Posts Tagged ‘playing games with kids’

by Merle Dieterich, passionate mom and businesswoman whose 2 beautiful children, Lerato and Marvin never cease to amaze and teach her about what counts. You’ll find her at  jozikids.co.za

My families response to Mandela’s call to spend 67 minutes helping others on his birthday was to join a friend who invited us to go with them to Quakazani Primary School in Orange Farm. We went laden with children’s books  for the library,  games,  hot chocolate and sandwiches.

We were shocked to find a library containing mainly tattered old text books and empty shelves. Our books barely filled one of  the  shelves.

Then we unpacked a collection of very simple fun games which we spent the morning playing.

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Our  kids taught other children how to play  UNO, the card game we had brought.

We played  snakes & ladders,  building towers with cards, 4 in a row. There was storytelling,  colouring in, some netball and soccer while some of the adults started helping to document the books we had brought for the library.

It was a wonderful way of bringing these children from such different worlds together to share and play. Thank you Madiba and happy birthday.

What did you do with your children on Mandela day? We would love to hear your stories.

By Laura-kim single mom, recently divorced with 2 kids and the author of the blog Harrased mom.

I was never one of those parents who played games with my kids. Admittedly they were too small for anything more than snap and memory up until a few years ago.

Kiara’s play therapist recently suggested we start playing games together. There were a few reasons she suggested this

So off I went and borrowed a variety of games from a friend and every night for the past 6 weeks we have played games after dinner. It really does make a difference. It has cut down on the amount of TV that Cameron watches which is great and seems to be teaching Kiara the desired lessons.

A few months ago her tantrums were frequent when she did not get her own way as a result of something she had done/not done but this morning when she asked me if she gets her treat and I replied no because you did not do what I asked she said “So it’s a no” and walked away calmly. I am not attributing this solely to the playing of UNO every night but I do believe it is a contributing factor.

We also now play games in the car like “I spy” which makes for much laughter and is making us all aware of what is going on around us.

While I will admit that some evenings the last thing I want to do is look for matching pairs of fairies it has made a difference in the way my family functions.

So get some games, have some fun and teach some lessons!