Does ‘playing’ with your kids stress you out? Are you overthinking what play should look like, or if you have enough time for play? Playing with your kids does not have to be stressful, and we’re here to take the stress out of it and normalize a few things when it comes to play. I welcome Tammy Schamuhn, a child psychologist and co-founder of the Institute of Child Psychology and co-author of the new book, THE PARENTING HANDBOOK: Your Guide to Raising Resilient Children.

 

We discuss:

• What play can show us about a child
• Why being bored and under-scheduled is important for kids
• How and why play can look different in boys and girls

 

Connect with Tammy on Instagram @instituteofchildpsych. Check out the new book, and for more resources, visit the Institute of Child Psychology website.

 

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on the PedsDocTalk Podcast Sponsors page of the website.

00;00;01;02 – 00;00;22;16
Tammy Schamuhn
And it’s actually having the opposite effect that we want it to. It’s actually causing a lot of overwhelm for our kids because all mammals are naturally meant to just play and then rest. And we’ve kind of robbed kids of that, of their childhood a little bit inadvertently because of like, social media. And like, our friends are so close circles are saying do more, do more.

00;00;22;20 – 00;00;27;22
Tammy Schamuhn
And the children’s nervous systems are saying, do less, do less, do less. Like, I’m not supposed to be doing all these things.

00;00;27;25 – 00;00;48;15
Dr. Mona
Welcome back to the PedsDocTalk podcast, a top 50 parenting podcast in the United States to guide you on your parenting journey. I get to chat with incredible people in the field of child health, development and parenting, and this show is a top podcast because of you, so keep leaving those reviews. I say it every week, but in the podcasting world it’s all about word of mouth and rating or review.

00;00;48;15 – 00;01;09;14
Dr. Mona
So after you listen, make sure to leave a review. Today’s guest is Tammy Moon. She is a child psychologist and co-founder of the Institute of Child Psychology and author of the new book, The Parenting Handbook. Here to talk about the power of play for kids and why you’re likely overthinking it. Thanks for joining me today, Tammy.

00;01;09;17 – 00;01;11;13
Tammy Schamuhn
Yeah. Thank you for having me.

00;01;11;15 – 00;01;19;09
Dr. Mona
Yeah. So welcome to the show. Congratulate on your book. Tell us more about yourself and the inspiration behind your new book.

00;01;19;11 – 00;01;44;01
Tammy Schamuhn
Yeah. So, I’m a child psychologist. I’m a mom of three. I’ve got kids like Cora, 16, ten and seven. So it’s busy. I also I’m a registered play therapist, so it’s quite timely. We’re talking about play, so that’s how I treat children clinically. Most kids under ten. So this definitely came into my parenting. Of course, that that is part of the kind of the trajectory of child development is healthy play.

00;01;44;03 – 00;02;01;24
Tammy Schamuhn
So it was actually a Covid baby. We decided to write the book in the middle of Covid, but it was something kind of always on the docket along with our own podcast. It was just something we knew we needed to do. And we had worked with so many parents clinically, who had kids coming up with anxiety and depression and attention issues and trauma.

00;02;01;27 – 00;02;28;12
Tammy Schamuhn
And the book really was all of the tidbits and strategies and recommendations that we made to parents how to create, like, long term positive mental health outcomes. And we thought, you know, like if parents could just start off their journey with this book, they could probably avoid a lot of mental health diagnoses, because this is kind of the ingredients for healthy child development in terms of the psychology part of it anyway.

00;02;28;14 – 00;02;46;28
Tammy Schamuhn
So I think that’s it. It was it’s kind of how we’re raising our kids. It’s based on all those recommendations we give, you know, thousands of families we’ve worked with and all of the principles that are interwoven on our podcast and our own business model and social media. So I think that’s kind of where we we came up with the idea.

00;02;47;01 – 00;02;51;22
Tammy Schamuhn
It’s kind of a launching pad. It’s just like all of our principles put into one place.

00;02;51;24 – 00;03;09;06
Dr. Mona
Oh, I love it. And thank you all so much for sending me, ebooks. So you sent me the e-book. I was able to review it, especially read the chapter about play, and I completely agree. You know, I’m obviously not a play therapist, but I see the benefit of that, being a lover of all things parenting, psychology, child development.

00;03;09;09 – 00;03;24;19
Dr. Mona
And so, you know, and, and I also I didn’t realize that you were also a play therapist focused. So that’s awesome. And, you know, in one of the chapters, you discuss the power of play. Describe what you mean as play and why play is so beneficial.

00;03;24;21 – 00;03;47;22
Tammy Schamuhn
Yeah, I think first, when some parents think play is and like imaginary play and playing doctor, and some parents go the other way where they’re thinking like putting your child in an organized activity is play. And when we talk, play, especially under ten, we’re not talking about organized activities. We’re actually talking about when adults, for the most part, get out of the way and the child is leading the sequence of what is going on.

