Solving Disconnection & Creating Connected Relationships (for Couples & Parents)

47: What is Playful Parenting & How You Can Have More Fun Being a Parent? With Meghan Englert

• Jason Polk

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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

What is playful parenting and how can you have more fun being a parent? Today, I'm joined with Megan angler, who is a therapy. Therapist and a playful parenting coach and she'll answer those questions in. This episode. Megan helps. Us parents bond more and battle less. Yes. She shares how she decided. To incorporate, play into her parenting. As a way to really get through to her kids. Kids while having fun. And they call a side note she got on the same page with their husband to create a more Collaborative and less stressed family environment Welcome everyone this is healthy relationships tickets for parents the podcast have saved your relationship from parenthood My mission is to help parents have a thriving relationship And be great parents at the same time my name is jason Polk and i've worked exclusively with couples as a therapist and coach for over nine years on this podcast i share my experience professionally and personally as well as those of our amazing guests without further ado let's get right into our talk with megan

Jason:

I wanted to have you on because your title is the playful parenting coach and just that title in and of itself Sounds awesome. Can you tell us about that? Tell us about what you do?

Meghan:

Yeah, it's a fun title, and I don't even know where it exactly came from. It, I think one day just came to me 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 play therapist. I used to do play therapy with kids and families all the time. Because as as a therapist, when kids come to your office and they talk about things and they need to get need to process something. They're not going to lie on a tiny couch and put their feet up and talk about like how their mother was a narcissist and all these things. They're not going to talk about those things with words. They're going to use toys and play them out. And so because I truly believe that play is our very first language, that's how we learn to manipulate things, how we learn to interact with the world and with the people in it. That's what I like to gravitate to is play and using that to help parents get their needs met, meet their parenting goals, and also just get through the different childhood challenges with a little bit of fun. And my tagline, I like to say is bond more, battle less. With the play, we're still setting boundaries, we're still creating safety, we'll start learning something, but we're doing it while laughing and connecting together.

Jason:

nice and then so you work with Parents, correct? Okay,

Meghan:

I teach them the techniques to work with their kids.

Jason:

Okay. And do you normally have, parents together? Or is it individual? Or just depends?

Meghan:

It really depends on the dynamic in the house. Sometimes I have worked with parents who are separated and sometimes they want to work on things on their own. The more I can get people together. The better, the results are, because when they're on the same page, it just goes so much better. When everything's on the same page, too, sometimes I even talk to teachers or other therapists that I'm working with, that we're all doing the exact same thing, and everything's consistent, so it's not confusing for the child, whatever goal we're working on and whatever, techniques that we're using. But I, I found the best results when more than one caregiver is together for the sessions. If possible. If it's not possible, we record the sessions and I send it out to whoever hasn't, wasn't there for that session and then we can have questions answered after that. But having them part of the plan is really helpful.

Jason:

and just so I know your tagline you said bond more battle less,

Meghan:

Yes.

Jason:

okay That's great. And then yeah, so you obviously you're talking about bonding more with your kids But I also assume this is what I make up and this is the mission of our podcast. I Assume you're not against parents bonding as a couple

Meghan:

Oh, absolutely. No, that's all part of it. Bonding as a family with your kids for sure. Because when you're doing a playful technique with your child to meet whatever parenting goal that you have you're a team working together, doing that together. And you're bonding with your child at the same time. There are definitely some things that you can do one on one with your child so you get those times as well. And sometimes some games and some activities you can do as a family unit as well.

Jason:

In the pre, interview you mentioned being like a united front like having a plan that you can agree on. And, can you talk about that?

Meghan:

