Parenting in the Chaos

The Ultimate List of Family Game Night Ideas

Our Family Fun Nights are memorable events. We are a game playing family and these evenings give us a chance to build memories together. I wanted to share some of our favourite family game night ideas. Family game nights create lasting memories because they foster a sense of belonging. In the busy hubbub of life, it is so nice to have tech-free, face to face time with your kids.

Creating a family game night tradition won’t be something you’ll regret. The years you have with your kids at home go by in a flash. Laughing together strengthens the bonds.

If you were to invite your kids to an evening of talking with their parents and tell them there were no phones allowed, you wouldn’t likely get a very positive response. But once you start regular family game nights, your kids will be asking you when the next one is!

Our Favourite Family Game Nights:

One of our most memorable Family Fun Nights was our original Minute to Win It party. We played Face the Cookie, Stack Attack, Movin’ on Up, Junk in the Trunk, Suck it Up, Penny Hose, Keep it Up, and Yank Me.

There was a lot of laughter. I challenge anyone to play Junk in the Trunk with a straight face!

We had so much fun on our Minute to Win it night that we decided to create another one. That time, we chose a Dollar Store Minute to Win It theme. We played Puddle Jumper, Chocolate Unicorn, Ponginator, Hanky Panky, Ball Drop, Breakfast Scramble, and Elephant March.

These games are funny and everyone can play. The supplies were so inexpensive and didn’t take long to set up. It was another memorable evening.

We also get a kick out of The Flour Game. This hilarious game requires only two items and one of them is probably already in your kitchen. This one is just plain old good clean fun. Well, clean may not be the best way to describe it! The messy faces are worth it though.

It’s a great time for all ages. If you’ve never tried it, this is a good one to start with. It’s easy to set up. The rules are easy to understand. And a face full of flour is universally funny!

Another classic at our house is called The Bag Game. For this one, you only need one item. In this game, the kids often have the advantage. That’s a good equalizer. On other family game nights when the older ones may have an easier time with whatever the activity is, this game evens those odds.

Our neighbour taught us this game. We have played it at everything from just a Sunday afternoon at home to my daughter’s Sweet 16 with over 25 people. It is always a hit.

Other Family Game Night Ideas:

I love this personalized version of the game 20 questions from Teach Mama. It gives a Headbands type of spin to it and allows you to use pictures of people you know or are familiar with. It would be easy to create themed versions of this game such as a Disney theme or famous families theme.

Not Consumed’s Lego Family Fun Night is clever. The ideas are easy. Chances are, you’ve got some lego pieces hanging around the house. Why not put them to good use?!

My kids would go crazy over this Nerf Target Prize Game from Frugal Fun for Boys and Girls! You could mix it up by changing up the prizes.

How about making your own holiday themed twister game? You can find everything you need at Pint-Sized Treasures to make a Valentine’s Conversation Hearts Twister, a Snowman Twister, or a Pumpkin Twister for Thanksgiving, Hallowe’en or Fall.

Board Games the Whole Family Can Play:

Family game night ideas don’t have to be complicated. You can create lasting memories sitting around the kitchen table with a bowl of popcorn and a board game or puzzle.

I love how our family has a culture of playing board games together. Sunday afternoons, you can usually find us sitting at the table playing Settlers of Catan, Splendor, Sequence, Ticket to Ride, or some of our other favourites.

Here are some great games that you can play with people of multiple ages:

Watch Ya Mouth Family Edition Hasbro Pie Face Googly Eyes Game Qwirkle Ker Plunk Blokus Jenga Classic Game Trouble HedBanz 5 Second Rule Simon UNO Card Game Dutch Blitz Suspend Family Game Apples to Apples

How Can I Help My Child Control His Emotions?

By Sharla Kostelyk 3 Comments

Although kids aren’t the only ones to struggle with controlling their emotions (as was evident last week when I cried over not being able to find Velcro dots!), they do not have the coping skills and life experience to be able to navigate through big emotions without some guidance. Many parents aren’t sure where to start when it comes to helping their child control their emotions. This will give you a roadmap to help them.

How to Help a Child Control their Emotions:

Provide an emotional vocabulary.

