I thought I’d keep it short and sweet today and just sent one quick universal parenting tip: always keep a card game in your purse.
Last week my son had his final cross country meet and it ended a little earlier than I anticipated. Though we weren’t initially planning on it, I decided to take advantage of the rare opportunity to have some one-on-one time and pop into our local pizza joint.
While that surely would have been connection enough for my son, the experience was made even better when I whipped out our current favorite card game; Phase 10.
There’s something about playing games with kids that relaxes them and, often, gets them to open up about their lives in ways that they might normally be hesitant to do.
Today, the opportunity arose again– only this time it was with my daughter. We had a somewhat traumatizing orthodontics appointment. I won’t go into the full details, but suffice to say that it caused her a fair amount of pain.
Once again, I decided to take advantage of the fact that I had childcare for my other two kids and take her out for a one-on-one dinner. And, once again, I brought along Phase 10.
Over the course of two hands of play (and some fish and chips and a milkshake) she went from crying and complaining about the pain to smiling and literally skipping to the car when it was time go home.
While I’m sure the sweets helped, I know it was the sense of connection she got from the interaction that really made her pain dissipate.
The moral of the story is that I didn’t plan either of these outings and I wouldn’t have been able to incorporate the game aspect if I didn’t already have one in my purse.
So go grab a card game and stick it in your car or purse- you never know when you might need it!
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