions.
Like changing to a new school,or you're welcoming a new
sibling, you're about to startsoccer and that makes you
nervous, things like that.
Or processing big feelings liketantrums and other kinds of
transitions.
And for younger kids, bigfeelings doesn't have to be a
huge trauma.
It can be, how dare you give methat banana already peeled.
I wanted to do that.
(08:07):
And then there's this huge thingabout it.
So those are the different kindsof ways.
To, that you'd want to create aplayful plan and I tend to go
with four different ways ofdoing that.
So one is a role play.
So an example of that is when myson was having separation
anxiety from kindergarten andthe reason he had that was
(08:29):
because I was allowed tovolunteer in his classroom and
ever since then he was like,wait a minute.
You can be here all the time.
Why don't you just stay?
And that was, it was really, Idid not see it coming.
It just was like out of nowherewe started having this problem
with drop off.
And we tried a couple differentthings, like having a ritual,
reassuring him, all those thingsweren't working.
(08:50):
So it's time to use play now.
So we, at home, At a neutraltime, not when he was just about
to go to school, a time where hewasn't already high with
anxiety, we would pretend theschool drop off.
And so he, we decided there'ssome inanimate object was the
teacher and I would go drop himoff and we would pretend our
ritual and he would drop off andsee what it was like.
(09:10):
And then usually for those typesof things, they do really well,
right?
Cause it's pretend and it's playand it's fun and it's, there's
no strings attached to that.
So I always switch roles withhim.
Afterwards, and I said, okay,now you're going to be me and
I'm going to be you.
And I always let them know I'mgoing to give you a hard time
this time, because sometimes youdon't like me enough at that
school, so I'm going to pretendthat.
(09:31):
And I might be really silly withthat.
So I give him that ahead of timeso he doesn't think I'm making
fun of him.
And he's also the personalitythat...
it goes well with.
Yeah, he likes to laugh.
And so I would hang on his legand I would, scream and he'd
laugh really hard.
And the laughter is so importantbecause that breaks tension
about whatever's going on.
And so I would say things likeOh, I don't have any friends at
(09:54):
school.
And he would reassure me, youhave so many friends and he
would name them.
And then I would say, I'm notgoing to learn anything.
Why would I go?
And he goes to a dual immersionschool.
So he goes you're learningSpanish.
You're learning all the time.
What do you mean?
So he was feeding me some of thelines that I was like, okay, so
these are the kind of thingsthat he'd like to hear when I do
drop offs.
I'm learning from him at thesame time.
And he's reassuring me, and thenalso, he just, and then he drops
(10:18):
me off, and then I have a goodday, and he gets to see what
it's like as a parent to walkaway, how that goes, and also
reinforce the role, the rulesof, this is our ritual, this is
what we do every morning, and hegets to be in charge of that, so
he gets to know the rules reallywell.
So we did that one to twominutes, that's it.
And I, got, dad involved too,and sister involved too, we all
just played together, so wecould openly talk about this
problem that we were having.
(10:40):
And then I think within a weekto two weeks, I always say I
give it two weeks to know ifit's really working.
It, he was dropping off justfine.
And it really helped to havethat.
And now and again, when he has ahard time, I don't want to go to
school.
I'll miss you.
And I'm like, Oh, should wepractice drop off?
And he goes, no, I'm done withthat.
I'm fine.
I'll go, cause sometimes he'sjust over it.
So that's one example of what arole play could be.
(11:02):
And one thing that's hardsometimes is kids at a certain
age, they get free will, right?
They realize that they haveability to control their
behaviors, and that's sometimesthe only thing that they can
control.
So in those situations, I dowhat I call performance, where I
take stuffed animals or puppets.
Or if I have nothing, I've evenused my fingers to act out
(11:22):
what's going on and pretendplay, whatever's happening.
And that's when we get everyoneinvolved too, because he's
doesn't want to do it, thenwe'll do a show for you and
we'll act out different things.
And you'll usually see thepeanut gallery going, no, I
wouldn't do it that way, tellingus what to do.
And we're like, okay.
So it's just a much more.
fun way to talk about thingsrather than lecturing them about
what's going on and it ends uppaying off way faster in that
(11:46):
way.
And the other two ways I like topractice play is can transition
into older kids too and justswitching it up is storytelling,
which is a form of play in myopinion.
Once a time, once upon a littleboy who didn't want to go to
school and he, when he wentthere, he realized he had all
these friends and he played thisgame and that game and, just
painting a picture of what'sgoing on.
And when he was sad, he took adeep breath.
(12:07):
And then art is another way toprocess stuff, too.
My daughter's huge into drawingand writing, and so when she's
having a hard time even talkingto me, she goes, I don't know
what's wrong, I don't knowwhat's wrong.
I'll hand her a piece of paperand a pen, and I'll write it
down and then tell me, and thatcalms her down immediately.
And also, art sometimes, too,you were really mad at your
brother this morning.
(12:27):
You were so mad he took yourtoy.
What does that feeling looklike?
Can you draw it for me?
And so she'll draw a picture andask, okay, now let's take some
deep breaths.
And what does it look like now?
Has it changed?
And just get them in tune withtheir own bodies and things like
that.
And when everybody in thefamily, all the caregivers are
on board with that plan.
And the kids feel reallysupported because they know that
(12:48):
you're going to work with themon it versus just tell them what
to do or lecture them until.
They're blue in the face.
Jason (12:54):
That's, I don't know, lack of a better word, sounds so
amazing.
This is what I've been learningtoo, is that, the state of mind
that kids, perform best in islike play, right?
Is the kid's state of mind, justlike anyone, I'm sure they're
not really big on beinglectured, right?
And,
Meghan (13:15):
because I realized like these techniques that we're
doing with them, just gentleparenting, which in my mind is
just parenting with boundariesand safety but respectfully so
that you can show them respectand then also these playful
techniques too.
And sometimes I lose it.
I don't always get it right.
And.
When my husband was out of town,I was just done.
And I snapped at my son who'ssix and I was so humbled.
(13:39):
He came up to me, I think it wasfive minutes later.
And he goes, he calls it mysharp voice.
He's mom, you use your sharpvoice with me and I hurt my
feelings.
I didn't like it.
And when you use your sharpvoice, it makes me feel like I'm
allowed to use a sharp voice andI know I can't, so you need to
pick a different way.
And I was just like, yes.
(13:59):
You're right.
I do.
Like how about instead I justtouch you gently on the shoulder
if I've said it too many timesand I whisper it because then
you'll know I'm serious and thenI'm giving you more attention.
He goes, yeah, that's good.
I'll remind you.
And I was like, thanks buddy.
So I got humbled and I felt badfor snapping, but I also was
like, okay, we're doingsomething right.
Because he feels comfortableenough to come up to me and tell
(14:20):
me that I hurt his feelings andthat we need to problem solve
together.
To make it work.
So I was really amazed andexcited about that, aside from
feeling guilty.
I was really guilty, but I waslike you know what?
I needed that humbling momentmyself.
Jason (14:34):
Yeah, for sure.
Even the fact that he was ableto share how he was feeling with
you, right?
Meghan (14:41):
His mom
Jason (14:41):
I would say be obviously I'm a therapist too.
And just like that ability, thatspace as a kid to be a, be aware
of your feelings.
And then B, feel comfortableenough to share it.
Obviously, that's huge.
Meghan (14:59):
I felt like I was a huge breakthrough for him too,
because it's a struggle at,three to five, I feel like.
And now he's six, and so it'sjust some things are coming a
little bit easier to him too andhe's being able to express some
things about Yeah.
Like the other day, too, whatdid he say?
He said Oh, yeah, he's in thebooster seat.
My body needs to unbuckle, mom.
It just needs to unbuckle reallybad.
I can't, I don't know if I canstop it.
(15:19):
And I was like, we're getting onthe freeway, buddy.
These are the reasons why youshould keep it on.
He goes, okay, I'll try.
So he's working on impulsecontrol and being able to talk
about that a little bit of it.
Talking about it a little bitmore too, which is great.
So these games for hispersonality, role playing,
performing, being silly, tellingstories, that's all his
wheelhouse.
Versus my daughter, who's moreof a, cause he's more of a
(15:42):
ruminator, he talks about thingsa lot.
And she's more of a stuffer.
So we have to be a little bitmore strategic about getting her
to process things and get thingsout a little bit.
