NaturePlunge your kids: tips and tricks part 1

When my eldest son was born, he was my biggest motivation to get outside.  I had always loved the outdoors, but my son absolutely needed it. In those early days, there was no way we could take a car ride without his blood curdling cries of discontent. He was the happiest on long walks, strapped in a carrier, with me as his avatar.  I could even just crack open the door outside and the breeze would soothe him.  Once he had trained me to appreciate and even crave hours of time out in nature, my son got older and came to prefer indoor activities. Currently, his three loves are math, legos and cartoons. Of course, I know how important unstructured outdoor time is, so I have needed to get creative in order to get him out. Here are some of my tips and tricks to make time outside fun for everyone.

Start here: Invite the outdoors inside

We often keep windows and our front door open starting in early spring and going into the fall. (We are in Seattle where the temperature allows for it but we also don’t mind putting on an extra sweater in a slightly cooler house).  Not only does this improve air quality indoors (There will be a separate block post on that later) but it removes some of the barriers between indoor and outdoor spaces. Because the front door is often open, my boys are constantly and seamlessly going between indoors and outdoors. Rocks, sticks, and leaves are a part of their daily play.

Grow things in your lawn (if you have one)

I’ve been working to get more edibles and medicinals into our lawn and am very much inspired by forest gardens like this.  The plants I put in need to either be edible, medicinal or native and it makes for a  low maintenance, unstructured yard. My children and all of their friends get pretty excited about hunting for edible leaves, flowers and berries in the garden and  they are much more adventurous eaters out there. Just in the past week, my boys have eaten lavender, lemon balm, chives, parsley, and wood sorrel from our yard. I’ve also made sure to have dirt and sand that they can dig in to further lure them out and provide a diversity of sensory experiences. One of my inspirations around the importance of open ended, unstructured playspaces is Seattle legend, teacher Tom

No Rules, No expectations

In normal life, kids have to follow so many rules. Just yesterday, we had “no experiments with food at your dinner”, “no throwing the light colored pillows on the floor”, and “no throwing balls inside the house”. And it’s so liberating for kids and parents alike to get out to a space where the rules are fewer.  

One mistake that I’ve seen parents make is to overstructure outdoor time by setting a goal of “we have to get here by this time”.  Of course there will be times where you want to actually get somewhere or meet someone, but I like to have plenty of time outdoors where  I am completely at my kids’ discretion. I go at their pace with no goals or ambitions. If they want to make mudpies I take their photo. If they want to pull up grass and mix it with leaves, I pretend to try their soup. I try to say no as little as possible. 

Make the outdoors fun

Early people always had a mission when outdoors; foraging for food, tracking, or hunting. I find that having little missions helps me and my kids have more fun outdoors. Here are a few games that we play on hikes

• Collecting points for cool things. Basically, anything that my boys think is cool is fair game. The only requirement is that they show it to everyone and explain what they like about it. 
• Hiding treasures and looking for them. I may bring a toy car or something else small and shiny and hide it somewhere where my guys (2 and 5.5 years old) need to climb a little bit to find it. 
• Learning plant identification. This is like playing “where’s Waldo” in nature and most kids are extremely curious and quite good at plant id, especially if it involves something edible.
• “I spy” games “I spy something dead, something fuzzy, something spikey, etc”. The one that spotted it first gets to set the category for the next round.
• Piggy back breaks. Piggy back breaks of just a few minutes work well for my little guys. My older son is getting heavy so we basically stop and take a break whenever he says he is getting tired. If he starts to ask for breaks too frequently, then its a que to me that its time to eat, or to pull out another of the games above. 

Today’s meditation is one that both kids and adults can do. It involves a rock that you can find and use as a breathing buddy. (will be added shortly)