Playful Parenting

Cohen is quick to point out that no matter what your child's temperament, she has a playful side. In its most basic form, play is a way to communicate. The author examines, with plenty of hilarious personal anecdotes, the details of play at every age and across genders. From his daughter and a new male friend discussing how "cool" nuclear weapons are and how "gross" a love song is, to a younger child zooming full-speed around a park at a birthday party, we're shown the exuberant truth behind playing: not only is it just plain fun, it can spark a variety of important sensations. One short section discusses the common phenomenon of happy giggling turning instantly to tears. Cohen suggests that "the fun play opens the emotional door to let out the giggles, and a flood of other feelings come pouring out after." Some specific ideas for games are included, and you'll find recommendations for everything from play wrestling to gentle storytelling. One chapter focuses on how to cope with play you don't find enjoyable, and how learning to appreciate these games can lead to surprising emotional insights. This is where Cohen's years of practice come in handy--it may be true that we all play, but not everyone immediately grasps the underlying messages. This is not simply a book filled with family activities, but rather an exploration of play for all ages. --Jill Lightner

Product Description

Have you ever stepped back to watch what really goes on when your children play? As psychologist Lawrence J. Cohen points out, play is children’s way of exploring the world, communicating deep feelings, getting close to those they care about, working through stressful situations, and simply blowing off steam. That’s why “playful parenting” is so important and so successful in building strong, close bonds between parents and children. Through play we join our kids in their world–and help them to

• Express and understand complex emotions
• Break through shyness, anger, and fear
• Empower themselves and respect diversity
• Play their way through sibling rivalry
• Cooperate without power struggles

From eliciting a giggle during baby’s first game of peekaboo to cracking jokes with a teenager while hanging out at the mall, Playful Parenting is a complete guide to using play to raise confident children. Written with love and humor, brimming with good advice and revealing anecdotes, and grounded in the latest research, this book will make you laugh even as it makes you wise in the ways of being an effective, enthusiastic parent.

He talks about power struggles and about parents who don't like to play,
that are serious all the time or preoccupied and begs parents to loosen up
and play with the kids.
Near the end of the book he does discuss individual issues of importance
such dealing with children's sex play, sibling rivalry, gun play, etc.
Lastly, Cohen admits throughout the book that as a parent he is not perfect and that he even has to sometimes push himself to get down and play Barbie games with his daughter. He does not write with a holier-than-thou attitude. I've done a lot of reading about parenting but have never read anything as great as Cohen's theory and ideas for parenting the three-plus year old.
I'm glad to see this is now out in paperback, the low paperback price will be appreciated by parents.


playing with dinosaurs driving you crazy? read this !   August 22, 2001
Pia (Israel)
89 out of 89 found this review helpful

I had thought a lot about what parenting was going to mean for me and how I was going to go about it. I read a lot of different books covering all areas in great detail and discussedit with my partner. When my son arrived the experienced surpassed the greatest of expectations. Being the mother to a baby was just wonderful. BUT THEN one day, our baby was a boy who wanted to PLAY. He really showed that he needed me to get down on the floor and PLAY with him and his toys. I was totally unprepared for this. I could do it for a bit, but then after a while I was exasperated and he was restless. After some time of games like putting all the farm animals in the correct part of the plastic barn and pretend feeding them and putting them to sleep, it was just SO BORING and I couldn't think of what to do next. I felt terribly guilty about checking my watch throughout and then I felt like I was the most boring and unimaginative person ever. I felt there was obviously some wonderful world of fantasy and fun he was in which I as an adult had lost. For the first time I felt disconnected from him. After a few pages of this book, I got down on the floor with my son and played with gusto. I loved it and I could tell that my son was enjoying it. He was only one year and a half at the time. His eyes lit up and at the end of one game that same afternoon he really just looked at me into my eyes with some new curiosity and he stopped repeatedly and intermittently to give me huge hugs in a way which he had never done before.They were not the regular cuddly hugs, but more like "this is new, we're having fun together aren't we?" hugs. We'd started a new way of being together. The book affected not only the way we play together but it introduced for me a whole new way of being a parent which has made it even more rewarding for me. I felt that I had (as much as I could !) really got to grips with what I wanted to do in terms of the attachment parenting issues, "disciplining", communication, connecting and all the practical parts of parenting, but here was the fun and the drive to infuse ALL of those areas. Each page is packed with intelligent thought-provoking ideas and sometimes very serious issues, all of which are embedded in such simple and funny anecdotes from his own practice that there is never a dry or "heavy" moment. There are suggestions HOW to play, how to enjoy it as a parent and how to make the most of it for your child as well as your connection with your child. I also knew that playing was also really important for the development of a child, but I'd just taken this as a given and never spent much thought on what it actually meant. Cohen's ideas about why it is developmentally important opened my eyes. It makes one really think about how to play and Cohen has so many smart ideas about how to use play to contribute as a parent to that development. I know that there are those who really believe that children should "learn" as soon as possible to play by themselves and you might get the impression you have to spend time, which you do not have, playing for ever. But this book is about making the whole of parenting fun and rewarding for everyone. PLUS, a couple of months on, our boy DOES now play by himself (as well as with us) and he is fantastic at initiating games with other children. After all as a parent, you can only be that much fun at the end of the day...He plays loud intense and funny games with his toys by himself and sometimes I have to stop myself from bothering him and joining in. Groundbreaking.


A refreshing change from the usual parenting books   May 29, 2001
75 out of 75 found this review helpful

This is a great book! It provides a refreshingly new look at how to connect with your children and have fun while you're doing it.