The first step in helping your child learn to manage their own emotions is to teach them to identify their feelings. Give them the language to be able to name their feelings. This is a powerful tool to arm a child with.

The Teaching Emotions Toolkit has everything needed to give kids the vocabulary they need to be able to identify and name their own feelings.

Learning to recognize feelings in others.

Once a child is more fluent in the language of emotions, they can begin to recognize feelings not only in themselves, but in others as well.

If you’re watching a movie or TV show, discuss how the situations may make the characters feel. Do this especially with situations that kids may find themselves in someday such as bullying.

Model talking about your own feelings and your coping strategies.

Name your feelings honestly. Then provide your child some insight into your coping strategies. This will help them to learn how to manage their own emotions.

“I feel disappointed that it’s snowing today so I can’t go for a run like I planned. I guess I’ll have to walk on the treadmill instead.”
“I am frustrated that my computer isn’t working. I want to throw it across the room which would not be wise, so I’d better get up and walk away. I’ll take a little break and come back to try again when I’m feeling calmer.”
“I’m excited that tomorrow is the big birthday party. I think I’ll go to bed a bit early tonight in case it takes me longer to fall asleep.”
“I’m worried about my interview on Friday. I know that worry doesn’t do any good. It helps to talk about my feelings and practise what I’ll say in the interview. Would you help me with that?”
“I’m feeling angry. I’m going to sit here and do some calm down breathing for a few minutes.”

Listen.

By actively listening to your child express their feelings, you are showing them that their feelings matter to you, that your child matters to you. You can repeat the emotion words back to them.

“I hear you say that you felt angry when he took away your toy. Do you want to tell me more about that?” By listening to your child’s feelings, they will learn that you are a safe place for them.

Help them identify their triggers.

Triggers are very dependant on the child. For some, it may be sensory triggers or a trauma trigger, while for others, it may be a particular feeling such as frustration that serves as a trigger for a meltdown or an aggressive response. Once you help your child to identify what their most common triggers are, you can help them to recognize them in the early stages and put in place some coping strategies.

Gauge the intensity of the emotion.

Using a feelings thermometer or chart, help your child determine how intense their feeling is.

Prevent emotional outbursts or meltdowns as much as possible.

Adequate sleep, good nutrition, water, regular exercise, and sensory breaks can go a long way towards preventing meltdowns before they start.

I know that I’m certainly more able to handle life’s curveballs when I’ve had a good night’s sleep. I’m also way more reasonable when I’m not hangry!

Teach that it’s okay to make mistakes.

Mistakes are how we learn. Kids who fear making mistakes or strive for perfection tend to have a harder time coping with emotions.

The Growth Mindset Challenge Kit and the Big Life Journal are two of my favourite tools for this. I also really like the book Your Fantastic, Elastic Brain for this reason. It is so good at explaining the concept of mistakes being necessary in a way that kids can understand.

Teach coping strategies.

Calm down strategies are a big part of teaching coping strategies, but they are not the only part. If a child takes a break or walks away when they see a trigger arise, that is also a coping strategy.

If there is a particular situation that comes up repeatedly that causes big emotions in your child, help him think of a strategy for managing that particular situation.

Come up with a plan together. Role play and practise often. Once he has practised managing that situation with his new strategies, he will be better equipped to deal with it in real life.

Teaching your child to better manage their emotions will empower them. They will feel more in control. This will equip them with the skills needed to face their day.

Join me for a free 5 part email series, Little Hearts, Big Worries offering resources and hope for parents.

You may find these articles helpful as well:

5 Critical Steps to Take When Your Child Has a Meltdown Activities to Teach Kids About Emotions

What is Positive Parenting?

By Sharla Kostelyk Leave a Comment

When our older two boys were young, I had basically no idea what I was doing as a parent. I had gone to a Barbara Coloroso seminar while I was pregnant with my oldest and that gave me a few new tools to use as well as some new philosophies to think about. This statement she made impacted me immediately:

“Encouraging a child means that one or more of the following critical life messages are coming through, either by word or by action: I believe in you, I trust you, I know you can handle this, you are listened to, you are cared for, you are very important to me.” ~Barbara Coloroso

I wanted to raise my children in such a way that they would feel that they were important and valued, that they were capable and loved. I just wasn’t sure how to go about doing that.

