Permission to Play

Your child asks a simple question at bedtime and suddenly you’re doing a full internal audit: “What do you do for fun?” I had that moment after April Fool’s Day, and I realised my answers were all wrapped up in productivity, parenting, and keeping the wheels on. The unsettled feeling stuck around because it pointed to something bigger: for many of us, fun slowly becomes “optional” until it disappears entirely.

We talk about why play and fun matter for parents’ mental health, not as a fluffy extra but as a real wellbeing tool. When life feels heavy and expensive, joy is often the first thing we cut, yet laughter, connection, and hobbies give the nervous system a break. We look at the simple science behind it too: dopamine, cortisol, and why a dance party in the kitchen or a quick card game can genuinely help regulate stress. This is practical, low-cost self-care that fits real family life in Aotearoa New Zealand.

We also make an important distinction between fun with your kids and fun that belongs only to you. Not all children’s play is fun for adults and that is normal. The goal is to find the overlap where you both genuinely enjoy the activity, while also protecting something that makes you feel like yourself again, even for half an hour.

I finish with three grounded tips you can try this week: write two lists, protect one thing from each list, and notice the guilt then do it anyway. If this resonates, subscribe, share it with a parent who’s feeling flat, and leave a review. What do you actually do for fun?

Welcome to the Kebudel Parent Podcast—your no-nonsense, fun-filled guide to parenting, straight from the experts who really get kids (and parents too!). 

Brought to you by experienced early childhood educators, we’re here to dish out practical advice, laugh at the messiness of parenting, and share our insider knowledge to help you thrive. From decoding tantrums to sparking your child’s love of learning, we cover it all with a healthy dose of humor and zero judgment.

Why listen? Because parenting doesn’t come with a manual, but it can come with expert-backed insights, a little sass, and a whole lot of support. Let’s navigate this wild ride together—one episode at a time. 

Transcript

Welcome And Why Fun Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Kyota and welcome back to the Kibirdle Podcast. I'm Alex from the First Five Years, and I'm really glad you're here today. So it's April, and that means that we've just come through April Fool's Day. And honestly, that's where today's episode is going to begin. But don't worry, not with a prank, because as it turns out, we don't really do pranks in my house. And my son pointed that out to me at bedtime on April 1st. And then he asked me something that I wasn't really prepared for. He asked me, What do you do for fun? And I didn't have an answer at that time. So today we're going to talk about that, about play, about fun, and why it matters for us as parents, and about what happens to our mental health when we quietly stop making space for things that we think is fun, not just what brings fun for our children. And I also want to talk about something that I think gets in the way for a lot of us, which is the idea that fun has to look a certain way or cost a certain amount. It doesn't. But we'll get into that. Let's start at the beginning.