00;03;47;24 – 00;04;19;16
Tammy Schamuhn
For the most part, we’ll talk about exceptions because there are cultural exceptions that we’ve looked at, like throughout the world, where the way we do things in North America isn’t how they necessarily do things in other cultures. So I can definitely speak to that. But it progresses over time where first children, like with their infants, they’re putting things in their mouth and they’re smelling things and they’re watching all the little things that parents put above, you know, when they’re laying on the on the ground and the little wheels, and then it progresses into, like the children copying the play.

00;04;19;16 – 00;04;53;09
Tammy Schamuhn
Like, for instance, when you’re in the kitchen and you’re cooking, your kids are banging on the pots and pans, and then they start. If you’re washing the windows, they’re washing the windows, and then it starts to eventually break into a really exploratory play where they’re putting things that we call mastery play, where they’re maybe building a tower or they’re moving things around, or they’re categorizing things, and then they start, you know, make believe play can start to kind of come in and social play where they’re playing games with other kids and where, you know, maybe they’re a magician or they’re a doctor or they’re a teacher.

00;04;53;12 – 00;05;24;22
Tammy Schamuhn
And so, of course, play is influenced by their social spheres. And like the parents and whoever’s in their world. But the idea is a child is using their imagination. That child doesn’t feel any pressure to do this. It comes from we would call like an internal locus of control and internal motivation that they are taking their experiences and they are trying to figure out the world through their imagination or through experimentation, like even riding a bike, or climbing a tree or mucking around in the creek, or, you know, playing in the sand.

00;05;24;22 – 00;05;44;07
Tammy Schamuhn
Like, these are all types of play that come from the child. We don’t have to tell them to do this. They naturally do this sort of thing. And the problem is, I think in our society, especially in North America, I can’t speak to, you know, in Europe or any other places. But I know in North America we can’t really fixated as parents on the message that we need to do more.

00;05;44;08 – 00;06;04;06
Tammy Schamuhn
We have to have them in like speaking another language, and they have to play a musical instrument and they have to be in like Canada, it’s hockey or dance or soccer and baseball. And there’s a lot of pressure for parents to entertain and to do all these things and often cost a lot of money. And it’s actually having the opposite effect that we want it to.

00;06;04;07 – 00;06;25;02
Tammy Schamuhn
It’s actually causing a lot of overwhelm for our kids, because all mammals are naturally meant to just play and then rest. And we’ve kind of robbed kids of that, of their childhood a little bit inadvertently because of like, social media and like our friends or close circles are saying do more, do more. And then children’s nervous systems are saying, do less, do less, do less.

00;06;25;02 – 00;06;27;18
Tammy Schamuhn
Like, I’m not supposed to be doing all these things.

00;06;27;21 – 00;06;50;28
Dr. Mona
Yeah, I think us too. I mean, I think, and I love, by the way, I love that you are culturally sensitive and recognizing that what we’re talking about here in North America, you’re based in Canada, I’m in the US is different and could be different from many other cultures because it’s true. But I, I do think that there is a disservice that we do as well as parents of the overscheduled and feeling that sort of it’s almost a form of comparison and keeping up with the Joneses for our children.

00;06;50;28 – 00;07;08;04
Dr. Mona
That, okay, well, so-and-so down the street is doing X, Y, and Z, and, you know, in violin and in this and checkbox, checkbox, checkbox. But what is it that your child wants to do? Is it over scheduling? Like I agree with you, I think over scheduling is a huge problem. And I think a lot of parents see what’s happening on social media.

00;07;08;04 – 00;07;29;27
Dr. Mona
But like you said, even with their peers. And that can lead to so much stress, like you said. And it’s funny because I was also overscheduled as a child and it didn’t hit you until you became an adult and realized, I don’t even know how to relax. I don’t even know how to sit and be idle like I was okay being bored, but I was never okay just not doing.

00;07;29;27 – 00;07;34;05
Dr. Mona
And that is not healthy. And I, I realized that as I became an adult.

00;07;34;08 – 00;07;56;12
Tammy Schamuhn
Yeah. And as a doctor that, you know, we need to really work with that default mode network in the brain, and we really need to hit the brakes on that parasympathetic nervous system that children need rest and downtime and boredom to consolidate memory, to develop social consciousness, to develop empathy. All these things we want we want kids to learn from school.

00;07;56;12 – 00;08;21;10
Tammy Schamuhn
If they’re going to consolidate all those memories and and these theories and all this, like the brain needs time to just relax a little bit. And if they’re do do do, they’re running. You know, this is where we get burnout. If you think that our young kids and then when they should be benefiting is in the teen years from organized activities about the age of 11 to 12 is when we start to see benefits from going in and learning another language from joining sport.

00;08;21;12 – 00;08;48;24
Tammy Schamuhn
And that’s when kids are dropping out is right when they benefit. And I’m like, and it’s the problem is how we structure it. Like we have kids entering too young and then that’s kind of the norm. And if you don’t get them in young, they can’t do the thing. And I’m like, oh dear. Like so I’m always a big fan of like recreational sports and activities for this reason than are necessarily competitive because then kids can enter in at a later age when it’s developmentally appropriate, which is about 11 to 12.