Over the next years, I struggled to find a parenting style. I’ve swung from overly permissive to overly rigid and back again. I tried different discipline methods, read so many parenting books, attended parenting seminars, only to feel like I was failing as a mom.

It was actually after we became foster parents and were taking mandatory training for that when I began to stumble upon some truths that sat well with me.

The idea of positive parenting or connected parenting brought me back to what had struck home for me about that Barbara Coloroso quote from so many years before. I wanted to raise my kids in such a way that they would feel like that.

Since changing my parenting to follow the models of positive parenting or connected parenting set for me by such incredible experts as Dr. Karyn Purvis, I have been able to feel more confident about my responses as a parent.

That’s not to say that I have it all together. Most days I still struggle and there are still plenty of moments when I need a “do-over” for my own reactions, but the trajectory is at least going in the right direction.

I know that my kids have more positive interactions with me than negative ones. My kids are learning how to effectively express their emotions. I’m learning to stay calm even in the heated moments. Our home is becoming more peaceful. It’s still loud, as you can imagine with so many kids under one roof, but I’m becoming more skilled at handling the conflicts that arise.

I know that when people hear the term “positive parenting”, they can sometimes assume that means a parenting style that has the kids walking all over the parents, but that isn’t what positive parenting is about.

What is positive parenting?

Positive parenting is a school of thought that allows children to be treated with respect. It emphasizes relationship and communication and its goal is to teach children, not to punish. Positive parenting is about nurturing the relationship between parent and child.

Positive parenting solutions:

emphasis on attachment and relationship
connection before correction
clearly defined rules so that children know what to expect
validating child’s feelings
getting down on the child’s level and making eye contact
offering choices which allows the child to feel that they have a voice and allows them to have a sense of control
saying “yes” when you can
not using any physical punishment
focusing on connection
using discipline methods such as natural consequences, time-ins, redirection, and the art of the compromise
offering meaningful, thoughtful praise
seeing negative behaviour as a method of communication

Is positive parenting effective for children with special needs?

Traditional parenting methods are not effective with most children with special needs. Traditional parenting methods may include things such as long lectures, time outs, grounding, and corporal punishment (spanking).

While positive parenting is wonderful for all children, it is particularly effective with children who have special needs.

In particular, children with attachment issues or Reactive Attachment Disorder, sensory processing disorder, early childhood trauma, autism, and chromosomal disorders respond best to positive parenting.

Is positive parenting easy to do?

I’m not going to lie to you. It can be very challenging to use positive parenting methods if you were raised with other parenting methods yourself. Your default will usually be to react in a similar way to how your own parents reacted.

It takes time, a lot of intentionality and learning, and practise, practise, practise before these things start to feel more natural. Even then, during times of extreme stress or when you are overtired or overwhelmed, it can be easy to slip back into your default parenting style.

When that happens, give yourself grace. Apologize to your child (which provides a great opportunity to model taking accountability for our actions!) and try again.

Give yourself credit for the efforts you’re making and the baby steps you’re taking towards being the kind of parent you ultimately want to be.

Join me for a free 5 part email series, Little Hearts, Big Worries offering resources and hope for parents.

Check out some other parenting help:

Connection Activities for Parents and Their Kids Books for Connected Parenting

A Summer Bucket List for Simple Fun

By Sharla Kostelyk 12 Comments

Do you remember lazy summer days spent splashing in a blow up pool with the stickiness of melting popsicles dripping down your hand? The days when you rode your bike with kids kids from the neighbourhood and played hopscotch and raced back home before the streetlights came on? It’s that kind of old-fashioned summer that I’m trying to recreate with this Summer Bucket List.

Last year, I made a Summer Bucket List for Moms Who Want to Engage because I became aware of how often I watch my kids having fun but don’t actually join in with them. It was the perfect plan for us for that season of our life. This year, I needed something different.

This year has been chaotic. I am feeling the need to simplify and get back to basics. That led me to creating this summer bucket list. The one I made for this upcoming season is one full of ideas that I remember doing in my childhood summers. I hope you are able to find some gems on here for your family.

