Having fun isn’t always top priority as a parent. There is plenty of structure, rules and reasons. But, sometimes there is room for some fun. Sometimes, it is nice to loosen the reigns a bit and goof off.
Here are some creative suggestions for lightening up your parenting style:
- Do pranks together – your kids will love bringing some surprise to another person’s day.
- Make your kids laugh with a tickle fight, or one of the other 10 ideas on that page.
- A great post on how one mom became the fun police. We don’t always realize how much we hover over our children, trust them and take a tiny step back.
- Have a silly face contest – see who can have the wackiest face. Here are some face printables that will make your child giggle.
- Have a family slumber party. Everyone (even mom and dad) should bring their sleeping bags and camp out on the living room floor.
- Take your kids out on a date and celebrate “family day”.
- Have a playground scavenger hunt. Use this list of things to find and do and travel around to new playgrounds to find them. This is a great adventure for the family.
- Make and share a milkshake, together – here is our peanut butter shake recipe. You can even blow bubbles in the cup! (Our secret shake-making weapon can be found here)
- Read a story, or ten, to your child. On a favorite book, put yourself or your child into the book, replace the name of one of the characters with your child’s name. (This one is our current favorite!)
- You can have a good time learning, too! Here are five really fun ways to teach science. Go outside on a hot day with a cup of water and learn about condensation!
- Make super spy pipe-cleaner disguises together and talk to each other in your “spy voices”.
- Have a bubble “war” – make bubble shooters and blast each other with bubbles.
- Find an app and play *together* – my kids love teaching me their favorite games.
- And… turn off the devices, have a afternoon focused just on your child – here are great hands-free mamatips.
- Tell your kids a knock-knock joke.
- Give your kids a big canvas to paint on. Here are eight different ideas like throwing away the paper and try painting on an old fence, the windows (with window markers, of course) or the bath tub. (We always get our canvases here)
- Give your kids a piggy back ride… and if you are a dad, here are another 25 tips for connecting with your kids
- Go on a road-trip – for ice cream. Go on a meandering ride with your kids and stop for ice cream on the way home.
- Take a moment every evening to tell your child how much you love them and talk about the fun things you did together – reflect on family time.
To see the full list, click here.
Feel free to add your own suggestion by commenting below!