00;08;48;27 – 00;09;05;28
Dr. Mona
Now let’s take a break to hear from our sponsors. So you’re talking a lot about this sort of independent, driven play. How does you know parent driven play come in? So for example, I think there is a lot of pressure for parents to feel like they have to play with their children a lot, especially in those early years.

00;09;06;05 – 00;09;14;19
Dr. Mona
How would you kind of say that this balances with sort of independent play, parent interactive play and are the two important together?

00;09;14;21 – 00;09;36;27
Tammy Schamuhn
Yeah, I know so many parents, especially if they didn’t play or you’re really distracted. It’s hard to play with your kids. But this is a nice thing. Kids really just want time with their parents and if you just keep putting it back on them. And so my favorite technique that I learned when I was studying to become a play therapist is simply like sitting with your child, maybe have like 10 or 12 toys around and you only have to do this for like 15, 20 minutes.

00;09;36;29 – 00;09;53;23
Tammy Schamuhn
An hour would be the top in your day. I would never recommend playing for more than an hour a day. You just don’t have the attention span and then your child’s not deriving anything from it. So it’s choosing what you do. And then it might be Barbies. It could be playing Lego, like it might be building a puzzle.

00;09;53;25 – 00;10;19;29
Tammy Schamuhn
And it’s just, you know, just sitting and watching. And what we can call the name of it for parents is sport casting. Just notice what they’re doing and you’re not labeling things. You’re just saying, oh, that one’s going so fast or oh, you’re building that so high or and then noticing their feelings that are coming up. This is like the key to building your neurons in the brain is like it could be the characters or feeling frustrated or sad, or the child is like, oh, you’re trying to figure that out.

00;10;19;29 – 00;10;36;12
Tammy Schamuhn
But it’s kind of frustrating. And the key is when we’re playing with our kids is we’re not solving problems for them. We’re not doing things for them. We’re participating and kind of narrating what’s going on. And then sometimes they want us to be like the doctor, the teacher. And then when parents get stuck, I’m like, just ask them what to do.

00;10;36;15 – 00;10;57;01
Tammy Schamuhn
They’ll tell you what to do. Or, you know, parents are so worried they’re going to make the wrong voice or say the wrong thing. And I was like, oh no, your kid will get really good at bossing you around, I promise. I’ve been doing play therapy for a long time, like they lead, and then it’s such a natural inclination to do this that once they’re given the space, they just start to do it and you’re just there watching you.

00;10;57;01 – 00;11;20;27
Tammy Schamuhn
Make sure you just put away your phone and hopefully not have the TV on. And this just provides a lot of co regulation. And that child feels more competent and they feel special because you’re watching them. And sometimes you sit there and sometimes you play with them. But when parents get really involved in the play it’s really just doing what the child wants to do and just make sure it’s not a screen if we can help it, because that’s just not going to help the nervous system.

00;11;20;29 – 00;11;36;16
Dr. Mona
I love it. Thank you so much for saying that last part, because I think a screen not only like a television, but having your cell phone out, I talk about that a lot. I think we are a tech driven society, so sometimes we want a photo or take a photo or take a video of our child, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.

00;11;36;16 – 00;11;52;05
Dr. Mona
But then take the photo, take the video, put the phone aside. Don’t get on social. Post it like that is not one on one play. And I love what you said, because I think a lot of times what I hear from my community as well, I just, you know, I work long hours or I’m just so overwhelmed. I don’t have the time.

00;11;52;11 – 00;12;16;20
Dr. Mona
But what you’re saying is exactly true, that you don’t need to have hours on end. It’s that 15 20 minutes of quality in uninterrupted connection and asking them questions. Right? Like another comment that you mentioned is, I think there’s so much pressure to come up with the idea for the child, like, and I think it’s great to have ideas, but you see it on social like create the sensory kind of create this or create this or create this.

00;12;16;26 – 00;12;36;08
Dr. Mona
You can create that, but let the child show you and lead the way. Because that’s how they communicate through play and I think that’s such an important aspect. And, you know, as a play therapist, how do you see the show up in your patients, like you talked about the importance of play and how it can potentially help reduce mental health conditions in the future?

00;12;36;13 – 00;12;39;08
Dr. Mona
How do you see that in your in your practice.

00;12;39;10 – 00;12;58;28
Tammy Schamuhn
Yeah. So I to explain like to parents that play isn’t just play like we know it has all these amazing things. Like we can talk about how it builds executive functioning in the brain and memory retention and social skills like learning readiness, reading readiness specific like all of these, like anti-anxiety, like all these different things that it does for the brain that readies them for the world.

00;12;58;28 – 00;13;16;19
Tammy Schamuhn
So kids do things in play before they’re ready to do them in real life. So it’s really like a dress rehearsal for life. So understand it. It makes sense when you don’t give kids the dress rehearsal and then you put them on stage, they freeze or they don’t have the social skills or they’re not ready. So think of play as the dress rehearsal and they’ll do this.