And that's why I always like tosay, if you can't get to the
bottom of using play to talk toprofessional, whether it's me or
someone else about like, how doI get to this the root of what's
going on with them and how do Ido that with play and based on
(16:05):
their strengths, their interestin who they are.
And that's when I love havingboth parents input because both
parents know their kids andsometimes they have a different
take on their own kid as well.
Jason (16:14):
.My wife and I, when we started getting on the same page
in regards to parenting, it waslike a really cool experience
for us and it brought us closer.
And we had the template.
Okay.
When our daughter does this, weknow what to do.
We have united front, but do youhave people who are not united
(16:35):
front or be like, Oh, yeah.
I don't want to do that sillystuff.
My kid's not doing that.
I don't know if he had...
I assume if he had theexperience, he probably wouldn't
want to work with them.
But,
Meghan (16:45):
they might want to work with me either
Jason (16:46):
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah, the better way to put it.
Meghan (16:49):
That does happen sometimes and there are times
too where I'll get I'll, they'llbe like they're not going to do
that when they have a tantrum,or whatever.
I said, I like doing a calm downbox is what I call it.
I've created this little likeshoe box or toolbox of things
and we put different things inthere a stress ball that they
make together, some bubbles aphone book.
I don't know if people get phonebooks still.
They're great to rip up whenyou're mad.
That's the only thing they'regood at anymore is that journals
(17:11):
and things like that.
So we create that and they'relike, my kid's not going to use
it.
Go use a calm down box whenthey're upset.
What do you mean?
I was like that's why you useplay to practice it.
You pretend you're upset.
You do these things and use thecalm down box.
You, I'm so proud of you fordoing that.
You do all these things and youdo this so they can practice.
You don't just be like, here'syour tools by, you have to
actually.
If you have any questions orcomments, leave them in the
(17:36):
chat.
I would love to hear from you.
I really appreciate it.
Thanks for having me.
No, I'm like most adults don't,so that we have to learn that as
ourselves and also for our kidsTo do that too, but I do get
sometimes pushed back ondifferent I have really weird
(17:57):
ideas sometimes about differentthings too and they're like you
want me to do what?
I think there was one, it was aneight year old, or nine year old
at the time, she was having ahard time making eye contact.
And part of that was becausewhenever eye contact was
requested, it was, there waslike a problem.
They were in trouble orsomething.
In general, when they wanted toconnect, eye contact was being
averted.
(18:17):
But they were really into HarryPotter.
So I was like, okay, you gottastart slow with connecting.
If you don't wanna talk to themand they won't talk to you.
Do you have a stuffed owl?
That's Hedwig.
Great.
Tie a note to it.
Throw it at them.
You have a letter, and then workup from there.
And they're like, what?
I was like, yeah, then you'reconnecting.
It's not an in trouble thinganymore.
You're connecting.
And then slowly you can startincorporating, getting closer,
(18:38):
doing more eye contact games,doing some more.
So that way it's not all about,I need to talk to you and you're
in trouble.
So adding more of their interestin who they are.
But they're like, what's enough?
I know, just try it for a coupleof times and then we'll see.
And then we can build up fromthat and get, get into it.
So it's comfortable foreverybody.
(18:58):
I always tell people to I have awhat's called a two week rule
Where there's pushback and a lotof people tend to give up And
this is why I love having bothparents involved because they
have each other to just remindeach other about this Rule is
that you do this fun newactivity this fun new Technique
and the kids are like cool.
This is different than beingyelled at like i'll try this and
(19:20):
then it works for three or fourdays and then all of a sudden
for one to two days after thatThere's some pushback.
And then the parents usually gothis isn't working So we're
gonna stop and that's when I sayno.
No, that means it is workingIt's working because they're
testing you they want to see ifyou mean business Is this really
how things are and if so, thenyou got to double down and be
like, I mean It's really hardfor you, but this is still the
(19:40):
rule and then they're and thenafter that is when you see Like
a sweet spot of things reallychanging.
It's just human nature.
It takes two weeks withconsistency for real human
behavior change to occur.
And that's with everything.
Adults too.
Getting up at a new time everyday, starting a new workout
routine, all those things.
And with kids, if it's hittingand biting or whatever and then
you notice a, like a fallback orregression, it's not always a
(20:04):
true regression.
It's usually a testing phase tosee if if you're really gonna
hold the boundaries.
And a safe
Jason (20:09):
interesting.
You mentioned there was, yourhusband was away time where you
were, may have not been at your.
Meghan (20:17):
Nope.
Jason (20:18):
I just want to like, I don't know, like maybe normalize
that, especially in my wife herdad has been sick and I've been
home with both of our daughtersand man, there's times where I'm
like, Oh damn, Jason, you raisedyour voice there.
Obviously I'm striving to, Tonot do that but I don't know if
you have any thoughts, tips, orthings like that.
Meghan (20:41):
yeah.
I think I'm not aboveapologizing to my kids when I
mess up too.
I think modeling that is thebest thing we can do.
And I know there's some schoolof thoughts of that, that some
people think, No, don'tapologize, then that you'll seem
weaker or, that you, Whatever itis, but in reality, I want them
to know how to apologize and howto talk to me, too and I'll say,
like I Give the example of mydaughter came home from school.
(21:05):
I think something happened and Ididn't respond very well to it,
and part of that was because Iwas just frustrated, I didn't
know how to help her, and I wasjust felt sad inside, and I
wasn't able to filter that verywell, and so a day passed, and
she's older, so I wasn't she'seight now and I said, hey, that
thing happened after school, Ididn't handle that very well Do
you have any ideas of how Ishould handle that better next
(21:26):
time?
Because it wasn't your faultwhen I reacted that way.
And sometimes if you give themsome control over that she, it
was the sweetest thing.
She would just just hold my handand say, honey, we'll figure
this out.
And I was like, Oh, you'reright.
I should have just done thatbecause it was, it broke my
heart a little bit.
And I was like let's pretend wedid it a different way.
And let's role play.
That I handled it differently.
(21:46):
And how did, and then talk abouthow did that feel for you?
Was that better for you?
So not only apologizing, butalso showing in the moment, even
if it's not real, that happeningright then, you can show them
that I've learned from thismistake.
And this, I'm showing you thatthis is how to do it.
And even if it's pretend playyou're showing them, I listened
to you this is what it will looklike when I do it again.
So that they feel heard and seenand they know what to expect
(22:09):
next time.
Jason (22:10):
Wow.
That's so cool.
And also as a couples therapist,I can't help but think too,
they're aware of what they wantto need.
Because that often shows upsometimes to partners are not
aware of what they want to need.
And being able to have a voiceand receiving that cool stuff.
Meghan (22:27):
Play is pretty powerful it's not innate for everybody
either.
That's what's hard for it too isthat a lot of people don't find
joy from just from playing withtheir kid.
And I want to say that's okaybecause it's not always an
enjoyable experience.
Kids sometimes want you to do ita certain way.
And talk a certain way, and theywant you to do it the way they
(22:49):
want, and also, doesn't matter,you're doing it wrong.
It doesn't always, it's the mostfun experience, and when you're
not having fun with it, they canfeel that.
I have a list of, a huge list ofgames I always give parents to
play with that are quick, meantto be one to, Two to five
minutes long each that are goaloriented.
That's so you make, makes mefeel like, okay, this is for my
(23:09):
parenting.
I can do this.
And I'm also connecting with mykid at the same time.
And it won't last two hours onthe floor with trains or Legos.
So it's a design for people whoactually don't really enjoy
playing all the time.
Can get something out of it atthe same time.
Jason (23:21):
Yeah, I would love to see that list.
That's amazing.
Yeah, I noticed, too, with ourfive year old, we play, and then
we have all these rules, andthen, no, you can't do this, you
can't do that, and then it'sokay yeah, how am I supposed to
do?
Josie, what am I supposed to dohere with you?
Meghan (23:37):
It's supposed to be a warm body in the room doing
exactly what they want you todo.
Jason (23:40):
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
Also this is something that Istruggle with and I assume other
parents do as well.
When your kids get back fromschool, we pick our kid up from
school and I want to connectwith them.
And I'm always like, how wasyour day?
Good.
What do you have for lunchtoday?
(24:01):
I can't remember.
Do you have any like tips forthat or things?
