Playground Advice
The playground is a place where you get to sit back with the other parents as your children wreak havoc on slides and rides all morning or afternoon long. Surprisingly, the best part about your local playground is not the fact that your child has just exhausted him or herself outside rather than in your ‘just cleaned’ livingroom, but is actually the amount of advice that parents are willing to dish out, sometimes without even being asked. Listed below are some of my favorite (and wacky) tid-bits of advice I’ve received while just sitting on a park bench in what I now refer to as “the park of knowledge”.
#1 Comfort Your Eldest First
I once overheard a conversation between two women about who to comfort if both of her children are crying at the same time. The advice was to always comfort the eldest first. I only have one child so I’m not sure how this one works but if my son is with his younger cousin; I have found that comforting my son first when a fight erupts does, in fact, hinder future fights. For a little while anyway.
#2 Cut the Tips Off of Pacifiers
My almost three year old son was, and still is, a huge fan of pacifiers. A woman sitting next to me noticed this and proceeded to tell me that what she did to get her son off of this habit was by cutting the tips off of them to eliminate the suction effect they like so much. This way he will lose interest in them and simply not want them anymore. I tested this out on one pacifier. Once my son realized the suction was gone he threw it out of his mouth, yelled “Yuck”, and kicked, screamed, and cried until I gave him one that works. SIGH!
#3 Fake Cry
A young mother and I were enjoying some much deserved silence one morning when seemingly out of nowhere her son jumped out from behind her and smacked her in the face. I was shocked! Not because my son had never done that to me before but because she immediately started to fake cry. I mean really really fake cry. Made me kind of uncomfortable actually. Anyway, once her little boy apologized she quickly went back to her smiling self and explained to me that by faking pain she is teaching her son compassion. Personally, I believe there has to be another way but hey… whatever works for you lady!