00;13;16;19 – 00;13;35;23
Tammy Schamuhn
Really give them the space to do it. Yes, you can play with them. And then what? We’ll talk. I really want to come back to the idea of there’s another way to do this that doesn’t involve you playing in the traditional sense. So make sure we come back to that. So often what happens is we have kids who aren’t playing, and then they are brought to me for attention issues or anxiety or grief or loss or trauma.

00;13;35;24 – 00;13;55;13
Tammy Schamuhn
There’s lots of different reasons kids come to therapy, and what happens is kids play out issues that are bothering them in real life. It’s a projection piece, so it might be like, for instance, a little boy who battles with me, he wants a sword fight. You’re like, oh, it’s a sword fight. Really? What that is telling me is a couple different things.

00;13;55;13 – 00;14;17;12
Tammy Schamuhn
Plays a language. We can literally code. What play means. If I watch a child play for about four sessions, I can tell you what’s going on without the parents telling me anything. I’ll know what the presenting issue is. So sword plays. One of them were often little boy and sometimes girls, more often boys because they’re more aggressive in their play, naturally, or because they have more testosterone and the hunter gatherers kind of kind of thing.

00;14;17;12 – 00;14;37;05
Tammy Schamuhn
Right. So social hierarchy is very important to boys. So in terms of sword fighting, often that’s indicative of like a little boy who is struggling with feelings. Sometimes if it’s good and bad, is feeling bad like maybe he has impulse control issues or he’s been labeled something at school, or he just has these big feelings he’s scared to show because he’ll be rejected if he shows them.

00;14;37;07 – 00;14;59;03
Tammy Schamuhn
So that good and bad play is indicative of an issue a child is actually struggling with. It doesn’t mean aggression per se. It’s the quality of the good in bad. Another example is kids who make creations where there’s a lot of organization, where there’s a lot of lines they draw a lot of lines or colors go a certain way, or they categorize things from small to big.

00;14;59;05 – 00;15;36;01
Tammy Schamuhn
This is often indicative of anxiety because kids, you’re so chaotic in here, they need to organize the space out there. So it’s really interesting to watch the themes that we tease out in the play. And I’m not asking parents who are listening to this to go and diagnose your kid being like, oh, my son. Sword fights. It’s often repetitive when you see it repetitively is an example, and I’ll give you one more, just as like a teaser would be like kids who do a lot of nurturance, lots of doctor, lots of feeding the baby often have an innate need that they are not feeling nurtured in some way, like there is something hurting or they’re

00;15;36;01 – 00;15;52;16
Tammy Schamuhn
feeling a little neglected. Like that tells me, like I hurt in here a little, or some need isn’t being met. So I am meeting the need of the baby doll. I am meeting the needs of the characters. So yeah, it really is a language. And so when parents work, it’s just play. I’m like, no, no, no. They are literally showing you their story.

00;15;52;18 – 00;16;08;05
Tammy Schamuhn
These are the things they are struggling with. These are the issues that they’re getting ready to show you and do in real life in a main stage. But they’re doing the dress rehearsal in the play and that’s what a lot of parents don’t understand about play. It’s literally their language.

00;16;08;07 – 00;16;23;23
Dr. Mona
Oh, I love those examples. Thank you so much for sharing it. And like you said, to reiterate, it’s not like a kid playing with a doll automatically means that they’re not nurtured. It’s that repetition, like that obsession with that, that sort of play that you’re like, let’s get a little curious about why we feel the need to.

00;16;23;23 – 00;16;39;22
Dr. Mona
That has to be the play, and it has to be a certain way. And that’s fascinating. You know, whenever I talk to my patients in my office and I discuss play therapy because I do love play therapy. And, you know, I tell them, like what it’s going to look like. Obviously I’m not one, but I say, you know, let’s go see a therapist like, this is what they’re going to do.

00;16;39;27 – 00;16;56;01
Dr. Mona
And a lot of people don’t understand the benefit of it because they’re like, well, that doesn’t sound like therapy. I’m like, but you just said it perfectly. Kids are not always going to say, well, mommy, I’m feeling anxious or I’m feeling not nurtured enough. They’re going to show it through their actions. And so I think, oh, so fascinating.

00;16;56;03 – 00;17;20;05
Tammy Schamuhn
Yeah, I think if you, you’re a doctor, like, understand brain development, the right hemisphere of the brain develops first. And that is where play hangs out. That is where kinesthetic movement hangs out. That is where emotions hang out. The left develops later and that is language based. And so expecting a young child who has, you know, a deficit there and also executive functioning in that, the prefrontal cortex and the cortical brain there, that part isn’t very well developed.

00;17;20;05 – 00;17;38;21
Tammy Schamuhn
So when you do talk therapy with the child, you’re expecting them to use parts of the brain that are still under a lot of construction. So we’re saying, you know, use the parts of the brain the child is very immersed in. And that right hemisphere is all about art and creativity and gross motor movement and play like that is where they live.

00;17;38;21 – 00;17;57;27
Tammy Schamuhn
That’s where they camp out. And the more we develop that area, then they get ready to develop that left hemisphere. Girls are a little sooner with that. Our boys hang out more in the right anyway, and that’s even more important for boys that they have that really gross like roughhousing. Play is so important for our boys. They hang out waiting more in the brain stem in the right hemisphere.