I have tried to keep the ideas easy and inexpensive. This will help me to create a simple summer full of childhood memories for my kids.

Summer Bucket List:

Climb trees.
Go berry picking. (Saskatoons are my favourite!)
Ride bikes.
Play horseshoes.
Eat watermelon.
Have a watermelon seed spitting contest.
Count the seconds between the thunder and the lightning during a summer storm.
Blow bubbles.
Play mini golf.
Tent in the backyard.
Have a picnic.
Go fly a kite. (I cannot type that without the Mary Poppins song going through my head!)
Run through a sprinkler.
Go to a splash park.
Eat ice cream…with fixings!
Watch a parade.
Jump rope.
Build tin can stilts.
Fly paper airplanes.
Fish in the pond.
Go bowling.
Make popsicles. Let the kids invent their own popsicle recipes.
Find pictures in the clouds.
Skip rocks.
Tell ghost stories around a campfire.
Sing loudly in the van.
Play board games.
Make a DIY slip ‘n’ slide.
Play tag.
Go to a Farmer’s Market.
Cheer for a local team.
Have a water fight.
Go for a walk.
Make a lemonade stand.
Play hopscotch.
Play cards on a rainy day.
Build a fort.
Go camping.
Paint rocks.
Play in sensory bins.
Run through long grass.
Have a hula hoop contest.
Make s’mores.
Watch fireworks.
Collect seashells on the beach.
Walk barefoot.
Play on the trampoline with a sprinkler running underneath.
Build sandcastles.
Have a three-legged race.
Participate in the summer reading program at the library.
Host a neighbourhood penny carnival.
Make shrinkydinks.
Read by flashlight under the covers.
Play dress-up.
Have fun with face paint.
Put on a puppet show.
Play hide and seek.
Draw with sidewalk chalk.
Go on scavenger hunts.
Skip. (you can, but do not have to, sing “Skip to my Loo” while skipping!)
Get dirty.
Go to the playground.
Plant a garden or even just a flower.
Stay up late.
Make a tin can and string telephone.
Have a family fun night.
Go on a road trip.
Catch butterflies.
Dig up worms.
Write and mail letters to relatives, the old fashioned way, with stamps.
Help out a neighbour.
Play the telephone game. (sometimes called the whisper game)
Make real lemonade.
Red Rover, Red Rover, we call…
Have a sack race.

You can print off a copy of A Bucket List for a Simpler Summer if you want to use it to create your own old- fashioned summer for your kids. I’d love to see pictures of how it goes.

If you are looking for other fun summer ideas, you may be interested in checking out my Summer Sensory Activities Series.

An After School Meltdown Strategy that Actually Works

By Sharla Kostelyk 8 Comments

Within days of school starting last Fall, I saw a pattern emerging. Each day in the first half hour after arriving home from school (often in the first few minutes even), our daughter would have an outburst or emotional breakdown. I was beginning to dread the arrival of the school bus. It was perplexing because she loved going to school. She was making friends. She liked her teacher and her aide. That made these after school meltdowns confusing.

I played detective. I talked to the school. They confirmed that she was adjusting well there. I listened to her feelings. I tracked any other possible triggers for these behaviours. I was able to come to the conclusion that she was having a hard time transitioning between school and home.

She needed help making that transition. She needed a way to reset after all the feelings (good and bad) and sensory input of the day. My daughter needed me to put a strategy in place to help her.

I was able to come up with a plan that I thought would work and thankfully, it did. Almost every day since, we have used this strategy and it has eliminated the daily after school meltdown.

There have been a few times when I got caught up in being busy with the other kids and haven’t implemented it and almost every time, she has had a breakdown. This shows me how important it is for us to do it every single day.

Why does an After School Meltdown Happen:

Once I began to research my daughter’s reactions, I discovered that the phenomenon of a daily or weekly after school meltdown is something many kids and their parents struggle with. There has even been a term coined by Psychotherapist Andrea Nair to describe this type of occurrence, “after school restraint collapse”.

Essentially, this occurs when kids get to their safe place and can express what they may have been holding in all day. Even if the emotions of the day were positive, there may just be a build-up of them and without the coping strategies to know how to deal with them, kids meltdown or explode.

