If you can hear those words in your head uttered by the lovely Clive Dunn from the 70′s sit com Dad’s Army, then you’re probably of my generation or maybe you watch TV programs from yesteryear.
Either way, they encapsulate something I’d like to say to you lovely parents when hosting a party for lots of little strangers and their parents.
Don’t panic! It will all be fine.
Sometimes when faced with a big space like a church hall, children will feel the urge to run about. Some will even do that lovely slidey knee thing. ( I wish I could do that and get away with it, but I fear I may never get up again if I tried!)
If they do start to run about, it’s not the end of the world.
Don’t panic!
Your energy will translate to the children , they can smell the anxiety , just like dogs and they will sense it as fear. That makes it hard for you to take charge and remedy the situation ( if you don’t like the running about, some do!)
So what do you do if you feel that your party is starting to tip into chaos?
First take a deep breath. Remember your energy is paramount. Calm your breathing down.
Ask the grown-ups ( or get another adult to help with this) to quieten down. (You’ll be amazed at how much adult noise affects behaviour of children in a party situation)
If you have an entertainer and they are able to help, ask them to start an activity. The children will listen to a stranger.
Gain the attention of the children by making a sound that they won’t expect : blow a whistle, bang a tambourine or get a bloke to shout ATTENTION!
Once the attention is gained, harness the enthusiasm and energy of the children and announce a game in a good confident , projected voice.
Don’t ask who wants to play … just say WE ARE GOING TO PLAY…Give the children a choice and many will choose to keep on with their own invented/slightly dangerous(?) game.
Play games that involve non competition and action. Try the Hokey Cokey ( Get the grown-ups going too, they’ll enjoy this one especially if they’ve had a glass or two…) Go on a Bear Hunt , Be the Grand Old Duke of York ( or get a suitable bloke to be Sergeant Major and play a version of “Simon Says.” Kids love following instructions! Play Ring a Ring a Rosies with smaller children.
I can’t stress enough how your energy and that of the other grown-ups will affect the behaviour of the children.
Just because they’re running around doesn’t mean they’re being naughty. They’re using their imaginations to fill in the gaps. They’d much rather the adults join in with them and have fun all together.
My crocheted fingerpuppet soldier standing to attention.
One of the biggest areas of debate I face when clients call me is that concerning attention span. More often than not, when clients see that I offer a minimum time session of 45 minutes to an hour they will say that their child definitely will not sit for that length of time. Even though I respect that my clients know their own children best of all, I always ask my clients to keep an open mind when it comes to puppet entertainment , that it may be that their child may react in a different way altogether when faced with live entertainment and personal interaction , focus and involvement. Modern studies suggest that due to new technologies, our attention spans are growing shorter and shorter , requiring more and more stimuli to keep us entertained. I challenge this study. Why should we now believe that our children can’t concentrate on anything just because they won’t sit for long in front of a screen?
When it comes to human interaction , children are able to concentrate for great lengths of time.
My experience over 20 years of working in the field of children’s entertainment suggests that all children , even the youngest , are able to maintain focus if you involve them with eye contact, ‘mugging’
Silly sausage me.
( exaggerated facial expressions and grand gestures) and changes in pace and volume. Even adults are easily bored if things are monotonous. Add familiarity and ownership to the mix and you are on to an absolute sure fire winner.
What do I mean by ownership? Well, in my routines , I make sure that I play the silly billy. I’m the adult that can’t get things right. I’m very careful not to do this in a patronising way as that can be very easily sniffed out as disingenuous by savvy kids , but use a big dollop of tongue in cheek humour to keep just this side of silly. In this role I’m not the teacher , I’m the pupil in the world of the child. I get things wrong so they , my young audience, can teach me ( or my puppet) how to do things. ( Although at a recent party at a Nursery , Valentina ( 4years old) stood up and announced in a very big voice that I was the ‘bestest teacher in the world’. Thanks Valentina. <3)
That’s the theory anyway. It’s proven to be a winner for me over the years. I can honestly say I’ve managed to maintain rapt attention for at least 45 minutes for all of my audiences , be they 2 years old or a little older.
Today though was rather special.
But let me set the scene:
Rain Rain go away , come again another day.
If anyone knows anything about the weather in the UK recently, it has not stopped raining for months now. Everywhere is soggy. Our Summer has been washed out.