The Bedtime Question That Stung

SPEAKER_00 1:06

So there I was, doing bedtime on April first, just the usual rounds, saying goodnight, tucking them in, all of that. And my son looked up at me and said, Mum, we never do pranks. They would be so fun. Some people do pranks on each other on April Fool's. And I smiled and I agreed and I thought, yeah, fun, but it also seems like it would add more to my mental load. But maybe next year. Some fun pranks don't need to be too convoluted. I guess I could organise something for next year. But then he kept going and he said, But what do you actually do for fun? And I was a bit stumped by this question actually, and I reflected on my day, which entails a lot of that typical adulting things like dishes and food prep and answering emails and work stuff, and while I stood there and I kind of tried to think of an answer. I love to read, I love researching, and honestly, those two things are mostly wrapped up in my work, and I love my work, does that count? I couldn't find the thing that was just mine though, just for me. Just because I felt like it, with no output attached. And I left his room that night and I felt a bit unsettled. And the kind of way where something your child has shown you or said to you uncovers something within you. I find this happens quite a lot in my parenting, actually. How your child can just show you pieces of yourself that need addressing. I think a lot of parents would have the same pause if someone asked them that question. What do you do for fun? What do you do just for you? Because somewhere in the middle of keeping everything running, fun becomes optional. It's a nice-to-have aspect of life. Fun moves to the bottom of the list, and over time it's taken off the list. It just kind of disappears. And so today I want to talk about what that actually costs us and what we can do about it. So if you watch a child for long enough, you'll see something really beautiful is that they just slip into play and fun without even thinking about it. One minute they're eating breakfast, and the next minute they're completely absorbed in some sort of imaginary world, unbothered by what else needs to be done. Play for children tends to be anything they do just for the joy of it. It's not outcome focused. It's no interest in the product at the end typically. It's just the doing is the whole point of play and fun. And most of us can probably remember that feeling being so absorbed in something that time just disappears. Making something, building something, exploring something just because it was fun. I used to love making cars out of banana boxes when my parents would come back from the supermarket or the orchard. And I'd be so absorbed in it that I still remember that feeling. The thing is we don't lose the capacity for fun and play as we grow up. What happens is that we just get a lot of other things competing for our attention, and fun just tends to lose out pretty consistently. Think about the people that you know who knit, do crafts, garden, or bake for the love of it. Watch what happens when they settle into it. Their shoulders drop, they get absorbed. And if you ask them why they do it, most of them will say the same version of the same thing. It relaxes me, I enjoy it, it makes me happy. That is play. I like to think of it like this. Hobbies and play exist because we actually need to do things that aren't about output. And we live in a world that puts enormous value on productivity and output. So taking time to do something for fun can honestly feel a bit indulgent or even wrong, like you should be doing something useful instead. But it isn't indulgent. It's actually necessary for us as adults. Now fun is genuinely good for our mental health. And right now I think that matters more than it probably ever has. We are living through a period of time that is for a lot of families just genuinely hard. The cost of living is real. The world is in conflict. The mental load of this all is real. The pace of life just seems relentless, and when things feel tight and heavy and intense, fun is usually the thing that we cut out because it feels like a luxury that we can't justify. But here's what we know about humans. When we do things that bring us joy, our nervous system gets a break. We regulate. We come back to ourselves a little. Laughter, play, connection. They're not just nice to have, they're really important. They are part of how we stay well. There's actually really good evidence around this when we laugh, when we play, when we do something we genuinely enjoy, our brain releases dopamine.

The Science Of Joy And Stress

SPEAKER_00 6:38

And that chemical is connected to motivation, pleasure, and feeling good. And it lowers cortisol, which is our stress hormone. So when you're having a dance party in the kitchen or sitting down for a game of cards, something real is happening in your body. You are literally regulating your stress response through fun, which I think is a pretty good argument for taking this seriously. And when we don't have enough of play and fun, that's when we start to see what I'd describe as flatness. Nothing is terribly wrong, but nothing feels particularly good either. There's a kind of grey quality to the days. I often hear parents describe feeling tired or flat, like they've lost a bit of themselves somewhere along the way in parenting. And sometimes that's exactly what has happened. The joy has been slowly squeezed out. And while we might really love and appreciate our role as parents, over time we have squeezed out what brings ourselves individually joy. We haven't noticed it because we've been too busy keeping everything else going. Fun is one of the most accessible tools we can have for our mental well-being. And it doesn't have to be expensive or complicated. This is really important. Fun doesn't require a budget. It might be a game of cards at the kitchen table. It might be a walk around the block, it might be putting music on and dancing in the lounge with your kids where nobody is dancing well but everyone is laughing. It might be a phone call with your friend who makes you feel like yourself again. It might be picking up a book that has nothing to do with parenting or work, and it's just reading because you want to. These things are free or close to it, and they work to bring fun into our lives. So fun with your kids and fun that is just for you are both important, but they're both different. And so I want to make a distinction here because I think it's important. There's that fun that you have with your children, and there's the fun that only belongs to you, and both matter. Some of my favourite moments as a parent are the ones where I just stop adulting and managing everything, and I just join in with what my children are doing. The fun kitchen dance party or jumping on the trampoline and playing crack the egg. And being present and having fun with them. These moments are awesome and a real connection, and my kids can feel it. But not all kids play is fun for us as parents. And I want to normalize that because that's completely normal. I am not a Lego person, never was, never have been, and certainly I am not a Lego person as an adult. But my kids love Lego. And if I sit down and build Lego with them, I'm mostly just going through the motions. They