All
Meghan (24:08):
Yeah.
Jason (24:09):
curious.
Meghan (24:10):
I think one, don't take it too personally too, because
they are, they have had a longday and they've held it together
all day for a teacher who theywant, who they respect and they
probably want to get respectback from them.
So they're trying their best todo that.
I pick up my kid at schoolsometimes and I'm like, who are
you?
This is not the kid I droppedoff.
And I check in with the teacherand I'm like, how was their day?
(24:31):
And they're like, they werefine.
I'm like, Oh, they're justholding it until me, the safe
person.
And so they might not have acapacity to tell you what they
did, who they played with oranything like that or what they
ate exactly.
So sometimes we have to get alittle bit more specific with
the questions.
Which is who did you play withat recess or who did you sit
next to at lunchtime to get themgoing into that?
(24:51):
Because kids usually are reallysocial and they will talk about
their friends more than theywill what they learned at school
Or what was your favorite thingyou what was your favorite
subject today?
Was it science or this or that?
And if they're still not givingit to you a little bit You might
have to wait a little bit oftime until later on in the
evening when they're just not asover overwhelmed by the day one
(25:12):
game I like to play at thedinner table, and you can play
this as young as...
It's three just verbal toteenagers is highs and lows.
Everyone goes on the table andsay, what was the high of your
day?
Like the best thing thathappened and what was the worst
thing that happened?
The low of your day and the lowcould be something also that's
high.
It just could be the lowesthigh.
It doesn't really matter if youdon't have a low, but I'm just
talking about that as a familyand everyone answers the
(25:34):
question too.
So it's not just putting yourkid on the spot.
You also have to come up withsomething too.
Jason (25:38):
I like that.
And I like the idea of giving ittime too, as well.
And that's interesting what yousaid, it's hey, they've been
holding it together all day.
Alright.
Meghan (25:48):
Yeah.
They've been sitting in a chairfor a long time with probably.
Minimal recess time because Ifeel like my kids either they
eat really well and they don'tplay or they eat nothing and
they play because they only havea certain amount of time at
their lunch and recess to eat,to have a snack and go join in
with their friends too.
So they could either be justphysically tired and hungry or
(26:09):
they did not have as much socialtime as they wanted to with
their friends.
Jason (26:13):
I'm just curious to, and this is something that my wife
and I are working with and, wedon't have the best of solution
is something that we're talkingabout, but do you have any,
ideas and I'm putting you on thespot because you'll probably
need more context.
siblings and sharing, right?
We have a five and a half yearold and a two year old and gosh,
(26:36):
someone will take something.
Like for example, it happenedthis morning.
We had these Halloweenflashlights, our two year old
daughter had it.
And then our five and a halfyear old said, I want that one.
But she was playing with it.
But then what our two year olddaughter does.
She'll almost taunt the five anda half year old say, this is
mine.
This is mine, Josie.
And part of me is like, allright, you're advocating for
yourself, but I don't know
Meghan (26:58):
But it feels like a taunt a little bit too.
It could be a little bit of
Jason (27:00):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Meghan (27:02):
it, but also yeah.
I think sometimes it helps tohave rules with the toys in your
house.
If you can, I know what,sometimes it's hard to have a
rule in the house toys causethey're everywhere all the time,
but if you have a certain spacefor them, it's also helps for
cleaning up too.
If you say there's a toy,especially the shared toys, if
there is a shelf that they go onor whatever and it's on that
(27:23):
shelf, it is open for you toplay with.
If it is in your hand or on theground, then it's not available
right now.
And, sometimes that means everynow and again you have to be
like, okay, look around andclean up.
But also, If it's on the groundand you've picked up a new toy,
you need to go get, go replaceit.
So that way you're not havingtoo many things at once.
Unless they're related.
Obviously, if all Legos aretogether, that's harder to do.
(27:44):
So having a rule like that orwhatever rule works for your
home, and then practicing thatrule, practicing what it's like.
And if your two and a half yearold might not be able to join in
on the roleplay as much maybethey, maybe she is.
But you can always pretend witha stuffed animal being a two and
a half year old.
And then your five year oldpretending, Oh, someone has my
toy and what would you do andhow would you handle that?
(28:05):
So that way they could practicetheir skills and what they would
say.
And then Twitch will have her bethe two and a half year old who
has a toy.
And what would a five year old,what would a five year old self
say to her and how would yourespond or what would you want
the two year old to do in thatcase?
And so just pretending differentsituations when everyone's
already calm and having a goodtime.
Not, when they're just beenscreaming about someone taking a
toy for that.
(28:25):
So I'd say role play and comingup with that sort of thing.
When my...
Kids were about that age, I wantto say, like three, two, two and
four and a half, or two and fivethree and five.
We created this little bin formy kids.
My younger one didn't care atthe time, but I called, we
called it the specials.
So it's this is a toy that's sospecial to you.
(28:46):
It is yours alone and it belongsin your special bin and you can
take it out of your special binand play with it And put it back
and no one else can touch it butI made sure to make that bin
small so that way they couldn'tjust be like everything's my
special now So just like makingit small and if everything
special to them isn't going tofit in there then we have to
choose what's special to youthis week And you know it you
(29:07):
can rotate it out to a littlebit To see so that way she has
some control over what is hersand making sure that no one's
going to get it I have that rolefor both kids.
That way they can do that.
Unless they are agreeing toshare together, but in general,
I will say it is really fun agedifference to have my kids, they
do fight a lot, but they alsoplay together a lot, really well
(29:27):
too.
Jason (29:28):
Yeah, that's good.
No, I like the idea of even justsome rules.
But also the play, what if shedoes have it?
What do you do?
And then switch the roles.
I really liked that.
Basically, playful parentingcoach.
I like the creativity of it,
Meghan (29:45):
it's hard to think of in the spot sometimes, but it could
be fun.
Jason (29:48):
Yeah, that's great.
Instead of having a lecturelet's sit down and you can't do
this.
You can do this.
And they're not really listeninganyway.
Yeah.
How cool.
And I just want to like.
Share to the idea of drawing, wetalked about that drawing when
you're frustrated and gosh, wegot away from it.
But one time I our five year olddid that she drew the sad face
(30:13):
because at the time she wantedto read to our two year old, and
the two year old wasn't payingattention, and she got really
frustrated and she left, but shecame back and had a drawing that
was sad, and I was like, oh mygosh, Josie, this is so cool,
but I just wanted to highlightthat what you mentioned, I love
the idea of drawing, especiallyfeelings.
Meghan (30:35):
It's so cool because it's also their it's like their
pre journaling, right?
And that's something that wevalue as adults is journaling a
lot.
And this happened to mydaughter.
She we lost a cat a couple ofyears ago to a car and they
witnessed the whole thing.
It was really horrendous.
It's terrible.
And she had a really hard timewith it.
And big, huge feelings, schoolcounselor feelings.
(30:57):
Like we had to talk to a lot ofpeople about it to make sure
that she was supported in everyway possible.
And we did a lot of role playsabout it.
And I don't talk about a wholelot with these with other
parents, because I don't want tosay Oh, play will fix that kind
of trauma.
Cause it doesn't always fix thatkind of trauma.
So we did go and see otherpeople as well, but we practice
at home a little bit of whathappened with the cat and did a
little role play with that.
(31:17):
at the end of that role play.
Cause in her mind, she doesn'tknow what happened after the cat
went to the vet.
So she wanted some more context.
She was smiling at the end ofthat role play and she goes, why
am I smiling so big mama?
I haven't smiled in a long time.
And I was like, maybe you gotsomething out of your body.
You have more room for smilesnow.
And she goes, maybe it was sopowerful.
And then I want to say threeweeks.
(31:38):
Four weeks later, we found, Ifound a drawing on her desk that
was a cat that had tears, and itsaid meow, and there was a car
right there, and I showed myhusband, and he was like, Oh no,
this is terrible, she's stillupset about it, and I was like,
no, this is great she's notstuffing it inside anymore, she
found an outlet, she didn't hideit somewhere, it was on her desk
I was sharing because I wasexcited about it.
I'm sad she's still sad, but I'mglad that she has an outlet for
(32:00):
it and has a place to put it.
So I think too, for anyone who'slistening too, who might see
some drawings or something thatmight make them feel like, Oh
no, what's going on with my kid?
Are they okay?