Think of it this way: your child’s after school meltdown is actually a sign that they trust you! All the emotions of the day get bottled up and release when they feel safe.

What an after school meltdown may look like:

defiance
screaming
tantrum
overly emotional
easily upset
picking fights with siblings or parents
refusing to do homework or chores
excessive whining

The After School Meltdown Strategy:

Connection. The second my daughter walks in the door, I greet her with eye contact, a smile, a hug or a kiss on the cheek. I say something affirming like “It’s good to see you.”, “I’m happy you’re home”, or on the days where she is already mid-meltdown by the time she gets to the door, “It’s going to be alright”.
Meeting basic needs. Immediately after a moment of connection, it’s time for a glass of water and a snack. It is so important for kids, especially kids who’ve had early childhood trauma, to have those basic survival needs met. Like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs suggests, children need to have their physiological needs met before they can feel safe.
Time to reset. After our daughter has had that connection moment with me and water and a quick snack, she then goes into either her room or the sensory room for half an hour. This time allows her brain to decompress and transition back to home.

When I came up with this strategy, I talked with my daughter the day before we started. We talked about how she was having a hard time transitioning back home after her school days. I told her that it was normal and okay after all the excitement and change at school to feel a lot of different emotions afterwards.

I explained that we were going to start a new after school routine. I told her what to expect and made sure she understood that the time in her room or sensory room was not a consequence or punishment. I talked about how we all need time to ourselves sometimes. I asked her for ideas of what she could do in that time. She wasn’t thrilled about this part of the plan, so it didn’t all go smoothly. We talked about her feelings and I reassured her again that this was not a consequence or rejection. She soon began to talk about how she could use that time to read Archie comics or draw or play with her sensory toys.

This after school meltdown strategy has worked wonders. I no longer dread the time of day when the bus drops my daughter off. The other kids are more calm knowing that these outbursts don’t happen as often. It’s made such a difference to the tone of our home. I hope it can do the same for your home too.

If you’re looking for other parenting strategies, you may want to join me for a free 5 part email series, Little Hearts, Big Worries offering resources and hope for parents.

You may also want to read:

5 Critical Steps to Take When Your Child has a Meltdown Sensory Meltdowns: What They Are and What To Do

Choosing a Special Song to Dedicate to Your Child

By Sharla Kostelyk Leave a Comment

When I wrote a list of connection activities for parents to do with their kids, a lot of my readers were fascinated by the idea of choosing a special song to dedicate to your child. They asked questions about it and were especially looking for song suggestions. Choosing a song for each of my kids is something that I’ve done for as long as I can remember. I don’t recall how it started, but once I did it for one, I felt that I had to do it for the others.

“Mommy, can you please sing me my baby song?” My kids call their special songs their “baby song”. For some of them, it is a song that I would sing them when I rocked them to sleep when they were babies. For our kids that we adopted at older ages, there wasn’t an opportunity to rock them to sleep with their song, but that hasn’t stopped me from rocking them and singing their special song to them.

Most of my kids are too big to be rocked now (all but one are taller than I am!), but they still love their “baby songs”. They still sometimes ask me to sing their songs to them when they are sick or upset. They melt when they hear them. Even my teens get all mushy when their “baby song” comes on in the vehicle or when I sing their song to them.

Choosing a special song to dedicate to your child is something I would really encourage you to do. It helps them to feel cherished and loved. It increases your bond. This parenting tool gives you another thing that is shared just between the two of you, which increases emotional intimacy. It creates an anchor for your child also even once they are grown and have moved out of your home.

As an added bonus, when you have a special song for your child, you can also use it to make a memorable video montage using photos of your child growing up as a gift for their graduation, wedding day or milestone birthday.

The key to choosing a song to dedicate to your child is that it is personal. It can be based on who they are now or on what you hope they become or even as an encouragement or life motto that you wish to impart them with. If you can’t find a song with lyrics that you feel fit your child, write them a song. For our youngest daughter, I couldn’t find just the right song, so I invented one. It’s not very beautiful and I’m tone deaf, so I don’t sing it well, but she absolutely loves it and that’s all that counts. So if you can’t find a song to dedicate to your child, write one yourself.