Yeah, for sure. For sure. Yeah. An example I think we gave when we talked about this was with my daughter and sleep coaching. And as a prime example of, it's not a playful plan exactly, but it was a time where we needed to be united front. And for backstory, my daughter was in the NICU for a while and she had seizures, but when she left the hospital, they stopped. However, in my mom brain, I was like, I can't. I can't stop thinking about that, that entry into life for her was really difficult. And she wasn't sleeping like at all. She was waking up six or seven times a night. She wasn't napping maybe 20 minutes a day. She only wanted to be on our bodies in a carrier, upright, bouncing to sleep. And obviously that wasn't working out for her benefit. I wasn't working out for our relationship as parents, as a couple, it wasn't working out as a family unit either. No one was sleeping. Everyone was grumpy. And we need to do something, but because of her health history, I was afraid to just go in on sleep coaching without having a plan that made sense and talk, talking it through. And we did, to be fair, we tried it on our own first kind of go in and check on her when we could, situation and then back away, but we were doing it in different ways and it was confusing her and it was making the sleep cycle worse. We thought we communicated about what we needed to do, and we thought we were on the same page, but we just weren't. So having a third party, who was a sleep consultant that we work with, creating a plan for us that was written down, so we can see step one, you do this, step two, you do this, step three, just all those things, and we're doing it at the exact same time, and having her to go back to be like, we did it this way, is that okay? And she's oh, yeah, that's fine. It was a pick up, put down method that we used together, but we did the exact same plan and within a week, she was sleeping through the night, 12 hours and then napping, caught up afterwards. And she was finally, and then she ate better. She actually started getting weight better. She was happier. We were all much happier after that. And from that moment, I learned okay, so we think we're on the same page. But we really have to talk together about our parenting plan to really assure ourselves that we're on the same page. And since then, and also because it's also what I do when we create a plan for our kids, like my son at three was just screaming all the time for no reason in particular, just like the sound of his own voice. But it was really hard. We made a plan for when he made those screaming sounds and I wrote it down, I wrote the whole thing down. I check with him first. Does that sound good to you? We practice it as a whole family. What to do when you scream. We pretended he was upset. that and all those things just so he could see what the plan was. And then I don't even know where that plan is anymore. We made it to four without having to use the screaming plan anymore. So it ended up working but before then we were doing different things. We were like, I would say, if you need to scream, go scream into a pillow or, and he was saying, stop screaming or, ask a different way. So we weren't being consistent with how we were approaching the plan. And when we created a playful plan with that as a family too. Making it more fun, and we laughed about it, and got silly. And also, of course, number one, being on the same page, it really panned out.

Jason:

Yeah. That's great. Can you share,'cause I am, I'm so curious an example of the playful plan.'cause it seems like you mentioned role playing, you have family meetings

Meghan:

yes! Playful plans are really fun. I generally create plans over three... different areas. So one is practicing new skills. Maybe that's something they need to work on if it's potty training or just coping skills in general or conflict resolution, sibling conflict resolution specifically also too. Another one is prepping for upcoming changes. If something's coming up that they need to get ready for, your kid has a hard time with transitions. Like changing to a new school, or you're welcoming a new sibling, you're about to start soccer and that makes you nervous, things like that. Or processing big feelings like tantrums and other kinds of transitions. And for younger kids, big feelings doesn't have to be a huge trauma. It can be, how dare you give me that banana already peeled. I wanted to do that. And then there's this huge thing about it. So those are the different kinds of ways. To, that you'd want to create a playful plan and I tend to go with four different ways of doing that. So one is a role play. So an example of that is when my son was having separation anxiety from kindergarten and the reason he had that was because I was allowed to volunteer 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, I did not see it coming. It just was like out of nowhere we started having this problem with drop off. And we tried a couple different things, like having a ritual, reassuring him, all those things weren't working. So it's time to use play now. So we, at home, At a neutral time, not when he was just about to go to school, a time where he wasn't already high with anxiety, we would pretend the school drop off. And so he, we decided there's some inanimate object was the teacher and I would go drop him off and we would pretend our ritual and he would drop off and see what it was like. And then usually for those types of things, they do really well, right? Cause it's pretend and it's play and it's fun and it's, there's no strings attached to that. So I always switch roles with him. 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'm going to give you a hard time this time, because sometimes you don't like me enough at that school, so I'm going to pretend that. And I might be really silly with that. So I give him that ahead of time so he doesn't think I'm making fun of him. And he's also the personality that... it goes well with. Yeah, he likes to laugh. And so I would hang on his leg and I would, scream and he'd laugh really hard. And the laughter is so important because that breaks tension about whatever's going on. And so I would say things like Oh, I don't have any friends at school. And he would reassure me, you have so many friends and he would name them. And then I would say, I'm not going to learn anything. Why would I go? And he goes to a dual immersion school. So he goes you're learning Spanish. You're learning all the time. What do you mean? So he was feeding me some of the lines that I was like, okay, so these are the kind of things that he'd like to hear when I do drop offs. I'm learning from him at the same time. And he's reassuring me, and then also, he just, and then he drops me off, and then I have a good day, and he gets to see what it's like as a parent to walk away, how that goes, and also reinforce the role, the rules of, this is our ritual, this is what we do every morning, and he gets to be in charge of that, so he gets to know the rules really well. So we did that one to two minutes, that's it. And I, got, dad involved too, and sister involved too, we all just played together, so we could openly talk about this problem that we were having. And then I think within a week to two weeks, I always say I give it two weeks to know if it's really working. It, he was dropping off just fine. And it really helped to have that. And now and again, when he has a hard time, I don't want to go to school. I'll miss you. And I'm like, Oh, should we practice drop off? And he goes, no, I'm done with that. I'm fine. I'll go, cause sometimes he's just over it. So that's one example of what a role play could be. And one thing that's hard sometimes is kids at a certain age, they get free will, right? They realize that they have ability to control their behaviors, and that's sometimes the only thing that they can control. So in those situations, I do what I call performance, where I take stuffed animals or puppets. Or if I have nothing, I've even used my fingers to act out what's going on and pretend play, whatever's happening. And that's when we get everyone involved too, because he's doesn't want to do it, then we'll do a show for you and we'll act out different things. And you'll usually see the peanut gallery going, no, I wouldn't do it that way, telling us what to do. And we're like, okay. So it's just a much more. fun way to talk about things rather than lecturing them about what's going on and it ends up paying off way faster in that way. And the other two ways I like to practice play is can transition into older kids too and just switching it up is storytelling, which is a form of play in my opinion. Once a time, once upon a little boy who didn't want to go to school and he, when he went there, he realized he had all these friends and he played this game and that game and, just painting a picture of what's going on. And when he was sad, he took a deep breath. And then art is another way to process stuff, too. My daughter's huge into drawing and writing, and so when she's having a hard time even talking to me, she goes, I don't know what's wrong, I don't know what's wrong. I'll hand her a piece of paper and a pen, and I'll write it down and then tell me, and that calms her down immediately. And also, art sometimes, too, you were really mad at your brother this morning. You were so mad he took your toy. What does that feeling look like? Can you draw it for me? And so she'll draw a picture and ask, okay, now let's take some deep breaths. And what does it look like now? Has it changed? And just get them in tune with their own bodies and things like that. And when everybody in the family, all the caregivers are on board with that plan. And the kids feel really supported because they know that you're going to work with them on it versus just tell them what to do or lecture them until. They're blue in the face.

Jason:

That's, I don't know, lack of a better word, sounds so amazing. This is what I've been learning too, is that, the state of mind that kids, perform best in is like play, right? Is the kid's state of mind, just like anyone, I'm sure they're not really big on being lectured, right? And,

Meghan:

because I realized like these techniques that we're doing with them, just gentle parenting, which in my mind is just parenting with boundaries and safety but respectfully so that you can show them respect and 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's six and I was so humbled. He came up to me, I think it was five minutes later. And he goes, he calls it my sharp voice. He's mom, you use your sharp voice with me and I hurt my feelings. I didn't like it. And when you use your sharp voice, it makes me feel like I'm allowed to use a sharp voice and I know I can't, so you need to pick a different way. And I was just like, yes. You're right. I do. Like how about instead I just touch you gently on the shoulder if I've said it too many times and I whisper it because then you'll know I'm serious and then I'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 bad for snapping, but I also was like, okay, we're doing something right. Because he feels comfortable enough to come up to me and tell me that I hurt his feelings and that we need to problem solve together. To make it work. So I was really amazed and excited about that, aside from feeling guilty. I was really guilty, but I was like you know what? I needed that humbling moment myself.

Jason:

Yeah, for sure. Even the fact that he was able to share how he was feeling with you, right?

Meghan:

His mom

Jason:

I would say be obviously I'm a therapist too. And just like that ability, that space as a kid to be a, be aware of your feelings. And then B, feel comfortable enough to share it. Obviously, that's huge.