You can talk to them about it,but also just know that this is
their way of processing andthat's a good thing.
Get it out a little bit.
Jason (32:16):
That's great.
Question to put you, on thespot, and you can pass.
You mentioned your husband.
What do you two do to stay,connected or stay sane?
Meghan (32:26):
Yes.
Yeah.
What do we do connected to StaySane Together?
We're we're playful together alot.
We joke around a lot together.
And we try to play family gameswith the kids when we can
together and have our kind ofinside jokes at the same time
while they're playing.
They have no idea we're talking,but they're like stop it guys.
And we're like, sorry.
And we we do sometimes we get ina rut where we're just like,
(32:49):
sitting on the couch after thekids go to bed and we watch TV,
a little bit, and then we go tobed.
But we did buy some games for usto play just for us.
One game was called, it's calledcrime city.
It's a kind of a silly, likedetective little game, but it's
20 minutes or something likethat.
So just having, spending time tobe like, okay, let's connect
together and play this.
It's just something different toswitch it up a little bit is
(33:09):
just, is nice and we don't haveextended family here to get date
nights away very often.
Sometimes we have our kids go tosleepovers every now and again.
We'll have like our kids go toan overnight sleepover and we
get the house to ourselves to dowhatever.
If you don't want to go out andspend money on dinner, then
we'll just.
Stay at home and do that.
And then we'll swap with ourfriends and take their kids for
(33:30):
a night to do that.
Jason (33:32):
yeah.
That's a great idea.
Meghan (33:33):
But yeah, we try to get to to connect in that way.
But in the end we just talk alot as, as much as we can about,
about whatever.
And we needed that this weekbecause he was gone for five
days backpacking, so no serviceat all.
I couldn't even text him.
And then when he got back, hesaid he was exposed to a friend
who had COVID.
And so we were like, and now youhave to quarantine in the house.
(33:56):
Like over there.
So it was a rough, it was arough week for us, but we ended
up having to really make time tohave a conversation once we were
all in the clear and be like, Ifelt really disconnected and he
did too.
And so we just had a moment tobe like, at least we're on the
same page with ourdisconnection, but there wasn't
a whole lot we could do about itin the moment, except for, try
to keep ourselves healthy at thesame time.
Jason (34:19):
Yeah, I like that it just we don't have to overcomplicate
it.
You know this we talk a lot,right?
That's my wife and I do we tryto you know, talk a lot It could
be about our daughters could beabout just our day.
It could be deeper stuff as wellBut even you know times when we
feel disconnected Justmentioning it can create
(34:42):
connection.
Oh, I feel that too.
And then ideally, okay, what canwe do about it?
We started because we startedtalking about it.
Meghan (34:51):
Exactly.
Exactly.
Yeah.
One thing, too, we used to do alot, and we probably need to
connect more on this, too, isonce a week, once every couple
weeks, we would check in witheach other about our how we were
feeling over two areas.
Are we feeling emotionallyconnected to each other?
Are we feeling physicallyconnected to each other?
How are we doing in thosethings?
And do we need improvement inthose areas?
Because they go together, a lotof the times it's not just one
(35:13):
or the other.
When we do talk, it's do youfeel like that we're connected
physically and emotionally andvice versa?
Do I feel that way to you too?
And make sure we're on the samepage.
Jason (35:22):
Yeah, that's great.
The mission of the podcast too,it's having a great relationship
helps us be better parents.
And yeah, and I just want toreiterate again, my wife and I,
one thing that we connect overis our parenting.
We're both pretty intentional.
We're both therapists typepeople and we dedicated to maybe
(35:44):
doing a little.
Bit different than our parents,you know, If someone wants to
work with you, how do they dothat?
How do they work with thePlayful Parenting Coach?
Meghan (35:54):
You can find me on Instagram or on Facebook at the
playful parenting coach.
I also have a free, uh, Facebooksupport group called the
judgment free parent zone, whereyou can ask questions every
Monday on a free Q and a thread.
You can also find me atmeganenglert.
com.
That's M E G H A N E N G L E R Tdot com.
(36:18):
And from there, you can book afree call with me.
I do free 20 minute consults,talking about whatever you need
to talk about at the time, whereI will either refer you out,
give you a quick tip, or signyou up for my program.
Jason (36:30):
Megan, I'm looking forward to incorporating more
play with our kids.
Hey, this has been truly helpfulfor me.
And thank you so much for yourtime.
Hey there.
Thank you so much for listening.
And if you liked this.
Please give us a good review andshare this with someone who
could benefit from thisinformation again thank you so
much for listening
What is playful parenting andhow can you have more fun being
a parent?
Today, I'm joined with Meganangler, who is a therapy.
Therapist and a playfulparenting coach and she'll
answer those questions in.
This episode.
Megan helps.
Us parents bond more and battleless.
Yes.
She shares how she decided.
To incorporate, play into herparenting.
(00:21):
As a way to really get throughto her kids.
Kids while having fun.
And they call a side note shegot on the same page with their
husband to create a moreCollaborative and less stressed
family environment Welcomeeveryone this is healthy
relationships tickets forparents the podcast have saved
your relationship fromparenthood My mission is to help
(00:44):
parents have a thrivingrelationship And be great
parents at the same time my nameis jason Polk and i've worked
exclusively with couples as atherapist and coach for over
nine years on this podcast ishare my experience
professionally and personally aswell as those of our amazing
guests without further ado let'sget right into our talk with
(01:04):
megan
Jason (01:05):
I wanted to have you on because your title is the
playful parenting coach and justthat title in and of itself
Sounds awesome.
Can you tell us about that?
Tell us about what you do?
Meghan (01:17):
Yeah, it's a fun title, and I don't even know where it
exactly came from.
It, I think one day just came tome as far as that's what I like
to do with, parents, not kids,if you can imagine that.
And I used to be a playtherapist.
I used to do play therapy withkids and families all the time.
Because as as a therapist, whenkids come to your office and
they talk about things and theyneed to get need to process
(01:39):
something.
They're not going to lie on atiny couch and put their feet up
and talk about like how theirmother was a narcissist and all
these things.
They're not going to talk aboutthose things with words.
They're going to use toys andplay them out.
And so because I truly believethat play is our very first
language, that's how we learn tomanipulate things, how we learn
to interact with the world andwith the people in it.
(02:01):
That's what I like to gravitateto is play and using that to
help parents get their needsmet, meet their parenting goals,
and also just get through thedifferent childhood challenges
with a little bit of fun.
And my tagline, I like to say isbond more, battle less.
With the play, we're stillsetting boundaries, we're still
creating safety, we'll startlearning something, but we're
(02:23):
doing it while laughing andconnecting together.
Jason (02:26):
nice and then so you work with Parents, correct?
Okay,
Meghan (02:33):
I teach them the techniques to work with their
kids.
Jason (02:35):
Okay.
And do you normally have,parents together?
Or is it individual?
Or just depends?
Meghan (02:41):
It really depends on the dynamic in the house.
Sometimes I have worked withparents who are separated and
sometimes they want to work onthings on their own.
The more I can get peopletogether.
The better, the results are,because when they're on the same
page, it just goes so muchbetter.
When everything's on the samepage, too, sometimes I even talk
to teachers or other therapiststhat I'm working with, that
(03:01):
we're all doing the exact samething, and everything's
consistent, so it's notconfusing for the child,
whatever goal we're working onand whatever, techniques that
we're using.
But I, I found the best resultswhen more than one caregiver is
together for the sessions.
If possible.
If it's not possible, we recordthe sessions and I send it out
to whoever hasn't, wasn't therefor that session and then we can
have questions answered afterthat.
(03:22):
But having them part of the planis really helpful.
Jason (03:24):
and just so I know your tagline you said bond more
battle less,
Meghan (03:28):
Yes.
Jason (03:29):
okay That's great.
And then yeah, so you obviouslyyou're talking about bonding
more with your kids But I alsoassume this is what I make up
and this is the mission of ourpodcast.
I Assume you're not againstparents bonding as a couple
Meghan (03:47):
Oh, absolutely.
No, that's all part of it.
Bonding as a family with yourkids for sure.
Because when you're doing aplayful technique with your
child to meet whatever parentinggoal that you have you're a team
working together, doing thattogether.
And you're bonding with yourchild at the same time.
There are definitely some thingsthat you can do one on one with
your child so you get thosetimes as well.
