The Playful Parent: 7 ways to happier, calmer, more creative days with your under-fives. Julia Deering

The Playful Parent: 7 ways to happier, calmer, more creative days with your under-fives

your children master the art of de-coating, make it an automatic next step for them to try to remember to hang it up. Putting up special pegs at their height could be a reward for being so big and grown up. Offer an incentive, a playful activity, once the arriving home jobs have been done. This can be a real motivator for children of all ages; it’s a playful example of the When/Then technique: when they’ve put away their shoes, then they can play with some play dough.

As your child approaches school age, or when you feel they are ready, introduce a few more tidy-up times throughout the day; for example, just before lunch and teatime perhaps, as well as a big one at the end of the day. During these the children can tell you what they’ve finished playing with so just a few things can be put away.

‘Points make prizes.’ This is a game to kick-start, or reinvigorate, interest in picking up after yourself. Make a score chart, however you like, to record every time you or your children notice that they or someone else has picked up after themselves. When you’ve reached a certain score there should be a family treat, like watching a movie or something similar.

Putting groceries away

Grocery shopping with young children in tow is, in my book, a great achievement in itself. It seems most unfair that when we get back home there’s a whole new challenge to undertake. Where is that fairy godmother when you need her? Putting away the groceries is a time-consuming chore which, if left unchecked, can last all day and lead to the unscheduled and unofficial distribution of edible treats to one and all.

The following ideas might help to distract your little one from the ‘I spot, I want’ nightmare as you unpack and get them counting, sorting, stacking and playing alongside you as those treats and special things-for-another-time can be discreetly secreted onto high shelves and into cupboards.

Put your child in charge of the more robust fruit and vegetables – hand them over with the storage utensil of your choice and get them to put them away. Of course, they’ll be playing with them more than actually carrying out the official task, but they’ll love doing it and there’ll be lots of opportunity to find out how many apples or potatoes you bought, or which is the biggest potato or the longest leek.

Give your child a fun, manageable mission and get them to take some non-kitchen items – perhaps things for the bathroom – to the right place. If you time them there and back I bet they’ll not be able to resist trying to carry out the task as quickly as they can, again and again.

‘Pass the packets.’ This game is a fun spotting-and-sorting challenge. Choose one type of grocery item to put away at a time, i.e. packets, tins, boxes or bottles. Work together to spot them all and put them away before moving on to the next category.

Cooking

I’m not talking about baking biscuits and cupcakes here, I mean the daily task of making breakfast, lunch and dinner for the masses. Some people love to cook, they find it relaxing and creatively rewarding, but having to prepare toddler-friendly morsels – every day – whilst simultaneously being in charge of small children, can break even the most dedicated foodie. There are lots of clever things people do to avoid this repetitive chore, such as cook in bulk and freeze in portions, or have weekly menus, but here I’m hoping to break the relentless monotony by making cooking a way to play for you and your little one.

Involve your child in one or more of the cooking tasks once in a while, perhaps even making it their speciality. For example, they could wash the vegetables, break the eggs, grate the cheese, snip the ham, squish the tomatoes, slice the mushrooms or banana with a blunt knife, juice the lemon, choose the herbs by smell – that kind of thing.

Toddlers will also be very happy to occasionally play along with cooking in the kitchen. Hand over a selection of safe kitchen utensils and equipment, for example a real saucepan with a wooden spoon – which is often more tempting than a toy version – and some dried pasta (you can re-use this for play cooking over and over again) and they’ll be ‘cooking’ up a storm in no time.

‘Play along with play dough.’ This activity has got me out of a tight spot many a time when my two children were toddlers. At the kitchen table or equivalent, give your child a ball of herb-infused play dough (recipe), a few toy kitchen utensils, a couple of plastic plates and an empty shoe box (which makes a great oven) and they’ll be happily occupied while you get on with the real deal. Play dough is so versatile; your little one will be able to make anything from peas and pasta, to potatoes and pizza.

Less-frequent chores

Cleaning the car

I only ever contemplate cleaning the car if there are children involved. I’ve yet to meet a child who doesn’t love it, and this makes the whole thing seem much more of an attractive proposition in my book. The car may not get a thorough clean by child alone, but there’ll be fun and laughter in bucket loads to accompany what might otherwise be a rather arduous task. Make sure everyone is in appropriate clothing and footwear so that getting wet isn’t a problem – because they will definitely get wet.

Set up your carwash together before you start: assemble buckets and bowls full of warm soapy water, sponges, brushes and cloths and drinking-water bottles for rinsing. Chamois-leathers and soft cloths need to be kept out of reach until step 4.

Use a sand-timer or equivalent to help move smoothly from one stage of the job to the next. There are five steps:

1 A first rinse: everyone can help rinse the whole car with clean water to remove the scratchy surface dust and dirt. Flinging water from drinking-water bottles is great fun, and easy for little ones to master.

2 Soaping and scrubbing: the grown up should clean the wheels (using a heavy-duty scrubbing brush if possible) as these are likely to be the dirtiest part of the car. The children can soap-up wherever they can reach.

3 Rinsing off the soap: as step 1, but the aim of the game is to rid the car of bubbles rather than to just wet it. Start from as high as possible and work down the car, for efficient de-soaping.

4 Drying: use a chamois to dry the bodywork – wring it out frequently while your little one uses a piece of newspaper to get the windows smear-free. They may need to stand on their sink-step to do this.

5 Cleaning inside the car: you could vacuum while your child cleans the dust off the dashboard and so on. Soft paintbrushes can often get into the hard-to-reach dusty and crumby nooks and crannies. I swear by baby wipes for a thorough de-stickying of door handles, gear stick and steering wheel. Young children will find being allowed to sit in the front of the car very exciting – do allow time for their imaginative play, as they will undoubtedly ‘drive’ you to the beach or the zoo.

Defrosting the freezer

This is a relatively infrequent job, but sometimes it’s imperative. You know that moment? It’s when it becomes impossible to open or close the freezer drawers without using the force of ten men, and there’s only the freezer’s own ice in there anyway. Sometimes, you have no choice but to carry out this chore while in charge of little ones – so here are a few ways to manage that eventuality:

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