Meghan:

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's just some things are coming a little bit easier to him too and he's being able to express some things about Yeah. Like the other day, too, what did he say? He said Oh, yeah, he's in the booster seat. My body needs to unbuckle, mom. It just needs to unbuckle really bad. I can't, I don't know if I can stop it. And I was like, we're getting on the freeway, buddy. These are the reasons why you should keep it on. He goes, okay, I'll try. So he's working on impulse control and being able to talk about that a little bit of it. Talking about it a little bit more too, which is great. So these games for his personality, role playing, performing, being silly, telling stories, that's all his wheelhouse. Versus my daughter, who's more of a, cause he's more of a ruminator, he talks about things a lot. And she's more of a stuffer. So we have to be a little bit more strategic about getting her to process things and get things out a little bit. And that's why I always like to say, if you can't get to the bottom of using play to talk to professional, whether it's me or someone else about like, how do I get to this the root of what's going on with them and how do I do that with play and based on their strengths, their interest in who they are. And that's when I love having both parents input because both parents know their kids and sometimes they have a different take on their own kid as well.

Jason:

.My wife and I, when we started getting on the same page in regards to parenting, it was like a really cool experience for us and it brought us closer. And we had the template. Okay. When our daughter does this, we know what to do. We have united front, but do you have people who are not united front or be like, Oh, yeah. I don't want to do that silly stuff. My kid's not doing that. I don't know if he had... I assume if he had the experience, he probably wouldn't want to work with them. But,

Meghan:

they might want to work with me either

Jason:

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, the better way to put it.

Meghan:

That does happen sometimes and there are times too where I'll get I'll, they'll be like they're not going to do that when they have a tantrum, or whatever. I said, I like doing a calm down box is what I call it. I've created this little like shoe box or toolbox of things and we put different things in there a stress ball that they make together, some bubbles a phone book. I don't know if people get phone books still. They're great to rip up when you're mad. That's the only thing they're good at anymore is that journals and things like that. So we create that and they're like, my kid's not going to use it. Go use a calm down box when they're upset. What do you mean? I was like that's why you use play to practice it. You pretend you're upset. You do these things and use the calm down box. You, I'm so proud of you for doing that. You do all these things and you do this so they can practice. You don't just be like, here's your tools by, you have to actually. If you have any questions or comments, leave them in the 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 kids To do that too, but I do get sometimes pushed back on different I have really weird ideas sometimes about different things too and they're like you want me to do what? I think there was one, it was an eight year old, or nine year old at the time, she was having a hard time making eye contact. And part of that was because whenever eye contact was requested, it was, there was like a problem. They were in trouble or something. In general, when they wanted to connect, eye contact was being averted. But they were really into Harry Potter. So I was like, okay, you gotta start slow with connecting. If you don't wanna talk to them and 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 work up from there. And they're like, what? I was like, yeah, then you're connecting. It's not an in trouble thing anymore. You're connecting. And then slowly you can start incorporating, getting closer, 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 interest in who they are. But they're like, what's enough? I know, just try it for a couple of times and then we'll see. And then we can build up from that and get, get into it. So it's comfortable for everybody. I always tell people to I have a what's called a two week rule Where there's pushback and a lot of people tend to give up And this is why I love having both parents involved because they have each other to just remind each other about this Rule is that you do this fun new activity this fun new Technique and the kids are like cool. This is different than being yelled at like i'll try this and then it works for three or four days and then all of a sudden for one to two days after that There's some pushback. And then the parents usually go this isn't working So we're gonna stop and that's when I say no. No, that means it is working It's working because they're testing you they want to see if you mean business Is this really how things are and if so, then you got to double down and be like, I mean It's really hard for you, but this is still the rule and then they're and then after that is when you see Like a sweet spot of things really changing. It's just human nature. It takes two weeks with consistency for real human behavior change to occur. And that's with everything. Adults too. Getting up at a new time every day, starting a new workout routine, all those things. And with kids, if it's hitting and biting or whatever and then you notice a, like a fallback or regression, it's not always a true regression. It's usually a testing phase to see if if you're really gonna hold the boundaries. And a safe

Jason:

interesting. You mentioned there was, your husband was away time where you were, may have not been at your.

Meghan:

Nope.

Jason:

I just want to like, I don't know, like maybe normalize that, especially in my wife her dad has been sick and I've been home with both of our daughters and man, there's times where I'm like, Oh damn, Jason, you raised your voice there. Obviously I'm striving to, To not do that but I don't know if you have any thoughts, tips, or things like that.