Despite this weather, I had been booked to do an outdoor session in a park for a class of 5 year old children as a special treat. We were lucky enough to get a brief spell of sunshine early on in the day but the ground was still seriously sodden, in fact in areas the grass was covered in puddle.
Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun said Noel Coward. Well this mad dog and English woman joined the children and made the best of the soggy grass ( we had brought waterproof backed rugs in preparation) and we settled down for 90 minutes of puppets ,songs and puppet illustrated storytelling.
We giggled with Twinkle the baby monkey as he refused to say helloand deliberately wouldn’t say please. We sang and quacked with Mummy Duck and her babies
Mummy duck said Quack Quack Quack Quack
and went for a visit to Old Macdonald’s farm where all the animals seemed to be dogs?
We played Sleeping Bunnies
See the little bunnies sleeping
( very squished up as the ground was sodden) and hopped and laughed and had lots of bunny cuddles. ( Yes even/especially the boys!) We laughed at silly Fifi the Fairy
Fifi eating her wand
who was very proud of her crocheted ringlets and who tried to ‘Whip her hair back and forth”
until I got her to sing Twinkle Twinkle instead.
Then I got out my thunder machine and prepared the mood to tell the story of the Stomping Elephant
My elephant puppet
on my beautiful African printed fabric. We roared with the naughty Lion, squeaked with the tiny mouse and buzzed with the wasp with the very pointy stingy bottom.
” That was a good story” said one little contented child at the conclusion of that tale.
Then we jumped on the bed with Jaffa the monkey and burped with the naughty crocodile who had identity issues and a dental problem. Then it was See you later Alligator, in a while crocodile
Snap! Snap!
as the hour and a half had quickly drawn to a very happy end.
This bunch of 30 5 year old’s had given me total focus and concentration and lots and lots of giggles and interaction all the way through the 90 minutes in a public park on soggy grass, bunched up together . Not the most ideal conditions you might think.
” Can you come again?” piped up one little boy.
Clearly 90 minutes wasn’t enough for this young fellow.
We ended with a big round of applause for the clever children and pats on the back for being a brilliant audience.
I told them that they had just done something most adults couldn’t do: pay close attention for an hour and a half.
Ya boo sucks statistics.
I know what I see and I see ATTENTION!
So next time you doubt your child’s attention span, think again. You may be surprised!
I pride myself on making my own puppets here at Diane’s Puppets. I like to think that anyone who books a Diane’s Puppets party is getting a very unique experience both visually and on a performance level. No one else will have puppets like mine.
One of my favourite puppets that I have used over the years was Mummy Duck. She was a white fluffy knitted duck who flew off my knitting needles one day. She was soft and cuddly but very very bossy and loud and rather silly. She was always losing her five baby ducks when they went swimming over the hills and far away. Silly Mummy Duck would constantly suggest they were in the dustbin when I enquired where she thought they had gone. Luckily the boys and girls would always manage to call her babies back and they would get a nice cuddle from Mummy Duck before being scolded and told to go to bed.
Then Mummy Duck swam off somewhere.
I’ve looked everywhere for her, even in the dustbin. She’s just not there.
So I’ve been missing her sorely.
So, here is Mummy Duck the 2nd. A yellow crochet duck with 5 new babies.
I’m a Children’s Entertainer so my work clothes are somewhat bright. I stand out in a crowd. I love my work outfit. I wear it on my way to work . When I walk down London’s streets on my way to a birthday party I often get stared at. Sometimes I get whistled at , sometimes I raise a smile from old ladies but the most common reaction is laughter , especially from teenagers. Upon explaining that ‘ These are my work clothes’ , the derision quickly changes to interest and sometimes to admiration. Yes, folks, I get paid to play and make people laugh at birthday parties, how cool is that?
Today I had a little birthday party for a sweet three year old girl in Chelsea. When I walked in, there was a small boy who was sitting on his mummy’s knee who burst into tears when he saw me.
My heart sank.
Mummy explained he was a little freaked out by my hair. I can understand, it’s not everyday that you meet a lady who wears a rainbow in her hair. When you’re three that must be a little disconcerting to discover.
