Children love treasure hunts, and scavenger hunts, and treasure maps, and clues, and…the trick is to devise something that they’ll love without too much prep. This one works whether you’re in a park or camping or at the beach or at many other summer stops.
When did you last play? As Linda Stone pointed out in her blog A More Resilient Species (http://boingboing.net/2013/01/15/a-more-resilient-species.html) , self-directed play (experiential, voluntary and guided by one’s curiosity) is essential for developing resilience, independence and resourcefulness, let alone creativity. She quotes scholar Brian Sutton-Smith, “The opposite of play is not work. The opposite of play is depression.”
Just a couple of months before our daughters started kindergarten, Kim and I were sipping tea while the children painted with watercolors in the kitchen. Suddenly they appeared, their hands covered with colored soap suds. “The paint spilled and it got foamy,” they declared.
There’s an old song about those “Lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer…” One of our children loved the lazy, hazy part—he enjoyed less scheduling and more opportunity to let the days unfold, depending on which friends called and what the weather called for and what interesting discoveries he made in the woods behind our house.
At orientation at my son’s college, the Dean of Students delighted in sharing crazy stories of “helicopter” parents. Parents calling deans to make sure their son or daughter was out of bed. Parents asking a dormitory head resident to assist a daughter with laundry. Parents calling roommates, saying, “If you ate the last piece of pizza, then you have to order another one so his son gets his share.” Crazy, yes, but these are all signs of panicked parents who suddenly realize their children may lack a few adult life skills!
The term “free-range parenting,” coined by Lenore Skenazy, describes that 1950-60’s era where children, no longer tied down by farm chores or factory shifts, were free to bike across town, climb trees, float across swamps on homemade rafts, and build forts far from adult supervision. Kidnappings were actually just about as common, but they didn’t get worldwide press coverage as they do today. Broken bones were less common because children took risks earlier on in life, from lower obstacles, and learned natural caution!
Parenting is a balancing act—and no one who is honest will tell you that they did it just right.
If you’re overprotective, your children become fearful
If you aren’t protective enough, they’ll have good reason to be fearful
If you guide or make all their decisions, they’ll lack the ability to reason
If you give them responsibility for decisions too early, they may be hampered by poor choices
David Frost said, “Having one child makes you a parent; having two you are a referee.” Although this quote may elicit a few understanding chuckles, followed by visions of wearing a striped uniform handing out judgments in the form of red cards or penalty yards, in the world of sibling fights, this does not mean your job is to figure out right from wrong. As stated by dictionary.com, the definition of “referee” is “one to whom something is referred, especially for decision or settlement; arbitrator.” In the blog post “How to Intervene in a Sibling Fight” on ahaparenting.com Dr. Laura Markham teaches us some tips about how to best referee sibling fights.
Rule #1 for parents in math: NEVER again say, “I was never very good in math.” Especially never say in front of your child, “I was never very good in math, so I guess it’s no surprise that my child struggles, too.”