Meghan:

yeah. I think I'm not above apologizing to my kids when I mess up too. I think modeling that is the best thing we can do. And I know there's some school of thoughts of that, that some people think, No, don't apologize, then that you'll seem weaker or, that you, Whatever it is, but in reality, I want them to know how to apologize and how to talk to me, too and I'll say, like I Give the example of my daughter came home from school. I think something happened and I didn't respond very well to it, and part of that was because I was just frustrated, I didn't know how to help her, and I was just felt sad inside, and I wasn't able to filter that very well, and so a day passed, and she's older, so I wasn't she's eight now and I said, hey, that thing happened after school, I didn't handle that very well Do you have any ideas of how I should handle that better next time? Because it wasn't your fault when I reacted that way. And sometimes if you give them some control over that she, it was the sweetest thing. She would just just hold my hand and say, honey, we'll figure this out. And I was like, Oh, you're right. I should have just done that because it was, it broke my heart a little bit. And I was like let's pretend we did it a different way. And let's role play. That I handled it differently. And how did, and then talk about how did that feel for you? Was that better for you? So not only apologizing, but also showing in the moment, even if it's not real, that happening right then, you can show them that I've learned from this mistake. And this, I'm showing you that this is how to do it. And even if it's pretend play you're showing them, I listened to you this is what it will look like when I do it again. So that they feel heard and seen and they know what to expect next time.

Jason:

Wow. That's so cool. And also as a couples therapist, I can't help but think too, they're aware of what they want to need. Because that often shows up sometimes to partners are not aware of what they want to need. And being able to have a voice and receiving that cool stuff.

Meghan:

Play is pretty powerful it's not innate for everybody either. That's what's hard for it too is that a lot of people don't find joy from just from playing with their kid. And I want to say that's okay because it's not always an enjoyable experience. Kids sometimes want you to do it a certain way. And talk a certain way, and they want you to do it the way they want, and also, doesn't matter, you're doing it wrong. It doesn't always, it's the most fun experience, and when you're not having fun with it, they can feel that. I have a list of, a huge list of games I always give parents to play with that are quick, meant to be one to, Two to five minutes long each that are goal oriented. That's so you make, makes me feel like, okay, this is for my parenting. I can do this. And I'm also connecting with my kid at the same time. And it won't last two hours on the floor with trains or Legos. So it's a design for people who actually don't really enjoy playing all the time. Can get something out of it at the same time.

Jason:

Yeah, I would love to see that list. That's amazing. Yeah, I noticed, too, with our five year old, we play, and then we have all these rules, and then, no, you can't do this, you can't do that, and then it's okay yeah, how am I supposed to do? Josie, what am I supposed to do here with you?

Meghan:

It's supposed to be a warm body in the room doing exactly what they want you to do.

Jason:

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Also this is something that I struggle with and I assume other parents do as well. When your kids get back from school, we pick our kid up from school and I want to connect with them. And I'm always like, how was your day? Good. What do you have for lunch today? I can't remember. Do you have any like tips for that or things? All

Meghan:

Yeah.

Jason:

curious.

Meghan:

I think one, don't take it too personally too, because they are, they have had a long day and they've held it together all day for a teacher who they want, who they respect and they probably want to get respect back from them. So they're trying their best to do that. I pick up my kid at school sometimes and I'm like, who are you? This is not the kid I dropped off. And I check in with the teacher and I'm like, how was their day? And they're like, they were fine. I'm like, Oh, they're just holding it until me, the safe person. And so they might not have a capacity to tell you what they did, who they played with or anything like that or what they ate exactly. So sometimes we have to get a little bit more specific with the questions. Which is who did you play with at recess or who did you sit next to at lunchtime to get them going into that? Because kids usually are really social and they will talk about their friends more than they will what they learned at school Or what was your favorite thing you what was your favorite subject today? Was it science or this or that? And if they're still not giving it to you a little bit You might have to wait a little bit of time until later on in the evening when they're just not as over overwhelmed by the day one game I like to play at the dinner table, and you can play this as young as... It's three just verbal to teenagers is highs and lows. Everyone goes on the table and say, what was the high of your day? Like the best thing that happened and what was the worst thing that happened? The low of your day and the low could be something also that's high. It just could be the lowest high. It doesn't really matter if you don't have a low, but I'm just talking about that as a family and everyone answers the question too. So it's not just putting your kid on the spot. You also have to come up with something too.