(04:07):
And sometimes some games andsome activities you can do as a
family unit as well.
Jason (04:11):
In the pre, interview you mentioned being like a united
front like having a plan thatyou can agree on.
And, can you talk about that?
Meghan (04:22):
Yeah, for sure.
For sure.
Yeah.
An example I think we gave whenwe talked about this was with my
daughter and sleep coaching.
And as a prime example of, it'snot a playful plan exactly, but
it was a time where we needed tobe united front.
And for backstory, my daughterwas in the NICU for a while and
she had seizures, but when sheleft the hospital, they stopped.
However, in my mom brain, I waslike, I can't.
(04:44):
I can't stop thinking aboutthat, that entry into life for
her was really difficult.
And she wasn't sleeping like atall.
She was waking up six or seventimes a night.
She wasn't napping maybe 20minutes a day.
She only wanted to be on ourbodies in a carrier, upright,
bouncing to sleep.
And obviously that wasn'tworking out for her benefit.
(05:04):
I wasn't working out for ourrelationship as parents, as a
couple, it wasn't working out asa family unit either.
No one was sleeping.
Everyone was grumpy.
And we need to do something, butbecause of her health history, I
was afraid to just go in onsleep coaching without having a
plan that made sense and talk,talking it through.
And we did, to be fair, we triedit on our own first kind of go
(05:25):
in and check on her when wecould, situation and then back
away, but we were doing it indifferent ways and it was
confusing her and it was makingthe sleep cycle worse.
We thought we communicated aboutwhat we needed to do, and we
thought we were on the samepage, but we just weren't.
So having a third party, who wasa sleep consultant that we work
with, creating a plan for usthat was written down, so we can
see step one, you do this, steptwo, you do this, step three,
(05:46):
just all those things, and we'redoing it at the exact same time,
and having her to go back to belike, we did it this way, is
that okay?
And she's oh, yeah, that's fine.
It was a pick up, put downmethod that we used together,
but we did the exact same planand within a week, she was
sleeping through the night, 12hours and then napping, caught
up afterwards.
And she was finally, and thenshe ate better.
She actually started gettingweight better.
She was happier.
(06:07):
We were all much happier afterthat.
And from that moment, I learnedokay, so we think we're on the
same page.
But we really have to talktogether about our parenting
plan to really assure ourselvesthat we're on the same page.
And since then, and also becauseit's also what I do when we
create a plan for our kids, likemy son at three was just
screaming all the time for noreason in particular, just like
(06:28):
the sound of his own voice.
But it was really hard.
We made a plan for when he madethose screaming sounds and I
wrote it down, I wrote the wholething down.
I check with him first.
Does that sound good to you?
We practice it as a wholefamily.
What to do when you scream.
We pretended he was upset.
that and all those things justso he could see what the plan
was.
And then I don't even know wherethat plan is anymore.
We made it to four withouthaving to use the screaming plan
(06:50):
anymore.
So it ended up working butbefore then we were doing
different things.
We were like, I would say, ifyou need to scream, go scream
into a pillow or, and he wassaying, stop screaming or, ask a
different way.
So we weren't being consistentwith how we were approaching the
plan.
And when we created a playfulplan with that as a family too.
Making it more fun, and welaughed about it, and got silly.
(07:12):
And also, of course, number one,being on the same page, it
really panned out.
Jason (07:16):
Yeah.
That's great.
Can you share,'cause I am, I'mso curious an example of the
playful plan.
'cause it seems like youmentioned role playing, you have
family meetings
Meghan (07:26):
yes! Playful plans are really fun.
I generally create plans overthree...
different areas.
So one is practicing new skills.
Maybe that's something they needto work on if it's potty
training or just coping skillsin general or conflict
resolution, sibling conflictresolution specifically also
too.
Another one is prepping forupcoming changes.
If something's coming up thatthey need to get ready for, your
(07:47):
kid has a hard time withtransitions.
Like changing to a new school,or you're welcoming a new
sibling, you're about to startsoccer and that makes you
nervous, things like that.
Or processing big feelings liketantrums and other kinds of
transitions.
And for younger kids, bigfeelings doesn't have to be a
huge trauma.
It can be, how dare you give methat banana already peeled.
I wanted to do that.
(08:07):
And then there's this huge thingabout it.
So those are the different kindsof ways.
To, that you'd want to create aplayful plan and I tend to go
with four different ways ofdoing that.
So one is a role play.
So an example of that is when myson was having separation
anxiety from kindergarten andthe reason he had that was
(08:29):
because I was allowed tovolunteer in his classroom and
ever since then he was like,wait a minute.
You can be here all the time.
Why don't you just stay?
And that was, it was really, Idid not see it coming.
It just was like out of nowherewe started having this problem
with drop off.
And we tried a couple differentthings, like having a ritual,
reassuring him, all those thingsweren't working.
(08:50):
So it's time to use play now.
So we, at home, At a neutraltime, not when he was just about
to go to school, a time where hewasn't already high with
anxiety, we would pretend theschool drop off.
And so he, we decided there'ssome inanimate object was the
teacher and I would go drop himoff and we would pretend our
ritual and he would drop off andsee what it was like.
(09:10):
And then usually for those typesof things, they do really well,
right?
Cause it's pretend and it's playand it's fun and it's, there's
no strings attached to that.
So I always switch roles withhim.
Afterwards, and I said, okay,now you're going to be me and
I'm going to be you.
And I always let them know I'mgoing to give you a hard time
this time, because sometimes youdon't like me enough at that
school, so I'm going to pretendthat.
(09:31):
And I might be really silly withthat.
So I give him that ahead of timeso he doesn't think I'm making
fun of him.
And he's also the personalitythat...
it goes well with.
Yeah, he likes to laugh.
And so I would hang on his legand I would, scream and he'd
laugh really hard.
And the laughter is so importantbecause that breaks tension
about whatever's going on.
And so I would say things likeOh, I don't have any friends at
(09:54):
school.
And he would reassure me, youhave so many friends and he
would name them.
And then I would say, I'm notgoing to learn anything.
Why would I go?
And he goes to a dual immersionschool.
So he goes you're learningSpanish.
You're learning all the time.
What do you mean?
So he was feeding me some of thelines that I was like, okay, so
these are the kind of thingsthat he'd like to hear when I do
drop offs.
I'm learning from him at thesame time.
And he's reassuring me, and thenalso, he just, and then he drops
(10:18):
me off, and then I have a goodday, and he gets to see what
it's like as a parent to walkaway, how that goes, and also
reinforce the role, the rulesof, this is our ritual, this is
what we do every morning, and hegets to be in charge of that, so
he gets to know the rules reallywell.
So we did that one to twominutes, that's it.
And I, got, dad involved too,and sister involved too, we all
just played together, so wecould openly talk about this
problem that we were having.
(10:40):
And then I think within a weekto two weeks, I always say I
give it two weeks to know ifit's really working.
It, he was dropping off justfine.
And it really helped to havethat.
And now and again, when he has ahard time, I don't want to go to
school.
I'll miss you.
And I'm like, Oh, should wepractice drop off?
And he goes, no, I'm done withthat.
I'm fine.
I'll go, cause sometimes he'sjust over it.
So that's one example of what arole play could be.
(11:02):
And one thing that's hardsometimes is kids at a certain
age, they get free will, right?
They realize that they haveability to control their
behaviors, and that's sometimesthe only thing that they can
control.
So in those situations, I dowhat I call performance, where I
take stuffed animals or puppets.
Or if I have nothing, I've evenused my fingers to act out
(11:22):
what's going on and pretendplay, whatever's happening.
And that's when we get everyoneinvolved too, because he's
doesn't want to do it, thenwe'll do a show for you and
we'll act out different things.
And you'll usually see thepeanut gallery going, no, I
wouldn't do it that way, tellingus what to do.
And we're like, okay.
So it's just a much more.
fun way to talk about thingsrather than lecturing them about
what's going on and it ends uppaying off way faster in that
(11:46):
way.
And the other two ways I like topractice play is can transition
into older kids too and justswitching it up is storytelling,
which is a form of play in myopinion.
Once a time, once upon a littleboy who didn't want to go to
school and he, when he wentthere, he realized he had all
these friends and he played thisgame and that game and, just
painting a picture of what'sgoing on.
And when he was sad, he took adeep breath.
