Spending Time Together: the Power of the Great Outdoors
Daily moments of connection can hinge on being able to slow down and follow children's interests and needs. Many parents described getting outside as a valuable way of building quality time. For parents with babies, this was linked to the soothing effects of being outdoors. For parents with toddlers, outdoors time provides space for energy and exploration.
Learning His Language
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At the moment he's, he's very into certain words like, "moon" and "balloon" and if there's a cow he goes "moo", and if there's a horse he goes "moo" and if there's a sheep he goes "moo." So, we're trying to teach him that there are other sounds. Although he does go, "brum, brum" a lot, he likes playing with the steering wheel in our car. So, we do that for 10 minutes go out to the car and just play with the steering wheel.
Trees, Not Tantrums
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She likes being outdoors. What even when she was really young, actually, when we'd go outdoors if she was having a screaming fit, it would always seem to calm her down, looking trees and things. Her face sort of lights up sometimes if we're going out for a walk, if we say we're going out for a walk, she'll run and get her shoes, she knows where they're kept.
He Must Explore
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He is an adventurer. He seems to be fearless. He gets bored quite easily doing one thing. So, keeping him in one place is very difficult, if there's anything he can explore he will. Opening and closing doors is his...one of his favourite things, his absolute favourite thing seems to be putting things into bins, which means that he goes round the park picking up empty beer cans and finding the nearest bin, which makes me look like I've been drinking beer cans uh all day with him. But uhm I don't think that's a bad thing - well, the drinking the beer cans would be but -he certainly enjoys doing that, finding new things, seeing what they feel like, unfortunately what they taste like as well.