00;17;58;04 – 00;18;07;14
Tammy Schamuhn
So roughhousing play is another really, really great one for our kids especially. It’s vitally important for our boys in terms of brain health.

00;18;07;17 – 00;18;23;08
Dr. Mona
Oh, I love that. And by the way, I’m loving that even more because me and my husband were going on a walk yesterday and we were talking about our children, and he was explaining how my son Ryan was roughhousing with a few other boys, and he said, hey, that’s fine, right? I’m like, absolutely. Let him enjoy that. And then he asked me.

00;18;23;08 – 00;18;40;14
Dr. Mona
He was like, it seems to be more of a boy thing that they like to roughhouse. I’m like, yeah, roughhousing can be both, but it is more of a boy thing. And I love that you’re explaining that, because now I can have him listen to this and see that there’s a psychological yes to that. Answer that yeah, boys, you have this innate desire to roughhouse, to connect.

00;18;40;17 – 00;18;57;12
Tammy Schamuhn
Yeah. And it’s just simply because we’re in there at rest there in the brain stem, and they hang out more in the right hemisphere. And this is all kinesthetic. And boys, the way they connect is actually through developing social hierarchy. It’s more important to boys. And aggression is one way they develop. It’s natural for boys to be competitive to all these things.

00;18;57;17 – 00;19;13;28
Tammy Schamuhn
So they want to establish who’s a leader, who’s stronger, who’s this? And we sometimes get like a little like worried about that because girls are much more egalitarian in their play. They want to like make nice and because they have more oxytocin in their brain, so they’re more likely to be like, oh, I want things to be fair, and I want to include everyone.

00;19;13;28 – 00;19;29;09
Tammy Schamuhn
And boys are like, I just want to know who’s in charge here. And I want to know where I stand, like in the pecking order. And that is actually part of childhood. People just don’t are taught this. So when boys do this, we get like so ruffled about it. And I’m like, no, they’re supposed to do that. Like this is how they like.

00;19;29;09 – 00;19;39;15
Tammy Schamuhn
Actually, once they establish the hierarchy, this calms them down. But they need to do that. And that’s part of that’s testosterone too, that they have the girls don’t have as much of. Right.

00;19;39;17 – 00;20;01;27
Dr. Mona
I’m loving this because this wasn’t even like what I intended to talk to you about, by the way. But I’m loving it because this is exactly important for parents to hear, because there is a movement. I wouldn’t call it a movement, but there’s this mentality that, oh, well, we create these stereotypes for boys and girls, right? Like boys are going to roughhouse, girls are going to be, like you said, more peaceful and sit and having one of each and parenting them very similarly.

00;20;02;02 – 00;20;19;18
Dr. Mona
Very. I’m not even denying the like I have insight into knowing. I can tell you that there is a biological difference in the way that they respond. And this is a great example. And I think that is so important to know because yes, I’m not going to raise a son who’s not respectful and stuff like that. Like people are like, oh, boys will be boys.

00;20;19;18 – 00;20;37;13
Dr. Mona
I’m like, no, I’m going to raise a respectful child and teach them about boundaries in a healthy way. But at the end of the day, my son loves jumping on his friends in the park, or my daughter wants to sit and look at everybody. And that’s temperament. But that’s also, like you said, could be just hormones. Testosterone or oxytocin.

00;20;37;13 – 00;20;38;22
Dr. Mona
And I love that.

00;20;38;25 – 00;21;01;15
Tammy Schamuhn
Good. Their chromosomal differences. You know, we learned a lot from, Doctor Michael Gurian about this. He wrote a whole book on it, and we’ve had him on our podcast. So you should definitely interview him. He’ll talk all about structural and hormonal love. This is and chromosomal differences. I’m not talking about gender here. This is literally sex differences, structural differences and hormonal differences based on the X, Y or the X chromosome.

00;21;01;15 – 00;21;19;05
Tammy Schamuhn
That’s what we’re talking about. Gender is a social construct. We’re not talking about that. We’re talking about biological sex here. I love it. And I think parents need to be aware there are differences. And so boys often get punished for what they naturally want to do. And I think it’s parents just get so uptight when their boys want to, like, play cops and robbers.

00;21;19;05 – 00;21;37;20
Tammy Schamuhn
They have a toy gun or like a sword or nunchucks. And I’m like, yeah, that’s pretty normal. Like they’re going to do that. And when they’re doing it in play, I think it’s okay. Like I let in my playroom, my kids, sometimes they kill me, they decapitate me, they tie me up, they handcuff me first. Blood on the floor.

00;21;37;20 – 00;21;57;01
Tammy Schamuhn
Like, these are not sociopathic children. These are children who are struggling with their feelings. And maybe they’ve seen something on TV, or they just feel inferior, or there’s trauma and it’s their only way to express these yucky feelings that they have, or these impulses that they have. And then when they do them in the play, they don’t do them in real life.