(12:07):
And then art is another way toprocess stuff, too.
My daughter's huge into drawingand writing, and so when she's
having a hard time even talkingto me, she goes, I don't know
what's wrong, I don't knowwhat's wrong.
I'll hand her a piece of paperand a pen, and I'll write it
down and then tell me, and thatcalms her down immediately.
And also, art sometimes, too,you were really mad at your
brother this morning.
(12:27):
You were so mad he took yourtoy.
What does that feeling looklike?
Can you draw it for me?
And so she'll draw a picture andask, okay, now let's take some
deep breaths.
And what does it look like now?
Has it changed?
And just get them in tune withtheir own bodies and things like
that.
And when everybody in thefamily, all the caregivers are
on board with that plan.
And the kids feel reallysupported because they know that
(12:48):
you're going to work with themon it versus just tell them what
to do or lecture them until.
They're blue in the face.
Jason (12:54):
That's, I don't know, lack of a better word, sounds so
amazing.
This is what I've been learningtoo, is that, the state of mind
that kids, perform best in islike play, right?
Is the kid's state of mind, justlike anyone, I'm sure they're
not really big on beinglectured, right?
And,
Meghan (13:15):
because I realized like these techniques that we're
doing with them, just gentleparenting, which in my mind is
just parenting with boundariesand safety but respectfully so
that you can show them respectand then also these playful
techniques too.
And sometimes I lose it.
I don't always get it right.
And.
When my husband was out of town,I was just done.
And I snapped at my son who'ssix and I was so humbled.
(13:39):
He came up to me, I think it wasfive minutes later.
And he goes, he calls it mysharp voice.
He's mom, you use your sharpvoice with me and I hurt my
feelings.
I didn't like it.
And when you use your sharpvoice, it makes me feel like I'm
allowed to use a sharp voice andI know I can't, so you need to
pick a different way.
And I was just like, yes.
(13:59):
You're right.
I do.
Like how about instead I justtouch you gently on the shoulder
if I've said it too many timesand I whisper it because then
you'll know I'm serious and thenI'm giving you more attention.
He goes, yeah, that's good.
I'll remind you.
And I was like, thanks buddy.
So I got humbled and I felt badfor snapping, but I also was
like, okay, we're doingsomething right.
Because he feels comfortableenough to come up to me and tell
(14:20):
me that I hurt his feelings andthat we need to problem solve
together.
To make it work.
So I was really amazed andexcited about that, aside from
feeling guilty.
I was really guilty, but I waslike you know what?
I needed that humbling momentmyself.
Jason (14:34):
Yeah, for sure.
Even the fact that he was ableto share how he was feeling with
you, right?
Meghan (14:41):
His mom
Jason (14:41):
I would say be obviously I'm a therapist too.
And just like that ability, thatspace as a kid to be a, be aware
of your feelings.
And then B, feel comfortableenough to share it.
Obviously, that's huge.
Meghan (14:59):
I felt like I was a huge breakthrough for him too,
because it's a struggle at,three to five, I feel like.
And now he's six, and so it'sjust some things are coming a
little bit easier to him too andhe's being able to express some
things about Yeah.
Like the other day, too, whatdid he say?
He said Oh, yeah, he's in thebooster seat.
My body needs to unbuckle, mom.
It just needs to unbuckle reallybad.
I can't, I don't know if I canstop it.
(15:19):
And I was like, we're getting onthe freeway, buddy.
These are the reasons why youshould keep it on.
He goes, okay, I'll try.
So he's working on impulsecontrol and being able to talk
about that a little bit of it.
Talking about it a little bitmore too, which is great.
So these games for hispersonality, role playing,
performing, being silly, tellingstories, that's all his
wheelhouse.
Versus my daughter, who's moreof a, cause he's more of a
(15:42):
ruminator, he talks about thingsa lot.
And she's more of a stuffer.
So we have to be a little bitmore strategic about getting her
to process things and get thingsout a little bit.
And that's why I always like tosay, if you can't get to the
bottom of using play to talk toprofessional, whether it's me or
someone else about like, how doI get to this the root of what's
going on with them and how do Ido that with play and based on
(16:05):
their strengths, their interestin who they are.
And that's when I love havingboth parents input because both
parents know their kids andsometimes they have a different
take on their own kid as well.
Jason (16:14):
.My wife and I, when we started getting on the same page
in regards to parenting, it waslike a really cool experience
for us and it brought us closer.
And we had the template.
Okay.
When our daughter does this, weknow what to do.
We have united front, but do youhave people who are not united
(16:35):
front or be like, Oh, yeah.
I don't want to do that sillystuff.
My kid's not doing that.
I don't know if he had...
I assume if he had theexperience, he probably wouldn't
want to work with them.
But,
Meghan (16:45):
they might want to work with me either
Jason (16:46):
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah, the better way to put it.
Meghan (16:49):
That does happen sometimes and there are times
too where I'll get I'll, they'llbe like they're not going to do
that when they have a tantrum,or whatever.
I said, I like doing a calm downbox is what I call it.
I've created this little likeshoe box or toolbox of things
and we put different things inthere a stress ball that they
make together, some bubbles aphone book.
I don't know if people get phonebooks still.
They're great to rip up whenyou're mad.
That's the only thing they'regood at anymore is that journals
(17:11):
and things like that.
So we create that and they'relike, my kid's not going to use
it.
Go use a calm down box whenthey're upset.
What do you mean?
I was like that's why you useplay to practice it.
You pretend you're upset.
You do these things and use thecalm down box.
You, I'm so proud of you fordoing that.
You do all these things and youdo this so they can practice.
You don't just be like, here'syour tools by, you have to
actually.
If you have any questions orcomments, leave them in the
(17:36):
chat.
I would love to hear from you.
I really appreciate it.
Thanks for having me.
No, I'm like most adults don't,so that we have to learn that as
ourselves and also for our kidsTo do that too, but I do get
sometimes pushed back ondifferent I have really weird
(17:57):
ideas sometimes about differentthings too and they're like you
want me to do what?
I think there was one, it was aneight year old, or nine year old
at the time, she was having ahard time making eye contact.
And part of that was becausewhenever eye contact was
requested, it was, there waslike a problem.
They were in trouble orsomething.
In general, when they wanted toconnect, eye contact was being
averted.
(18:17):
But they were really into HarryPotter.
So I was like, okay, you gottastart slow with connecting.
If you don't wanna talk to themand they won't talk to you.
Do you have a stuffed owl?
That's Hedwig.
Great.
Tie a note to it.
Throw it at them.
You have a letter, and then workup from there.
And they're like, what?
I was like, yeah, then you'reconnecting.
It's not an in trouble thinganymore.
You're connecting.
And then slowly you can startincorporating, getting closer,
(18:38):
doing more eye contact games,doing some more.
So that way it's not all about,I need to talk to you and you're
in trouble.
So adding more of their interestin who they are.
But they're like, what's enough?
I know, just try it for a coupleof times and then we'll see.
And then we can build up fromthat and get, get into it.
So it's comfortable foreverybody.
(18:58):
I always tell people to I have awhat's called a two week rule
Where there's pushback and a lotof people tend to give up And
this is why I love having bothparents involved because they
have each other to just remindeach other about this Rule is
that you do this fun newactivity this fun new Technique
and the kids are like cool.
This is different than beingyelled at like i'll try this and
(19:20):
then it works for three or fourdays and then all of a sudden
for one to two days after thatThere's some pushback.
And then the parents usually gothis isn't working So we're
gonna stop and that's when I sayno.
No, that means it is workingIt's working because they're
testing you they want to see ifyou mean business Is this really
how things are and if so, thenyou got to double down and be
like, I mean It's really hardfor you, but this is still the
(19:40):
rule and then they're and thenafter that is when you see Like
a sweet spot of things reallychanging.
It's just human nature.
It takes two weeks withconsistency for real human
behavior change to occur.
And that's with everything.
Adults too.
Getting up at a new time everyday, starting a new workout
routine, all those things.
And with kids, if it's hittingand biting or whatever and then
you notice a, like a fallback orregression, it's not always a
(20:04):
true regression.
It's usually a testing phase tosee if if you're really gonna
hold the boundaries.
And a safe
Jason (20:09):
interesting.
You mentioned there was, yourhusband was away time where you
were, may have not been at your.
Meghan (20:17):
Nope.