Fun With Kids Versus Fun Alone

SPEAKER_00 9:41

sense that. There's a difference between tolerating an activity and genuinely enjoying something together. And I think that difference really matters. When parents play with their children, it communicates something really important to the child that we like spending time with them, that they are valuable, and that we really want to spend time with them. And that's really important for our children's developing sense of self-worth and their self-esteem. And that they matter. But our children can also read when we're not actually having fun. So it's worth taking a bit of time to figure out which activities actually sit in the overlap where you enjoy those activities and your child enjoys those activities and you can do them together. The things that your kids love and that you genuinely enjoy. So for me, that would that's jumping on the trampoline, that's having dance parties, going for walks together, playing Monopoly deal. And then I think it's important to understand what things as a parent you do just for you for fun. For me, once I sat down with my son's question honestly, I realized that fun for me looks like walking my dog, catching up with my friends over coffee. Simple, nothing complicated, and I genuinely enjoy these moments. Neither of these things would fit in the fun category if my kids were going to describe what fun looks like. And when I started to really reflect about this question, what does fun look like for me? I was also reminded that my kids are watching what adult life looks like. This is one of the things that really landed for me and I as I thought through this all. Because when we talk about parenting, we talk a lot in parenting about modelling. We talk about modelling how to handle big feelings, how to treat people, how to navigate conflict, but we don't talk as much about whether we're modelling joy and fun. Children learn what adult life looks like mostly by watching it. Not by what we tell them, but from what they see, from what they see us actually do. And when they see you stop and have that dance party in the kitchen, they learn that joy is worth pausing for, that fun is worth pausing for. When they see you come home from a walk feeling a bit lighter, they learn that adults get to do things that feel good, and they'll be able to answer the question, what does mum do for fun? They'll know because they see it. I think that's worth something, isn't it? The idea that we can grow up and still have fun, still find

Modelling Joy For Your Children

SPEAKER_00 12:25

joy, that we can still do the things that we love, still find life genuinely enjoyable, and that's something pretty epic that we can show our children. So my son asks me what I do for fun, and I didn't have a good answer then, and that's okay. I am grateful that he asked this question because it's made me look at something that I've been ignoring. The things that I consider fun have evolved since I was a child. That's okay. A walk with my dog is not the same as losing an afternoon building a fort, but it fills me up in the same kind of way. And I guess I'd stop prioritizing it in the way it deserves. So before I sign off today, I want to leave you with three practical tips. So you might consider this question as well. Tip one, write two lists. Grab a piece of paper and write down the activities you genuinely enjoy doing with your children. Not the ones that look good, not the ones that you think you should enjoy, but the ones you actually enjoy, the ones that make you laugh, connect, and just have fun with your children. And then write a separate list of all the things that are just for you. The things that make you feel like yourself. Even for half an hour, these two lists are your starting point. Tip two. Protect one thing on each list this week. Not next month, this week. It doesn't have to be big, it might be a game of cards on a Tuesday night or a walk while someone else does the dishes. Or texting a friend for a coffee day. One thing for you. And then I want you to prioritize one thing with your kids. Small and consistent priorities beat grand and occasional every time. Tip three,

Three Simple Ways To Start

SPEAKER_00 14:15

notice the guilt and do it anyway. Because the thing is a lot of us will feel a little pull of guilt when we do something just for ourselves. Like we should be doing something useful instead. I want you to notice that feeling and name it, and then do the fun thing anyway. Fun is not a reward for finishing everything else. Everything is never finished. Fun is part of what keeps you well. And a parent who is well, who has fun and joy coming in and not just going out, is an all-fulfilled parent. You deserve to have fun, not just as a treat, but just as part of life. And on that note, I want to leave you with this question that my son asked me, because I want you to sit with it once again. What do you actually do for fun? Thanks for being here. I'll see you next time.