I made the decision to avoid all eye contact and play to the children who were in front of me and not focus on the little boy. I made a conscious effort to comment about my silly hair and call myself a silly sausage. There’s nothing like humour to cut tension.
I kept half an eye out for the little boy in question as I continued with my routine and smiled as I saw his tears turn first to smiles and then to laughter. I didn’t quite manage to persuade him to have a cuddle from the bunny puppet like the other boys and girls but I knew I had turned his fear into interest and I didn’t want to push my luck.
He never left his mummy’s lap but I managed to turn myself from a ribbon monster to a funny lady in just forty minutes. I even had a kiss blown in my direction on departure.
THAT’S THE WAY TO DO IT!
Birthday party entertainer/face painter and puppeteer Diane of Diane's Puppets
This simplicity, this sense of wonderment is what fuels me to go to work every day as a Children’s Entertainer. In order to be able to connect with my little clients, the children at the birthday parties I attend, I have to keep reconnecting with the memory and the energy of being a child.
This connection is vital for the correct energy with which to approach young children and not be seen and felt as being patronising. Without sounding a little weird, I don’t entertain as much as just play alongside the children. Their sense of humour is genuinely the same as mine. I delight in word play. I adore surrealism. Most children’s jokes consist of surrealistic concepts, the idea of things being out of context. My funny bone tickles at the concept of putting a banana on your head. ( Come and join the Banana Head Club!) and of course, there is the belly laugh that comes from burps and silly raspberry noises. ( To put it politely).
Hehehehehuhuhhhehehheheh
What other job is it that requires instant trust ? I have to walk into a room full of very young strangers and gain their trust. I’m often only booked for an hour, so I have to win children over almost instantly. Children are unforgiving but honest audiences, if they don’t like you, they walk away.
What is it that creates that bond? It is energy. I have to attune my energy , find my inner child ( that’s not hard) and bring her to the fore. Young children, ( like dogs) inhabit a world of energy, where they judge the vibe . It’s that gut feeling that us grown ups often lose or stop trusting . I’ve done some psychotherapy training and one of the core conditions of trust building is something called Congruency. This simply means that you are on the inside what you appear on the outside: genuine, no nasty surprises. Well folks, what you see on the outside
I'm a bunny wabbit
is what you get on the inside. Am I Diane , the London Children’s Entertainer or am I just
It’s something I hear quite often in my work as a London children’s party entertainer: ” How do you do it?” I heard it asked of me today at a lovely local party for a sweet five year old girl, it was followed by , “Do you have magic powers or something?”.
Magic powers? Maybe, if you consider energy to be magic powers.
Let me explain.
The mummy in question was intrigued at how I managed to have a bunch of five year old boys and girls sitting patiently waiting for a puppet show. There was no fighting, no screaming, no chaos, just calm anticipation and a big buzz of excitement going around the room too.
This question is asked of me often.
It is a wonderful feeling for me to walk into a party full of excited children and have them quickly sitting down, calm and focused and eager to participate in silliness and stories.
Do I have magical powers?
What I do have to my advantage is what I call ‘Stranger Power’ plus a certain calm assertive energy that is useful for leaders and dog owners!
Stranger power is something I’ve observed whilst I’ve been entertaining children over the past 18 years. What do I mean by it? Well, when I walk into someone’s home, I am expected to take control of the party . I become a stranger with a position of authority over the children. They see me as fun, ( I’m often found lying down with the children playing Sleeping Bunnies
See the little bunnies sleeping
as well as hopping up and down ) but they’re not totally sure of who I am . Therefore they regard me with caution, rather than pushing the boundaries of someone that they are familiar with. So, if I ask the children to do something in a certain assertive tone, like magic they cooperate.
Children view me with a certain positive suspicion. My attire ( ribbons in my hair and very bright sparkly clothes)
Silly ribbons but serious about partying.
suggest a fun , possibly silly person, they see Party Entertainer/ storyteller/ puppeteer when they look at me, which gets their playful juices flowing, but then they meet my energy. After encountering the wonderful Dog Whisperer Cesar Milan on the television ( and becoming a total disciple) I’ve worked on maintaining a calm assertive state when attending children’s parties. This works totally in my favour as I am able to direct the proceedings of the party in a calm but fun way.
No one needs chaos. No one likes chaos.
Today I face painted butterflies and vampires on the faces of five year old’s .