Jason (20:18):
I just want to like, I don't know, like maybe normalize
that, especially in my wife herdad has been sick and I've been
home with both of our daughtersand man, there's times where I'm
like, Oh damn, Jason, you raisedyour voice there.
Obviously I'm striving to, Tonot do that but I don't know if
you have any thoughts, tips, orthings like that.
Meghan (20:41):
yeah.
I think I'm not aboveapologizing to my kids when I
mess up too.
I think modeling that is thebest thing we can do.
And I know there's some schoolof thoughts of that, that some
people think, No, don'tapologize, then that you'll seem
weaker or, that you, Whatever itis, but in reality, I want them
to know how to apologize and howto talk to me, too and I'll say,
like I Give the example of mydaughter came home from school.
(21:05):
I think something happened and Ididn't respond very well to it,
and part of that was because Iwas just frustrated, I didn't
know how to help her, and I wasjust felt sad inside, and I
wasn't able to filter that verywell, and so a day passed, and
she's older, so I wasn't she'seight now and I said, hey, that
thing happened after school, Ididn't handle that very well Do
you have any ideas of how Ishould handle that better next
(21:26):
time?
Because it wasn't your faultwhen I reacted that way.
And sometimes if you give themsome control over that she, it
was the sweetest thing.
She would just just hold my handand say, honey, we'll figure
this out.
And I was like, Oh, you'reright.
I should have just done thatbecause it was, it broke my
heart a little bit.
And I was like let's pretend wedid it a different way.
And let's role play.
That I handled it differently.
(21:46):
And how did, and then talk abouthow did that feel for you?
Was that better for you?
So not only apologizing, butalso showing in the moment, even
if it's not real, that happeningright then, you can show them
that I've learned from thismistake.
And this, I'm showing you thatthis is how to do it.
And even if it's pretend playyou're showing them, I listened
to you this is what it will looklike when I do it again.
So that they feel heard and seenand they know what to expect
(22:09):
next time.
Jason (22:10):
Wow.
That's so cool.
And also as a couples therapist,I can't help but think too,
they're aware of what they wantto need.
Because that often shows upsometimes to partners are not
aware of what they want to need.
And being able to have a voiceand receiving that cool stuff.
Meghan (22:27):
Play is pretty powerful it's not innate for everybody
either.
That's what's hard for it too isthat a lot of people don't find
joy from just from playing withtheir kid.
And I want to say that's okaybecause it's not always an
enjoyable experience.
Kids sometimes want you to do ita certain way.
And talk a certain way, and theywant you to do it the way they
(22:49):
want, and also, doesn't matter,you're doing it wrong.
It doesn't always, it's the mostfun experience, and when you're
not having fun with it, they canfeel that.
I have a list of, a huge list ofgames I always give parents to
play with that are quick, meantto be one to, Two to five
minutes long each that are goaloriented.
That's so you make, makes mefeel like, okay, this is for my
(23:09):
parenting.
I can do this.
And I'm also connecting with mykid at the same time.
And it won't last two hours onthe floor with trains or Legos.
So it's a design for people whoactually don't really enjoy
playing all the time.
Can get something out of it atthe same time.
Jason (23:21):
Yeah, I would love to see that list.
That's amazing.
Yeah, I noticed, too, with ourfive year old, we play, and then
we have all these rules, andthen, no, you can't do this, you
can't do that, and then it'sokay yeah, how am I supposed to
do?
Josie, what am I supposed to dohere with you?
Meghan (23:37):
It's supposed to be a warm body in the room doing
exactly what they want you todo.
Jason (23:40):
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
Also this is something that Istruggle with and I assume other
parents do as well.
When your kids get back fromschool, we pick our kid up from
school and I want to connectwith them.
And I'm always like, how wasyour day?
Good.
What do you have for lunchtoday?
(24:01):
I can't remember.
Do you have any like tips forthat or things?
All
Meghan (24:08):
Yeah.
Jason (24:09):
curious.
Meghan (24:10):
I think one, don't take it too personally too, because
they are, they have had a longday and they've held it together
all day for a teacher who theywant, who they respect and they
probably want to get respectback from them.
So they're trying their best todo that.
I pick up my kid at schoolsometimes and I'm like, who are
you?
This is not the kid I droppedoff.
And I check in with the teacherand I'm like, how was their day?
(24:31):
And they're like, they werefine.
I'm like, Oh, they're justholding it until me, the safe
person.
And so they might not have acapacity to tell you what they
did, who they played with oranything like that or what they
ate exactly.
So sometimes we have to get alittle bit more specific with
the questions.
Which is who did you play withat recess or who did you sit
next to at lunchtime to get themgoing into that?
(24:51):
Because kids usually are reallysocial and they will talk about
their friends more than theywill what they learned at school
Or what was your favorite thingyou what was your favorite
subject today?
Was it science or this or that?
And if they're still not givingit to you a little bit You might
have to wait a little bit oftime until later on in the
evening when they're just not asover overwhelmed by the day one
(25:12):
game I like to play at thedinner table, and you can play
this as young as...
It's three just verbal toteenagers is highs and lows.
Everyone goes on the table andsay, what was the high of your
day?
Like the best thing thathappened and what was the worst
thing that happened?
The low of your day and the lowcould be something also that's
high.
It just could be the lowesthigh.
It doesn't really matter if youdon't have a low, but I'm just
talking about that as a familyand everyone answers the
(25:34):
question too.
So it's not just putting yourkid on the spot.
You also have to come up withsomething too.
Jason (25:38):
I like that.
And I like the idea of giving ittime too, as well.
And that's interesting what yousaid, it's hey, they've been
holding it together all day.
Alright.
Meghan (25:48):
Yeah.
They've been sitting in a chairfor a long time with probably.
Minimal recess time because Ifeel like my kids either they
eat really well and they don'tplay or they eat nothing and
they play because they only havea certain amount of time at
their lunch and recess to eat,to have a snack and go join in
with their friends too.
So they could either be justphysically tired and hungry or
(26:09):
they did not have as much socialtime as they wanted to with
their friends.
Jason (26:13):
I'm just curious to, and this is something that my wife
and I are working with and, wedon't have the best of solution
is something that we're talkingabout, but do you have any,
ideas and I'm putting you on thespot because you'll probably
need more context.
siblings and sharing, right?
We have a five and a half yearold and a two year old and gosh,
(26:36):
someone will take something.
Like for example, it happenedthis morning.
We had these Halloweenflashlights, our two year old
daughter had it.
And then our five and a halfyear old said, I want that one.
But she was playing with it.
But then what our two year olddaughter does.
She'll almost taunt the five anda half year old say, this is
mine.
This is mine, Josie.
And part of me is like, allright, you're advocating for
yourself, but I don't know
Meghan (26:58):
But it feels like a taunt a little bit too.
It could be a little bit of
Jason (27:00):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Meghan (27:02):
it, but also yeah.
I think sometimes it helps tohave rules with the toys in your
house.
If you can, I know what,sometimes it's hard to have a
rule in the house toys causethey're everywhere all the time,
but if you have a certain spacefor them, it's also helps for
cleaning up too.
If you say there's a toy,especially the shared toys, if
there is a shelf that they go onor whatever and it's on that
(27:23):
shelf, it is open for you toplay with.
If it is in your hand or on theground, then it's not available
right now.
And, sometimes that means everynow and again you have to be
like, okay, look around andclean up.
But also, If it's on the groundand you've picked up a new toy,
you need to go get, go replaceit.
So that way you're not havingtoo many things at once.
Unless they're related.
Obviously, if all Legos aretogether, that's harder to do.
(27:44):
So having a rule like that orwhatever rule works for your
home, and then practicing thatrule, practicing what it's like.
And if your two and a half yearold might not be able to join in
on the roleplay as much maybethey, maybe she is.
But you can always pretend witha stuffed animal being a two and
a half year old.
And then your five year oldpretending, Oh, someone has my
toy and what would you do andhow would you handle that?
(28:05):
So that way they could practicetheir skills and what they would
say.
And then Twitch will have her bethe two and a half year old who
has a toy.
And what would a five year old,what would a five year old self
say to her and how would yourespond or what would you want
the two year old to do in thatcase?
And so just pretending differentsituations when everyone's
already calm and having a goodtime.
Not, when they're just beenscreaming about someone taking a
toy for that.
