Bringing Out the Kid in All of Us
Every family seems to have one: the grandparent who turns bedtime into a circus and the one who runs it like a Swiss train schedule. Grandpa does the ridiculous voices, “accidentally” loses at checkers, and somehow always has a quarter behind your ear. Grandma, meanwhile, is the one making sure hands are washed and bedtime is at 8:00 sharp, no negotiating. Kids adore both, for different reasons — and that contrast isn’t an accident of personality so much as a hint about what child development research has shown for decades: children thrive with a mix of playful warmth and reliable structure, and they don’t actually need every adult in their life to supply both in equal measure. Psychologist Stuart Brown, founder of the National Institute for Play, has argued that play isn’t a luxury humans age out of — it’s a biological drive that benefits adults just as much as children, which may be exactly why “Grandpa the goofball” seems to enjoy the silliness nearly as much as the grandkids do.
This raises a fair question, though: is there such a thing as a parent being too playful — too immature to be the adult in the room? The distinction developmental psychologists tend to draw isn’t about how silly a parent is willing to be, but whether the child still experiences that parent as a reliable anchor when it matters. A parent who does the funny voices and loses on purpose at Candyland is playing; a parent who can’t hold a boundary, follow through on a limit, or shift out of “kid mode” when a child genuinely needs guidance or comfort has crossed into something else. Attachment research consistently shows that children do best with what’s sometimes called “serious playfulness” — an adult who can be delighted and silly one moment and steady and in-charge the next, without those two modes undermining each other. Grandpa can be hilarious precisely because everyone trusts that when it counts, he’ll still be the grown-up.
How much a parent should insert themselves into a child’s play is its own balancing act. Play researchers, including those building on Vygotsky’s work, generally favor following the child’s lead rather than directing the game — letting the child decide the plot of the pretend restaurant, the rules of the made-up sport, the “correct” way to build the pillow fort — since child-led play is where much of the independent problem-solving and confidence-building happens. But that doesn’t mean hands-off is always best either; a parent’s genuine, responsive presence during play (laughing at the right moments, playing a supporting character rather than the lead, occasionally being “surprised” by a plot twist a child clearly just invented) tends to deepen a child’s enjoyment rather than dilute it. The goal isn’t to run the game or to disappear from it — it’s to be delightfully, attentively along for the ride, which is exactly the role grandparents so often seem to nail without even trying.
Then there’s the moment every parent knows too well: “Do we have to stop? Just a little longer — please?” Ending play well matters as much as starting it. Giving a heads-up before a transition (“Five more minutes, then we clean up together”) rather than an abrupt stop respects a child’s absorption in what they’re doing, and research on childhood transitions consistently shows that predictable warnings reduce meltdowns far more than firm cutoffs alone. But the deeper trick — the one grandpa somehow always seems to know — is that stopping one fun thing doesn’t have to feel like the end of joy itself if the next thing has a little play folded into it too. Folding laundry can become a sorting game; the car ride can include a silly made-up song; even brushing teeth can have a countdown “race.” Parents don’t need to carve out separate, guilt-laden blocks of “real play” and treat everything else as the serious, joyless part of the day. A parent who lets themselves be a little bit of a kid — even during the boring parts — teaches a child something durable: that fun isn’t a scheduled event you have to fight to hold onto, but a way of moving through an ordinary day together.
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Victor Newman
An viris oportere tincidunt est, cu appareat pericula vel. Per porro epicurei facilisi cu. Eum nobis tibique ea.
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Theresa Henderson