The vampires ( boys in this instance) decided to chase the butterflies ( girls). Screams ensued as well as a little bit of chasing round the garden. I continued to paint faces until I heard the tone of the screams turn from excitement and fun to hysteria, then it was time to change the energy before the fun turned to tears.
I used my calm assertive energy ( and my god-given booming voice) to gather the children to sing happy birthday and calm was restored once more without the vampires feeling they had been reined in.
The secret is keeping control without the children being aware that that is what you are doing. Walking that tightrope between keeping things calm and becoming a party pooper can sometimes be tricky, but I think I’ve got it down to a fine art now.
Oh how I love my work. I’ve just got back from the most inspirational day of storytelling at the very well respected children’s theatre Chicken Shed.
I was booked to do an early years Storytelling performance for this fantastic theatre company through a mutual acting friend.
I was so excited, I mean SO excited. I’ve always known about Chicken Shed and the fabulous work that they do and had admired them from afar, now was my chance to become part of them, if only for a day!
So Fifi the Baby Fairy and I set off with Space Mouse and headed off to Cockfosters, all the way to the end of the Piccadilly line. Took ages to get there, luckily the weather was fine so we didn’t have to worry about the ten minute walk from the station, even though I did get just a few stares from the Southgate locals.
My stage was prepared with gorgeous glittery curtains and a sweet sofa covered with astroturf and cherry blossom. It was a chair surely fit for a fairies bottom. I felt very privileged to sit on it.
I was to do two half hour story telling sessions and my first session got off to a cracking start, blowing bubbles and putting the audience at ease.
Fifi the fairy worked her feisty, cheeky magic and soon had the boys and girls wrapped around her little finger. She brought giggles galore before settling down on her fairy sofa for a bedtime story. She had chosen the theme of stars, moons, a mouse and a cow. Space Mouse fitted the bill perfectly. So before I knew it, the stage manager was whispering to me that the second session was about to come in. So Space Mouse came to a hasty conclusion and Fifi was found to be fast asleep.
I got lovely feedback from the audience and a few little children requested a photo with me on the fairy sofa. I felt like a popstar!
The second session started and finished in a blink of an eye. They say time flies when you’re having fun, my goodness it went at warp speed! I then packed up and went to watch the main performance on the main stage with the full audience.
It was a rare privilege indeed to be able to join in with the Chicken Shed experience. I love how inclusive their ethos is , celebrating every child and young person no matter what their physical or mental challenges may be. The thing that pulled everyone together was just having fun. I certainly had fun and judging from the great big grins on everyone’s faces, I think fun was the order of the day.
Everyone sits in a circle, the music starts, it’s time for Pass the Parcel.
A huge paper parcel is ‘passed’ around the children in the circle; well, let’s be honest, it’s more like the parcel has to be wrestled from the determined grip of one child and forcibly passed on to the next and so on.
When the music stops, the paper layer is ripped off to reveal a sweet or small toy and the struggle to keep the parcel in one’s grasp continues. While it seems fun at the beginning, anyone who has experienced as many games of Pass the Parcel as I have over the years knows that at a certain point the game loses any tension and the children often wander off from the circle looking for something else to do. The promise of the ‘big’ prize at the end isn’t really enough to keep most young children focused on the game.
The basic principle of the game in its present form seems to be about winning prizes. Everyone gets a prize, fair enough, no one wants to lose but if everyone automatically wins every time something is lost : tension. And it is this lack of tension that is the reason many children cannot sit still once they’ve ‘won’ their sweet. For them the game really is over. Who can blame them for wanting to get up and walk off?
This old party classic, Pass the Parcel is often considered an absolute must for children’s birthday parties. Without wanting to sound like a party pooper, I’m not so keen on the game in its present incarnation.
When I was a young girl, in the dim distant sixties, Pass the Parcel was a very different game indeed.
A parcel was prepared with a random number of layers. It didn’t matter if the number of layers didn’t match the number of participants as this game was principally a game of chance. The only prize was the one in the middle and it was this tension of never knowing when that central special prize was going to be discovered that kept boys and girls sitting on their bottoms, fixated on the moving parcel, wishing it was going to land on them next and make them the lucky winner.
This may seem a little unfair in our current world of everyone gets a prize, but it really worked.