Jason:

I like that. And I like the idea of giving it time too, as well. And that's interesting what you said, it's hey, they've been holding it together all day. Alright.

Meghan:

Yeah. They've been sitting in a chair for a long time with probably. Minimal recess time because I feel like my kids either they eat really well and they don't play or they eat nothing and they play because they only have a 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 just physically tired and hungry or they did not have as much social time as they wanted to with their friends.

Jason:

I'm just curious to, and this is something that my wife and I are working with and, we don't have the best of solution is something that we're talking about, but do you have any, ideas and I'm putting you on the spot because you'll probably need more context. siblings and sharing, right? We have a five and a half year old and a two year old and gosh, someone will take something. Like for example, it happened this morning. We had these Halloween flashlights, our two year old daughter had it. And then our five and a half year old said, I want that one. But she was playing with it. But then what our two year old daughter does. She'll almost taunt the five and a half year old say, this is mine. This is mine, Josie. And part of me is like, all right, you're advocating for yourself, but I don't know

Meghan:

But it feels like a taunt a little bit too. It could be a little bit of

Jason:

Yeah. Yeah.

Meghan:

it, but also yeah. I think sometimes it helps to have 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 cause they're everywhere all the time, but if you have a certain space for 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 on or whatever and it's on that shelf, it is open for you to play with. If it is in your hand or on the ground, then it's not available right now. And, sometimes that means every now and again you have to be like, okay, look around and clean up. But also, If it's on the ground and you've picked up a new toy, you need to go get, go replace it. So that way you're not having too many things at once. Unless they're related. Obviously, if all Legos are together, that's harder to do. So having a rule like that or whatever rule works for your home, and then practicing that rule, practicing what it's like. And if your two and a half year old might not be able to join in on the roleplay as much maybe they, maybe she is. But you can always pretend with a stuffed animal being a two and a half year old. And then your five year old pretending, Oh, someone has my toy and what would you do and how would you handle that? So that way they could practice their skills and what they would say. And then Twitch will have her be the 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 you respond or what would you want the two year old to do in that case? And so just pretending different situations when everyone's already calm and having a good time. Not, when they're just been screaming about someone taking a toy for that. So I'd say role play and coming up with that sort of thing. When my... Kids were about that age, I want to say, like three, two, two and four and a half, or two and five three and five. We created this little bin for my kids. My younger one didn't care at the time, but I called, we called it the specials. So it's this is a toy that's so special to you. It is yours alone and it belongs in your special bin and you can take it out of your special bin and play with it And put it back and no one else can touch it but I made sure to make that bin small so that way they couldn't just be like everything's my special now So just like making it small and if everything special to them isn't going to fit in there then we have to choose what's special to you this week And you know it you can rotate it out to a little bit To see so that way she has some control over what is hers and making sure that no one's going to get it I have that role for both kids. That way they can do that. Unless they are agreeing to share together, but in general, I will say it is really fun age difference to have my kids, they do fight a lot, but they also play together a lot, really well too.

Jason:

Yeah, that's good. No, I like the idea of even just some rules. But also the play, what if she does have it? What do you do? And then switch the roles. I really liked that. Basically, playful parenting coach. I like the creativity of it,

Meghan:

it's hard to think of in the spot sometimes, but it could be fun.

Jason:

Yeah, that's great. Instead of having a lecture let's sit down and you can't do this. You can do this. And they're not really listening anyway. Yeah. How cool. And I just want to like. Share to the idea of drawing, we talked about that drawing when you're frustrated and gosh, we got away from it. But one time I our five year old did that she drew the sad face because at the time she wanted to read to our two year old, and the two year old wasn't paying attention, and she got really frustrated and she left, but she came back and had a drawing that was sad, and I was like, oh my gosh, Josie, this is so cool, but I just wanted to highlight that what you mentioned, I love the idea of drawing, especially feelings.