After reading numerous parenting books, I can recite the usual themes - set realistic limits, provide praise when merited, focus criticism on behavior and keep it brief, be honest, offer choices, blah, blah, blah. They're all good points, but being a responsible parent should not be all there is. Most parenting books ignore the importance of having fun with your children. It's something we're all supposed to just HAVE in our relationships with our children, and then we're disappointed when it's not there as often as we would like.

PLAYFUL PARENTING transcends these usual parenting shibboleths and supplies lessons on how to accomplish something we all yearn for - connection and fun! This book provides simple, easy to use techniques for connecting with your children and having fun while you do it. Like Dr. Doolittle with animals, Dr. Cohen understands the different language that children speak. That language is play. He explains that we need to learn to speak that language if we're going to connect with our children and be truly effective. As adults, we too often lapse into lectures and explanations (sound familiar?) when a playful approach will make us a more effective teacher. Typical of strategies provided in the book is one I now use with my children. Whenever they use some provocative word like "poopyhead" (or something much worse), I respond by saying in a conspiratorial tone "Well, you can say that if you want, but don't ever, EVER, say zoogililoo". Of course, they immediately say it, we all laugh, they get over the need to provoke, and we've connected in a knowing way.

PLAYFUL PARENTING also recognizes that children are often powerless in their relationships with parents and it provides excellent strategies for giving children more control. One strategy described in the book is called "Playtime", which is one on one time a parent sets aside with a child, in which the child gets to make all the decisions about what to do and the parent can not say "no" (basic safety considerations still apply, of course). I tried Playtime with my five year old son one Sunday afternoon and had a wonderful bonding experience with him - doing things such as swimming on a cold day (though I would have rather stayed warm and dry) and letting him hold the train ticket (though I was afraid he'd lose it). For Dr. Cohen understands parents, too, and knows that we all too often say "no" for the wrong reasons - we're tired, bored, or lacking energy. The strategies in this book, like Playtime, will challenge you to stretch yourself as a parent - but with bigtime payback! My son now asks for Playtime every weekend.

I was fortunate to be able to read a prepublication manuscript of PLAYFUL PARENTING last summer. I have employed many of its strategies to great effect with my two boys, ages 5 and 3. I have expanded my repertoire of skills for handling difficult situations, and have a more proactive approach to bonding with my children in ways that we all enjoy. I highly recommend this book to any and all parents. It would make a great gift, especially for those just getting started with the parenting challenge.


The BEST Parenting Book Around   May 7, 2002
Kelly (United States)
53 out of 54 found this review helpful

I whole heartedly recommend this book to ALL parents. Dr. Cohen's ideas completely changed the tone of our household. We were going through a very difficult phase with our 3 year old that was turning into a downward spiral of negativity. Nobody liked the way things were going. We'd read a mountain of "discipline" books, none of which was helpful in our situation. However, reading & following through on Dr. Cohen's book helped us completely turn our situation around - we now have a very HAPPY, joy-filled and fun home. Using the suggestions in this book I was better able to understand my daughter's behavior and I used many of his suggestions to connect with her. She has literally *blossomed* under this treatment - she's just a fantastic, happy little girl.

I am SO grateful to Dr. Cohen - he has helped me to become a much, much better parent and has given us a whole arsenal of wonderful parenting tools to help shape our children in very positive ways. If I could pick only one book on parenting and discipline, this would be it.


Not just for the NEW Parent   April 28, 2005
J. Condon (Colorado)
39 out of 39 found this review helpful

Ok, I'll admit it. Judging from the results, I thought I was a pretty great mom. My 20 year old and my 13 year old are both bright, mature, responsible, independent human beings.
But now, being the 43 year old mom of an "oops baby" 16 month old, has allowed me to give it one more try. And I thought the one thing I had really lacked before was being more playful with my kids. So naturally, I bought this book.
The first thing I want to say is, I could only take the book in small doses. Not that it wasn't written well, but after only a little while, it started to sound all the same and I started to tune out. (I think I also read 3 novels along with this book, in the time it took me to finish this).
Having said that, I think I am really glad it took me so long to read it. The things in the book have really stayed with me.
I have always been from the school of natural consequences (and still am, really) but this book made me think about different ways to discipline and the reasons behind the acting out in the first place (generally a disconnect somewhere- He has a great analogy of the child's cup needing to be filled with love and connection).
I don't agree with a previous review about it being for kids over 3. In fact I think this would a be a GREAT gift for a baby shower.
I have an example from just last night. My husband came home from work. My 16 month old is a real daddy's girl, but last night she for the first time did not rush over to him to be picked up. In fact she wouldn't go to him at all. Before reading this book, I wouldn't have thought much about this. My husband started to get a little irritated "Ok, fine I'll just eat dinner, I'm starving blah, blah blah..". I immediately said, "she is feeling rejected because she doesn't get to see you much during the week, so she is doing the only thing she can with her 16 month old mind, she is rejecting you first." Where the heck did that come from? Also I said that if we let this go tonight, it would just get worse every night and pretty soon she would saying, Daddy who?
So I said, "You really need to get down on the floor and connect with her, now, so we can stop this in its tracks" So he did and said, "Ok now what?" cause she still would not even look at him. I did the first thing that came to mind. I took the nearest piece of cloth I could find (a placemat) and did the "where's Daddy?" peek-a-boo. Magic. She started giggling and playing with him and the evening was saved.
Duh, simple you say? Yeah, maybe. That is was playful parenting is all about. But I really would not have thought to do that if I had not read the book. My husband thought I was a genius (Ok, I didn't tell him I got it from the book!)
One more thing. The author really gets that playing with the kids can be boring, time consuming, and worse. And he talks about his mistakes in this process too. He does not in any way talk down to the reader.