My husband and I were talking with our daughter the other day about the fact that our parents never played with us when we were kids. She was surprised by this because we have always tried to engage with her interests, but that’s not how we grew up.
It all started with watching the cricket on TV. Now, I don’t care for watching cricket, personally, but my husband enjoys it occasionally, and he explained that it’s the sort of thing you have to grow up with. He painted a picture of hot summer days when his dad would watch cricket, and he would happily hang out with his dad and watch with him. It sounded nice, and when I thought about it, I did the same thing with my mum, except it was old black and white movies on a Saturday afternoon. This was our idea of quality time with our parents, engaging them in activities they loved. My mother and husband’s parents were very different people with different parenting styles, yet none of them ever actually played with us.
I’ve written before about not being super drawn to imaginative play, but I have begun to be more comfortable and confident with it because my daughter loves to do it. Because of how much my daughter loves playing with her Sylvanian Families, I make sure that we get a play session on both days of the weekend, for about an hour each time.
Like most families these days, we are pretty busy – there’s always something that needs to be done or that should be done, and finding time for a good play was pretty difficult. But it’s important to my husband and I that we make time for our daughter and spend time with her engaging in the activities that bring her joy! My daughter likes to play with her stuffed toys with my husband, she has all sorts of personalities and back-stories for them, and her daddy knows them all!
I play Sylvanian families with her for two hours a week, and it makes her so happy, and we have lots of fun making up off-the-wall characters and scenarios! I play ambience soundtracks from YouTube to go along with our storyline, and we have those spiffy light bulbs that you can Wi-Fi connect your phone to and change colour and intensity. This has led to some honestly wild Sylvanian Family sessions, with last weekend being an alien invasion! A brilliant idea cooked up by my daughter, by the way, but we’ve had everything from running a shop with customers coming and going, to haunted balls with guests compelled to dance, to murder investigations – I play with a little caramel dog Sylvanian that we’ve named ‘Jessica Fetcher’ because my daughter watched some Murder she Wrote episodes with me!
As my daughter grows up, her interests will probably change over time, but whatever they are, you can bet that her daddy and I will ensure we engage in them with her!
