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A Weekly Column for the National Writing for Children Center from Grier Cooper

The holiday season has sprung up in full glory, winter is just around the corner, and in the middle of all the festive merrymaking it’s hard to believe that sometime, in the very near future, there will be cabin fever to contend with. Just as little girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice, winter is often made of snow and ice, things not very nice, leading to a parental waking nightmare, where the family is stuck in the house and the kids are bouncing off the walls, looking for somewhere to expend their excess energy. It’s moments like these, when things get tough, that the tough proceed immediately to the stereo, crank up the tunes, and let the wild rumpus begin… the impromptu living room dance party, guaranteed to combat even the toughest cases of bad weather blues.

Just because it’s nasty outside does not mean that fun cannot be had inside. For most children under age eight, fun music inspires an immediate response: feel the beat, move your feet. Better yet, this is an activity that the whole family can enjoy. Parents spend a lot of time and energy trying to squeeze in a little time to get in a good workout when in reality, it can be had for free anytime… burn two hundred calories on thirty minutes, and you don’t even have to leave the house. Not that you could… even if you wanted to.

To make the activity fun for everyone, be sure to select music that everyone will enjoy, grownups included. Some foolproof musical selections include: old-time classics, such as anything by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, or The Ramones, soundtracks from musicals like Singin’ In The Rain, High School Musical, Grease and Saturday Night Fever, or just hit “shuffle” on your MP3 player, and let the internal electronic dj genie take over. As long as the music has a good beat and makes you want to move your body, then it’s the right choice.

Try dancing with partners as well as individually. If there are several people dancing, try dancing together in a circle, or create a conga line. If you have carpets, pillows thrown randomly on the floor can add to the fun. Use them as steppingstones to jump from, or as an obstacle course to avoid. If you have hardwood floors, the pillows can be pretend puddles to jump over.

The living room dance party is your prescription for dealing with pent-up energy (yours and your children’s) and keeping everyone sane, healthy and fit. This New Year’s, make your number one resolution a dance revolution!

Cabin Fever is foreign to us here in Miami! It is so gorgeous outside! 78 degrees and pure sun. There is a snow storm in NY right now! But  I  am sitting in the grass in my backyard watching my husband and dog, Gigi, (great defense!) play basketball.

But if you are getting tired of the winter weather, and your kids are getting Cabin Fever, here are some ideas to keep them entertained:

• Set up indoor bowling. Be creative with the pins (cans, plastic bottles, etc.)
• Do some indoor exercises together with your kids. (Yoga, aerobics, climbing the stairs, etc.)
• At night play hide and seek with the lights out using flashlights. Each child should be with a parent, so he or she does not get too frightened. This is a blast to play. We have done it many times, and loved it.
• Set up a tent in the living room or basement and go “camping” in the winter.
• If you cannot drive due to the weather, get together with neighbors to have hot chocolate or play some board games.
• Have your kids write and illustrate their own book about winter.
• If you can make it to the library, find out what programs they have for kids.
• Suggest that kids put on a play for the adults in the house. Have them practice and tell them to be creative with costumes by using what you have in the house. This will keep them busy for hours.
• Go through photo albums with your kids. They’ll love to see their baby pictures and pictures of your life before they were born.

If all else fails, plan a trip to Florida where you can always go outside (except for hurricanes)!

Tomorrow morning I'm putting on my parenting expert hat and doing a spot on Pittsburgh Today Live (KDKA - the CBS affiliate) with Kristine Sorensen on helping parents survive the short winter days when trapped indoors with a mess of little kids. I remember those days well, even though the White Power Ranger in the above photo of my kids just celebrated his 2oth birthday, a fact which kind of freaks me out.


