What Fresh Hell: Laughing In The Face Of Motherhood

When we have multiple kids we dream of them romping together all day in the yard as joyful playmates! The reality is often a little more complicated. Ashley asked: How do you encourage older siblings to play with younger ones? Covid has made this even more challenging, since we're all around each other a lot. My kids are four years apart: boy age 9, girl age 5. We need to manage our expectations that siblings will be best friends. It is understandable that our kids are tired of each other's company, especially during the pandemic. But there are ways that we can encourage our kids to play together, and the best way is to model play for them. When we get in there and play with our kids, we set up an expectation that play is part of what we do together as a family. Whether it's simple card games that both older and younger siblings can play together, or showing them how to play H-O-R-S-E at the basketball hoop, we can help our kids improve their ability to play together. Once you've introduced group play to your