00;21;57;03 – 00;22;20;01
Tammy Schamuhn
Like the issue is that kids don’t play out their aggression and they can’t play out their inferiority or their social anxiety. Then it can come out. It’s like controlling other kids or aggressive behavior or bullying. Like to me is like the play prevents those things from happening because they develop competency and mastery and self-esteem and emotional integration and expression within the play.

00;22;20;03 – 00;22;38;01
Tammy Schamuhn
So I was just that’s why I’m so big on play for that preventative piece, because that’s what they end up doing with me and play therapy. And half the time I’m like, I can’t believe you’re paying me to do this. Because if they’re doing at home with a safe adult of course, then I’m an adult. That’s regulated. Of course, that’s the other part that we would see that.

00;22;38;04 – 00;22;52;01
Tammy Schamuhn
But, for parents, they’re like listening. And they’re like, I don’t have time. Like I’m telling you, and I know I’m a psychologist, my husband’s an engineer, and we also run a farm. Like, we don’t have a lot of time to play with our kids, I’ll tell you that right now. Like, you don’t agree.

00;22;52;01 – 00;22;58;22
Dr. Mona
And you also wrote a book. I mean, none of us have the freedom of time all the time. And I love that you’re being transparent because same with us.

00;22;58;25 – 00;23;17;29
Tammy Schamuhn
So I’m not saying you need to be like a stay at home parents who are good to us, but the really neat research came from Doctor Michaeleen Doucleff. She wrote a book called Hunt Gather Parent, and she did cross-cultural research in northern parts of Canada, Africa, Central America, lots of different parts where they have intact, ancient cultures, and they don’t play with their kids at all.

00;23;18;01 – 00;23;35;23
Tammy Schamuhn
So what they do is they just bring the child into the housework and the like, chores and like gardening and all of the even adults who are working within the home, and that it’s called parallel play. When kids naturally do this for about 18 months is that they want to start copying you. So like if you’re washing the windows, they want to wash the windows.

00;23;35;23 – 00;23;51;14
Tammy Schamuhn
If you’re cooking, they want to join the cooking. If you’re doing laundry, they want to help. If you’re doing that with your kids, it’s actually play. So like to all the parents who are like seriously, like, yes, it’s called parallel play. So that’s the idea. And you really got to hook them in at about 18 months to two years.

00;23;51;19 – 00;24;21;02
Tammy Schamuhn
So it becomes like this normal thing. So as young as possible when parallel play first starts, this will continue throughout their lifespan. And that connection. And there’s we are teaching them skills. We’re scaffolding the skill. So maybe they can only do a little bit at first, but they feel connected. They feel like they’re belonging. They feel significant, like they’re part of the unit, like they are making significant change within the family system that the system needs them, that this makes children feel like they belong in your culture of your family.

00;24;21;08 – 00;24;39;12
Tammy Schamuhn
And this establishes kind of, just a beautiful synchronicity between all the members. And that is considered play. So for all the parents who are like, I don’t want to play dress up, I’m like, cook with your children, do laundry with your children, like, go do gardening with your kids, go on walks with your kids, bike ride with your kids.

00;24;39;19 – 00;24;58;26
Tammy Schamuhn
It doesn’t have to be imaginary play. It doesn’t have to be Barbies like once in a while do that stuff. But I can tell you, as a parent, I didn’t do a ton of imaginary play with my son. Even being a play therapist, I just brought him into my world a lot and I like doing outdoor stuff, so that’s kind of where play comes into it for me with my son is doing stuff outside.

00;24;58;28 – 00;25;12;24
Dr. Mona
Well, from a health perspective, by the way, that is the best thing you can do is be outside. I mean, I can’t preach this enough. I think going back to, you know, the book that you read, I have to read the Hunt gather Parent. But going back in on evolutionary perspective, I mean, we need to be outside more.

00;25;12;24 – 00;25;34;03
Dr. Mona
And I know where you live may have a huge impact, but even that put on coats. Get outside if you can, weather permitting. But it’s just so beneficial to everything. Like you said, right? There’s going to be developmental aspects that are happening when you are walking through nature. From a mental health aspect, we know that. And then also from an immune health standpoint, I can’t express how much sunlight and being outdoors helps our immune system.

00;25;34;03 – 00;25;56;03
Dr. Mona
So I love that we’re able to talk about this as a child psychologist yourself a doctor, for me, because we’re always outside, like, yes, we are inside. Yes, we use screens. Yes, we have structured play, unstructured play. But, you know, I think one of the most important points that you’ve shared, and I really hope that people remember from my perspective, is that play can look so different from family to family.

00;25;56;03 – 00;26;15;00
Dr. Mona
And it’s about that composition of scheduled freedom, integrating them into your life. Like, it doesn’t have to be over thought. And I think we often make too much of it. Like, oh, well, it has to look like this, but oh my gosh, I didn’t do enough. And that’s just when guilt comes in and when play just isn’t fun anymore.

00;26;15;02 – 00;26;18;18
Dr. Mona
Now let’s take a break to hear from our sponsors.