Anyway, here is "SMI," or the first three parts of my SMILE system - five easy parenting strategies that work in almost any tough situation, even snow days! (For that matter, they work pretty well for people of any age, with or without kids.) I've included some practical examples of how to implement them, with a focus on ideas that work well this time of year. I promise to add the last two strategies - the "LE" - tomorrow. (I'd put everything up today, but I need some time tonight to do something about my hair and figure out what I'm going to wear, especially since I have to sit next to the skinny and lovely Ms. Sorensen tomorrow morning. And I know for a fact she has two kids, so I can't just blame the difference in our looks on my motherhood status. Drat. Well, I am a lot older than she is.)

STICK TO SAME AND SIMPLE Routines, rituals and clear rules keep your child secure and happy.

• Develop a schedule and easy routines for each day's Big Events like meals and bedtime. (Visit www.flylady.net if you need help with family life routines, or if you're like me and are prone to a certain, well, slobbiness.)


• Ease post-holiday blues with a few fun traditions as you transition back into normal routines, like letting everyone eat a little of the now-stale gingerbread house on the day you put the holiday decorations away.


• Teach the Golden Rule (over and over and over), and use catchphrases (like “Use your words not your body” or “Inside voices please”) to remind your child that punching and screeching are more than you can bear at the moment.

MAKE THE MOST OF MUSIC AND ART These soothe the savage beast – and help civilize her too.

• For some reason, kids are more likely to comply with demands if you sing them. Singing in an opera voice will even make my husband do what I want, as long as I agree to stop the minute he cooperates. Adapt the lyrics to familiar all-purpose tunes like “The Wheels on the Bus” and “Here We Go ‘Round the Mulberry Bush” or just make up a chant that kind of has rhythm.


• Know why movies always seem better than real life? Soundtracks. (And professional make-up artists help too.) Put on music to create or change the mood in your home. It doesn't have to be kid music. In fact, on a blizzardy, cranky day - it's probably best to avoid anything sung by purple dinosaurs or by adults acting like freakishly cheerful little kids.


• Use arts and crafts to bust stress and teach kids to follow directions. I highly recommend my friend Judy Press's arts and crafts books if you need ideas. Try The Little Hands Big Fun Craft Book (Williamson).

• Here's a quick and easy "craft" or "science project" (depending on which your kid prefers). Pour about an inch of milk into a shallow plastic container. Drop dots of food coloring over the surface (they should kind of sit tight where you drip them). Pour a small amount of dishwashing liquid into another small container and give your child a toothpick. Show him how to dip the tip into the soap and then lightly into the center of one of the food coloring drops. WOW! If you go easy on the soap, you can repeat this for quite a long time before there's just too much soap in the milk. Just be nice and don't hog this activity just because it's so much fun.
  

INVOKE IMAGINATION AND HUMOR They’re great tools to prevent rebellion and create warmth.

• To make your child stop pinching her little brother, ask her to fly like a dragon or trot like a pony to the other room and fetch something for you.


• To encourage hat-wearing, put a mirror at kid-height by the winter clothes hooks - and allow considerable vamping and silliness. Get boots on reluctant tootsies by pretending to be Prince Charming outfitting Cinderella with her glass galoshes.


• Stock up on funny books, silly CDs, outlandish dress-up clothes, and anything else that gets your gang giggling.

Need more ideas than this and can't wait for me to post more of them? Check out my award-winning parenting books, FussBusters at Home and FussBusters on the Go (Peachtree).

Publisher's Weekly reports that Siobahn Dowd, author of the wonderful first novel A Swift, Pure Cry has died in Oxford at age 47 of cancer. I'm saddened that this beautiful talent is gone.

Rebecca OUP-US

I’m emotional. I sob in movies. Even bad movies like Boiler Room. Remember that one? It came out in like 1999 or 2000 and starred Giovanni Ribisi. There was a scene in which Ribisi’s character has an emotional break down in front of his father while reminiscing about a childhood biking accident. I sobbed like a baby and I didn’t even like the movie! So you can just imagine my reaction to the end of Tess of The D’Urbervilles. (more…)

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