To ring the changes and make the game even more interesting, forfeits were written and hidden between the layers, making the game really exciting and interactive. Children were asked to hop on one leg three times and got a prize if they completed it, or say the alphabet, or sing a nursery rhyme or pull a funny face or tell a joke. The possibilities were endless and it all made for a really fun and exciting game.
Have we thrown away the essence of Pass the Parcel in our quest to be fair to every child ? Consider how much more valued a prize of a sweetie is if it is ‘won’ by doing something other than just tearing off a piece of paper. Of course, mummies and daddies sometimes have to help complete the forfeit for their child but there is nothing more enjoyable for a small child than the warm and loving attention of a parent engaged in child’s play.
And this parental attention is the best prize of all for a child, more valuable than any piece of tat that can be found in a parcel. The real prize is in the playing of the game and guess what?
Even though not everyone may win a sweet or a toy , everyone becomes a winner after all.
As you know, I’m a London birthday party puppet entertainer. Most of what I do is for fun. I take the spreading of joy and silliness very seriously. Birthday parties are a special time that create precious memories to be stored for the future.
However, there is a serious side to what I do as well.
I work as a workshop leader for Scary Little Girls Theatre Company with my puppet Fifi the Fairy and I deliver healthy relationship workshops ( anti bullying) where we explore how we treat each other and what feelings arise from our interactions.Fifi now has legions of young fans all over Southwark Primary Schools. This work is an absolute joy. It gladdens my heart to see such willingness from these very young children to explore difficult feelings as such a tender age and to begin to take responsibility towards how we treat each other.
The youth of today?
Let me tell you, they are magnificent.
All they need is inspiration.
And that, fellow grown-ups , is our responsibility.
I often get asked what makes a good party. My answer often surprises: less is more; especially when it comes to parties for small children.
The tendency of most people ,when stressed about a party, is to throw everything at it and hope for the best. The thinking is that if I spend enough on it, it must work.
I’ve found the opposite to be true. Most often the best parties are the simplest where the focus is clear.
The hardest parties that I’ve ever had to attend in my capacity as an entertainer were those where the client had hired the world and his mate for the party, with all the best intentions, of course.
A typical party would consist of a large ( and very noisy) bouncy castle, a ball pool, numerous helium balloons making a balloon forest, a wealth of sit and ride toys, slides, swings, tunnels and an abundance of soft play equipment and a disco. All very well and good if this were the only form of entertainment, but add to this physical mix three or four children’s entertainers : a balloon modeller, a magician, a face painteror two and then me, a puppet lady. We were all expected to work together in a small space of time without any form of prior planning. All of this for a two year old’s birthday, the same two year old that was looking bewildered, clinging to mummy ( or nanny) on the verge of tears.
The sum total of all this spending resulted in chaos. Noise chaos, visual chaos and lack of focus for the birthday child. The individual entertainers found it hard to find a time or the audience to do their thing ( with all the competition around for time and attention). Everyone was compromised. All in the name of doing the right thing.
For a successful party, let your mantra be LESS IS MORE.
Decide on your focus , you know your child best and what makes them happy. Sometimes the same thing again as the last thing they enjoyed works brilliantly. I call this the Teletubby ‘again again’ principle. Adults find this hard to understand; we get bored. Children revisit their memory of previous fun times and it fills them with a sense of confidence .
If your child is physical and out-going, hire a bouncy castle and play equipment and just let them play. Or a football/ dancing party.
If they are shy but physical, hire an entertainer who does physically interactive parties and let the focus on the entertainer bring out the confidence of your child . A good entertainer will not focus on a shy child, but allow them to be themselves and take the lead from the child. Sensitivity is key. My Bobby Bunny puppet show is perfect for shy active children of all ages as it is a gentle but cheeky show with integrated hopping participation.
A puppet show is perfect for outgoing, creative children who like to be in the limelight and who enjoy the flight of imagination and creativity a puppet show brings.
Face painting is wonderful for shy children as it often gives them a mask to hide behind, allowing them to be the ‘fierce tiger’ on the outside that they imagine they could be on the inside. You’d be surprised how many actors are painfully shy in the real world. It’s the same principle.
Let this recession be a force for simplifying. Choose one thing and give your child the opportunity to be able to focus fully and have a stress free party.