00;26;18;20 – 00;26;35;27
Tammy Schamuhn
Yeah. And it really is this. This shame I’m not doing enough. Something’s wrong with me as a parent. And I’ll tell you, like my business partner who wrote the book with me, Tanya Johnson. If you were to look at our parenting, it’s actually really different. Like in terms of, like the basis, are there like we big on play and nature and like all of these things are discipline.

00;26;35;27 – 00;26;59;21
Tammy Schamuhn
Strategies are very similar. But ultimately I’m much more like task oriented with my kids where we do a lot of like cooking, cleaning, chores cause we have a farm, so we’re feeding animals together. We’re, you know, clearing trails for horseback riding. We do a lot of stuff outdoors with our kids, and we’ll do game nights. But when my kids play, like more of the traditional play, like building something Lego art, typically they’re in the basement just making a mess.

00;26;59;21 – 00;27;15;01
Tammy Schamuhn
Like we actually aren’t part of that. For the most part. We just stick them downstairs without a screen and eventually they figure it out. But that’s because we’ve taught them from very young. When they say, I’m bored, we don’t fix it for them. We don’t like. You got to figure this out. You are super creative. I know you can do hard things.

00;27;15;01 – 00;27;18;17
Tammy Schamuhn
Boredom is kids are so sick of me saying is boredom is really good for your brain.

00;27;18;19 – 00;27;20;05
Dr. Mona
Is it is I agree.

00;27;20;05 – 00;27;35;27
Tammy Schamuhn
Well they just no, they’re like fine. And eventually I’m like, if you want to help me around the house with this, this you’re welcome to. And most of the time they’re like, sometimes they want to and sometimes they’re like, we’re good. And then they, they go find something to do. Oh, but it’s like you gotta lean into the discomfort a little bit with the boredom.

00;27;35;27 – 00;27;49;24
Tammy Schamuhn
I think parents are like, oh, I means I’m bad. I’m like, no, it means your child is like on the precipice of doing something amazing. But you have to make space for it and let them be uncomfortable. And we have a hard time letting our kids be uncomfortable. I think that’s a really hard thing for many parents.

00;27;49;26 – 00;28;06;18
Dr. Mona
Oh, tell me this is like hitting me in my heart because I do believe that as modern parents, some of us have gone to the other extreme. Maybe we’ve had parents who weren’t as available, who weren’t as loving. And so in an effort to be better than our parents, I see a lot of this happen in my peers that we overdo.

00;28;06;18 – 00;28;24;01
Dr. Mona
We over try to schedule, we over try to be there when in some ways there’s a balance. And bringing back to your point about over scheduling, right. Like it all goes back to all this conversation of like, hey, you are over scheduling overdoing. Like, bring it back, bring it back a little bit. It’s going to be fine. I love this.

00;28;24;03 – 00;28;41;22
Dr. Mona
Yeah. And I know people are like, wait, what? What do you mean do last? My kid’s not going to feel loved or I’m not going to be a good parent. But I agree with this mentality. We are a do less sort of family. And that doesn’t mean that we’re dismissive or permissive, but it means that we don’t metal and we are okay with our child being upset.

00;28;41;22 – 00;28;55;28
Dr. Mona
And when we say, hey sweetie, this is your options. These are your toys to play with right now. We can’t go outside because it’s pouring rain. There’s no other option. You have to figure out what you’re going to do. And our four year old knows that he’s never used the word board because we don’t even comment on boredom.

00;28;55;28 – 00;29;10;29
Dr. Mona
We just say, here’s what you’re going to do. You have options here. I’m not going to decide for you. I know you’re capable, like you just said, and it feeds creativity like I could do. Again, a whole conversation with you about boredom and how we need to let our kids be bored so much more.

00;29;11;06 – 00;29;20;05
Tammy Schamuhn
Oh like my oh my, oh yeah, my son used. I’m started using. I am bored recently for the first time. He’s in second grade.

00;29;20;07 – 00;29;22;16
Dr. Mona
Oh, it’s coming from us.

00;29;22;18 – 00;29;39;18
Tammy Schamuhn
No, no, no, but this was interesting to me. It was because he has older siblings, right. And so his teenager in 16 year old can have a little more screen time than he can. He’s seven, but I was allowing it after school for just 30 minutes. And the second I started allowing him a screen after school, we take away the screen.

00;29;39;18 – 00;29;55;04
Tammy Schamuhn
I’m bored and I know that I know better. So after three weeks of this, I was like, we’re done. There are no screens until the weekend, and most parents like, and I’m like, yeah, there is no screen in our house. We’ve actually let a little bit of TV, like maybe they watch one Netflix episode of a show or something.

00;29;55;07 – 00;30;11;08
Tammy Schamuhn
Yeah, but there’s no handheld device until the weekend. And because simply we were getting on board and I’m like, there is no reason for you to be bored right now. And not to say we can still say I say the same thing, which is like, yeah, you get my spiel. But it was coming up not just once in a while.

00;30;11;08 – 00;30;27;13
Tammy Schamuhn
It was almost every day. And so immediately I was like, I’m sorry. We had a family meeting and there are no screens after school now. Like, this is something in me. I was like, this is not. And so it’s not. See, we’re at a screens in our family. It’s being like, this is allocated now to the weekends, and we can find other things to do with our time during the week.