(28:25):
So I'd say role play and comingup with that sort of thing.
When my...
Kids were about that age, I wantto say, like three, two, two and
four and a half, or two and fivethree and five.
We created this little bin formy kids.
My younger one didn't care atthe time, but I called, we
called it the specials.
So it's this is a toy that's sospecial to you.
(28:46):
It is yours alone and it belongsin your special bin and you can
take it out of your special binand play with it And put it back
and no one else can touch it butI made sure to make that bin
small so that way they couldn'tjust be like everything's my
special now So just like makingit small and if everything
special to them isn't going tofit in there then we have to
choose what's special to youthis week And you know it you
(29:07):
can rotate it out to a littlebit To see so that way she has
some control over what is hersand making sure that no one's
going to get it I have that rolefor both kids.
That way they can do that.
Unless they are agreeing toshare together, but in general,
I will say it is really fun agedifference to have my kids, they
do fight a lot, but they alsoplay together a lot, really well
(29:27):
too.
Jason (29:28):
Yeah, that's good.
No, I like the idea of even justsome rules.
But also the play, what if shedoes have it?
What do you do?
And then switch the roles.
I really liked that.
Basically, playful parentingcoach.
I like the creativity of it,
Meghan (29:45):
it's hard to think of in the spot sometimes, but it could
be fun.
Jason (29:48):
Yeah, that's great.
Instead of having a lecturelet's sit down and you can't do
this.
You can do this.
And they're not really listeninganyway.
Yeah.
How cool.
And I just want to like.
Share to the idea of drawing, wetalked about that drawing when
you're frustrated and gosh, wegot away from it.
But one time I our five year olddid that she drew the sad face
(30:13):
because at the time she wantedto read to our two year old, and
the two year old wasn't payingattention, and she got really
frustrated and she left, but shecame back and had a drawing that
was sad, and I was like, oh mygosh, Josie, this is so cool,
but I just wanted to highlightthat what you mentioned, I love
the idea of drawing, especiallyfeelings.
Meghan (30:35):
It's so cool because it's also their it's like their
pre journaling, right?
And that's something that wevalue as adults is journaling a
lot.
And this happened to mydaughter.
She we lost a cat a couple ofyears ago to a car and they
witnessed the whole thing.
It was really horrendous.
It's terrible.
And she had a really hard timewith it.
And big, huge feelings, schoolcounselor feelings.
(30:57):
Like we had to talk to a lot ofpeople about it to make sure
that she was supported in everyway possible.
And we did a lot of role playsabout it.
And I don't talk about a wholelot with these with other
parents, because I don't want tosay Oh, play will fix that kind
of trauma.
Cause it doesn't always fix thatkind of trauma.
So we did go and see otherpeople as well, but we practice
at home a little bit of whathappened with the cat and did a
little role play with that.
(31:17):
at the end of that role play.
Cause in her mind, she doesn'tknow what happened after the cat
went to the vet.
So she wanted some more context.
She was smiling at the end ofthat role play and she goes, why
am I smiling so big mama?
I haven't smiled in a long time.
And I was like, maybe you gotsomething out of your body.
You have more room for smilesnow.
And she goes, maybe it was sopowerful.
And then I want to say threeweeks.
(31:38):
Four weeks later, we found, Ifound a drawing on her desk that
was a cat that had tears, and itsaid meow, and there was a car
right there, and I showed myhusband, and he was like, Oh no,
this is terrible, she's stillupset about it, and I was like,
no, this is great she's notstuffing it inside anymore, she
found an outlet, she didn't hideit somewhere, it was on her desk
I was sharing because I wasexcited about it.
I'm sad she's still sad, but I'mglad that she has an outlet for
(32:00):
it and has a place to put it.
So I think too, for anyone who'slistening too, who might see
some drawings or something thatmight make them feel like, Oh
no, what's going on with my kid?
Are they okay?
You can talk to them about it,but also just know that this is
their way of processing andthat's a good thing.
Get it out a little bit.
Jason (32:16):
That's great.
Question to put you, on thespot, and you can pass.
You mentioned your husband.
What do you two do to stay,connected or stay sane?
Meghan (32:26):
Yes.
Yeah.
What do we do connected to StaySane Together?
We're we're playful together alot.
We joke around a lot together.
And we try to play family gameswith the kids when we can
together and have our kind ofinside jokes at the same time
while they're playing.
They have no idea we're talking,but they're like stop it guys.
And we're like, sorry.
And we we do sometimes we get ina rut where we're just like,
(32:49):
sitting on the couch after thekids go to bed and we watch TV,
a little bit, and then we go tobed.
But we did buy some games for usto play just for us.
One game was called, it's calledcrime city.
It's a kind of a silly, likedetective little game, but it's
20 minutes or something likethat.
So just having, spending time tobe like, okay, let's connect
together and play this.
It's just something different toswitch it up a little bit is
(33:09):
just, is nice and we don't haveextended family here to get date
nights away very often.
Sometimes we have our kids go tosleepovers every now and again.
We'll have like our kids go toan overnight sleepover and we
get the house to ourselves to dowhatever.
If you don't want to go out andspend money on dinner, then
we'll just.
Stay at home and do that.
And then we'll swap with ourfriends and take their kids for
(33:30):
a night to do that.
Jason (33:32):
yeah.
That's a great idea.
Meghan (33:33):
But yeah, we try to get to to connect in that way.
But in the end we just talk alot as, as much as we can about,
about whatever.
And we needed that this weekbecause he was gone for five
days backpacking, so no serviceat all.
I couldn't even text him.
And then when he got back, hesaid he was exposed to a friend
who had COVID.
And so we were like, and now youhave to quarantine in the house.
(33:56):
Like over there.
So it was a rough, it was arough week for us, but we ended
up having to really make time tohave a conversation once we were
all in the clear and be like, Ifelt really disconnected and he
did too.
And so we just had a moment tobe like, at least we're on the
same page with ourdisconnection, but there wasn't
a whole lot we could do about itin the moment, except for, try
to keep ourselves healthy at thesame time.
Jason (34:19):
Yeah, I like that it just we don't have to overcomplicate
it.
You know this we talk a lot,right?
That's my wife and I do we tryto you know, talk a lot It could
be about our daughters could beabout just our day.
It could be deeper stuff as wellBut even you know times when we
feel disconnected Justmentioning it can create
(34:42):
connection.
Oh, I feel that too.
And then ideally, okay, what canwe do about it?
We started because we startedtalking about it.
Meghan (34:51):
Exactly.
Exactly.
Yeah.
One thing, too, we used to do alot, and we probably need to
connect more on this, too, isonce a week, once every couple
weeks, we would check in witheach other about our how we were
feeling over two areas.
Are we feeling emotionallyconnected to each other?
Are we feeling physicallyconnected to each other?
How are we doing in thosethings?
And do we need improvement inthose areas?
Because they go together, a lotof the times it's not just one
(35:13):
or the other.
When we do talk, it's do youfeel like that we're connected
physically and emotionally andvice versa?
Do I feel that way to you too?
And make sure we're on the samepage.
Jason (35:22):
Yeah, that's great.
The mission of the podcast too,it's having a great relationship
helps us be better parents.
And yeah, and I just want toreiterate again, my wife and I,
one thing that we connect overis our parenting.
We're both pretty intentional.
We're both therapists typepeople and we dedicated to maybe
(35:44):
doing a little.
Bit different than our parents,you know, If someone wants to
work with you, how do they dothat?
How do they work with thePlayful Parenting Coach?
Meghan (35:54):
You can find me on Instagram or on Facebook at the
playful parenting coach.
I also have a free, uh, Facebooksupport group called the
judgment free parent zone, whereyou can ask questions every
Monday on a free Q and a thread.
You can also find me atmeganenglert.
com.
That's M E G H A N E N G L E R Tdot com.
(36:18):
And from there, you can book afree call with me.
I do free 20 minute consults,talking about whatever you need
to talk about at the time, whereI will either refer you out,
give you a quick tip, or signyou up for my program.
Jason (36:30):
Megan, I'm looking forward to incorporating more
play with our kids.
Hey, this has been truly helpfulfor me.
And thank you so much for yourtime.
Hey there.
Thank you so much for listening.
And if you liked this.
Please give us a good review andshare this with someone who
could benefit from thisinformation again thank you so
much for listening
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