Meghan:

It's so cool because it's also their it's like their pre journaling, right? And that's something that we value as adults is journaling a lot. And this happened to my daughter. She we lost a cat a couple of years ago to a car and they witnessed the whole thing. It was really horrendous. It's terrible. And she had a really hard time with it. And big, huge feelings, school counselor feelings. Like we had to talk to a lot of people about it to make sure that she was supported in every way possible. And we did a lot of role plays about it. And I don't talk about a whole lot with these with other parents, because I don't want to say Oh, play will fix that kind of trauma. Cause it doesn't always fix that kind of trauma. So we did go and see other people as well, but we practice at home a little bit of what happened with the cat and did a little role play with that. at the end of that role play. Cause in her mind, she doesn't know what happened after the cat went to the vet. So she wanted some more context. She was smiling at the end of that 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 got something out of your body. You have more room for smiles now. And she goes, maybe it was so powerful. And then I want to say three weeks. Four weeks later, we found, I found a drawing on her desk that was a cat that had tears, and it said meow, and there was a car right there, and I showed my husband, and he was like, Oh no, this is terrible, she's still upset about it, and I was like, no, this is great she's not stuffing it inside anymore, she found an outlet, she didn't hide it somewhere, it was on her desk I was sharing because I was excited about it. I'm sad she's still sad, but I'm glad that she has an outlet for it and has a place to put it. So I think too, for anyone who's listening too, who might see some drawings or something that might 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 and that's a good thing. Get it out a little bit.

Jason:

That's great. Question to put you, on the spot, and you can pass. You mentioned your husband. What do you two do to stay, connected or stay sane?

Meghan:

Yes. Yeah. What do we do connected to Stay Sane Together? We're we're playful together a lot. We joke around a lot together. And we try to play family games with the kids when we can together and have our kind of inside 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 in a rut where we're just like, sitting on the couch after the kids go to bed and we watch TV, a little bit, and then we go to bed. But we did buy some games for us to play just for us. One game was called, it's called crime city. It's a kind of a silly, like detective little game, but it's 20 minutes or something like that. So just having, spending time to be like, okay, let's connect together and play this. It's just something different to switch it up a little bit is just, is nice and we don't have extended family here to get date nights away very often. Sometimes we have our kids go to sleepovers every now and again. We'll have like our kids go to an overnight sleepover and we get the house to ourselves to do whatever. If you don't want to go out and spend money on dinner, then we'll just. Stay at home and do that. And then we'll swap with our friends and take their kids for a night to do that.

Jason:

yeah. That's a great idea.

Meghan:

But yeah, we try to get to to connect in that way. But in the end we just talk a lot as, as much as we can about, about whatever. And we needed that this week because he was gone for five days backpacking, so no service at all. I couldn't even text him. And then when he got back, he said he was exposed to a friend who had COVID. And so we were like, and now you have to quarantine in the house. Like over there. So it was a rough, it was a rough week for us, but we ended up having to really make time to have a conversation once we were all in the clear and be like, I felt really disconnected and he did too. And so we just had a moment to be like, at least we're on the same page with our disconnection, but there wasn't a whole lot we could do about it in the moment, except for, try to keep ourselves healthy at the same time.

Jason:

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 try to you know, talk a lot It could be about our daughters could be about just our day. It could be deeper stuff as well But even you know times when we feel disconnected Just mentioning it can create connection. Oh, I feel that too. And then ideally, okay, what can we do about it? We started because we started talking about it.

Meghan:

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. One thing, too, we used to do a lot, and we probably need to connect more on this, too, is once a week, once every couple weeks, we would check in with each other about our how we were feeling over two areas. Are we feeling emotionally connected to each other? Are we feeling physically connected to each other? How are we doing in those things? And do we need improvement in those areas? Because they go together, a lot of the times it's not just one or the other. When we do talk, it's do you feel like that we're connected physically and emotionally and vice versa? Do I feel that way to you too? And make sure we're on the same page.

Jason:

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 to reiterate again, my wife and I, one thing that we connect over is our parenting. We're both pretty intentional. We're both therapists type people and we dedicated to maybe doing a little. Bit different than our parents, you know, If someone wants to work with you, how do they do that? How do they work with the Playful Parenting Coach?

Meghan:

You can find me on Instagram or on Facebook at the playful parenting coach. I also have a free, uh, Facebook support group called the judgment free parent zone, where you can ask questions every Monday on a free Q and a thread. You can also find me at meganenglert. com. That's M E G H A N E N G L E R T dot com. And from there, you can book a free call with me. I do free 20 minute consults, talking about whatever you need to talk about at the time, where I will either refer you out, give you a quick tip, or sign you up for my program.

Jason:

Megan, I'm looking forward to incorporating more play with our kids. Hey, this has been truly helpful for me. And thank you so much for your time.

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