00;30;27;13 – 00;30;42;26
Tammy Schamuhn
Because and you know what? Boredom is now officially word that it’s not on my kids vocabulary during the week. So about 2 to 3 same after. Yep. And it’s gone now and we’re not getting on board anymore. I’m like, oh, there we go. And so that’s a bit of a detox there though. When you do this.

00;30;42;29 – 00;31;03;10
Dr. Mona
If you I thought, you know for me off of the kid my kids for and I was like, I’m very big on it because it’s something that like from a child development psychology perspective, I’m like, I don’t want that to be a word because it almost is almost like a complaint, because I’m like, there’s so much in this world that you could be doing, and I want to teach you that even if you have nothing to do, it’s okay.

00;31;03;10 – 00;31;22;14
Dr. Mona
Like boredom to me, it’s a negative word. I’m sorry, but it is. But yeah, I love this conversation. Tammy, what else would you like to add before we end this conversation about play? Because I know we talked about obviously the benefits of independent play, play therapy, how it can look different in boys and girls, boredom and two types a little bit like we talked about in Boys and girls.

00;31;22;14 – 00;31;27;20
Dr. Mona
That can be true, but is there any final message or anything you’d like to add before we wrap up?

00;31;27;22 – 00;31;47;07
Tammy Schamuhn
No, I think you you hit the nail on the head. Like I said, parents don’t do so darn much. They’re killing themselves assuming they have a self. All of these. This checklist campaign says it’s like a friend of ours. He’s written lots of books on child development. And he said parenting has become like a parental arms race, and we just need to slow things down and get down to the basics of who our children are.

00;31;47;07 – 00;31;54;21
Tammy Schamuhn
And through the play, they show us their authenticity, their creativity and who they really are. And play is where you will really get to know your child.

00;31;54;23 – 00;32;16;12
Dr. Mona
I love it, I agree. Oh Tammy, this is so great and your book, congratulations! Like I said, I am so excited for this to be out in the world already. Because this information is so vital, like I said, to just really get back to the basics of parenting and remove all of that overthinking and stress. Where can people find you, the book, and your social media handles to stay connected?

00;32;16;14 – 00;32;36;03
Tammy Schamuhn
Because we’re in Canada, it’s in the bookstores, but in the US, mostly on Amazon. So just go to Amazon.com and that parent, the Parenting handbook. I don’t know if people see it or not, but it’s the parenting handbook. Yeah. So it’s out there. And if right now if parents purchase it, they can go to my parenting handbook.com and they submit a receipt.

00;32;36;03 – 00;32;52;19
Tammy Schamuhn
They can actually get a free six hour e-course on discipline because parents don’t struggle with discipline and it’s all trauma informed. It’s all based on brain science. Like nothing in that course is going to cause harm. It’s actually going to help discipline that helps build your child’s brain and make them more competent and resilient.

00;32;52;21 – 00;33;03;16
Dr. Mona
Thank you so much. That’s wonderful. I’m going to be adding this all to my show notes so that everyone can check it out, as well as the Instagram handle. Can you tell everyone again where they can find you on social media?

00;33;03;18 – 00;33;13;05
Tammy Schamuhn
Yeah, it’s Institute of Child Psych, like on Instagram. And then obviously institute child psychology on Facebook. And then yes, those are the main ones people. But we’re on Pinterest and on YouTube and all of that.

00;33;13;05 – 00;33;14;05
Dr. Mona
But wonderful.

00;33;14;05 – 00;33;17;21
Tammy Schamuhn
Yes. I mean, most of our viewers live on Instagram or Facebook.

00;33;17;23 – 00;33;29;14
Dr. Mona
Wonderful. And then I know there’s a podcast, but again, I’m going to link all of this. Thank you, Tammy, so much for joining me today. This was an amazing conversation. I really resonated with it as well and appreciate your time today.

00;33;29;17 – 00;33;36;16
Tammy Schamuhn
Yeah, thank you so much. It was it was lovely. We’re very kindred. We’re very aligned in our views, I think, with raising kids as moms. So it’s nice to see that. Yeah.

00;33;36;16 – 00;33;50;23
Dr. Mona
And I, I don’t know that until I start recording. So that’s that’s awesome. That, you know, I really it’s a truly authentic conversation. And when I have my guests come on and I, I don’t know if my listeners know that, but we have basic talking points. But I tell my guests it goes where we want it to go.

00;33;50;23 – 00;33;58;04
Dr. Mona
And sometimes I agree with my guests, sometimes I don’t. And in this situation, we agreed and it inspires me. So, thank you so much.

00;33;58;08 – 00;34;00;20
Tammy Schamuhn
Thank you so much. It was lovely to see you.

00;34;00;22 – 00;34;17;03
Dr. Mona
Yes. And for everyone listening, if you enjoyed this episode, which I hope you did, make sure you leave a review and a rating. Share it on social media. Tag our accounts so that we know you loved it. And I cannot wait to connect with Tammy and her team for hopefully a future episode, but also with another guest next time as well.