Brrrrr it’s cold out there! As the temperature drops and the holiday season approaches, check out a few low-cost or free fun indoor and outdoor activities you can try with your family!

Indoor

• Have an indoor beach day! It might be too cold to do any sunbathing, but you can make-believe you’re on a fabulous tropical vacation by having a beach-themed indoor picnic. Spread out some beach blankets, wear your swimming outfits or shorts, put on some sunglasses and pack a picnic you can eat in the living room. You can even try to make some kinetic sand for sand castles if you don’t mind the mess. This is a great sensory activity for little ones. Little bins for little hands as a great kinetic sand recipe.
• Go through family pictures and reminisce with stories. It can be really interesting for children to see pictures of dad as a teenager, or grandma as a young girl. If you don’t have pictures of other family members, it can be great to look through more recent pictures together and talk about what you remember.
• Draw some family portraits. Have your child draw a picture of you, and you can draw one of them! Or, if you have magazines lying around, you can all cut out pictures or words that represent your family and your family values.
• Art scavenger hunt. This can be fun to do in-person, or even at a Zoom family gathering. Give everyone 1–2 minutes to find household items to make something: a snowman, a Christmas tree, or a snowball! To make it even simpler, give everyone 30 seconds to find: something red, something sparkly, something soft. Once the time is up, everyone can present their creations or what they found with the group.

Outdoor

• Explore the different Christmas light displays around the city. There are a lot of free attractions, although some of them have an entrance fee. Inside Vancouver has a list of 20 places where you can view Christmas lights around Vancouver. Here’s a recent list of some amazing local homes that really went all out this year on their holiday decorations
• Hot chocolate walk: Sweeten up your walk with a nice hot drink to keep everyone cozy as you go for a nature walk, or a walk around the neighbourhood. Although there isn’t going to be as much greenery around, you can spot all the squirrels gathering nuts, or find your favourite leaves that have dropped on the ground. If you go for a walk in your neighbourhood, you and your little one can visit all your favourite places. Maybe it’s the local library where you take them for storytime, or the community centre where they have their swimming lessons. You can reflect on what you love about your local neighbourhood.
• Bingo scavenger hunt: Draw a bingo card, (5x5 grid of squares). With your child, brainstorm different things that you might see on your walk outside. You can write or they can draw each item into each square. (A bird, a pinecone, Christmas lights, a squirrel, someone who looks like Santa). Then on your walk, see if you can find enough on your list to get BINGO! Depending on your child’s age, you can make it easy or more challenging based on the items you choose.

The holiday season can be challenging, especially in the last few years. Wishing you all a safe and warm winter!

Winter-Time Activities was originally published in parentingplace on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The fairly new concept of serve and return from Harvard’s Centre on the Developing Child, is based on cutting edge research from development, behaviour, neuroscience and molecular science. Serve and return helps illustrate how the brain is largely shaped by relational experiences which parents may be far more familiar with than they realize.

Serve and return connections are everyday interactions we have with other people, especially our children. A child “serves” by showing an interest in something and the adult “returns” that serve by responding in a supportive way. Dr. Jack Shonkoff, Professor of Child Health and Development at Harvard University, uses the analogy of a game like tennis or ping pong, where the ball represents the child’s interest and there is a back and forth interaction between the child and adult.

Take, for example, the picture at the top of the child holding the leaf. When a child shows their big people something, in this case a leaf, they are showing interest in it, or in other words, they are serving. Pointing and even looking at something are ways that can indicate an interest or serve. By sharing the focus on the child’s interest adults can return the serve simply by naming what the child is holding, seeing, pointing to, or feeling to continue this back and forth interaction.

“Looks like you found an orange leaf!”

Just by sharing a child’s interest and naming it helps them make sense of their world, fosters language development, and shows them that they are important, which increases their self-esteem.

In these serve and return interactions children (and their big people) get to practice turn taking. As the adult is returning the serve by naming it, the child has to wait. Then it’s the adult’s turn to wait for the child to respond or return the comment. It’s important to remember that children are learning language and often can understand more than they can express, so waiting for a child to respond can sometimes take a little longer. When adults wait they are giving time needed for a child to explore and develop ideas in order to articulate them. When children are waiting for their turn they are developing self-control and how to relate to others.

Child throws the leaf in the air, watches it fall, and walks over to an acorn on the ground.

When adults actively share the focus with their child, it becomes easy to tell when a child is done with something. Dropping, tossing, or moving away from are strong indicators that a child is finished with something and ready for the next thing. Grabbing something different, pointing at something or watching something new can show a new interest. In these moments children (and their big people) practice endings and beginnings. Children have much to explore and experience in their world. When adults can recognize ending and beginnings and have the child take the lead, children are fully supported to continue exploring, making sense of their world, and interacting in as many serve and return connections as possible.

“Those are acorns — so many changes happen in autumn!”

Serve and return interactions happen all the time when adults share a child’s focus and can respond in supportive ways. These everyday connections are joining neural pathways between all parts of the brain: motor skills, behavioural control, language, memory, visual and emotion. In the early years these connections begin to form the brain’s foundation for future learning capacity, behaviours, physical and mental health. Big stuff for everyday interactions!

Serve and Return Interactions was originally published in parentingplace on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Language development starts with sounds and gestures, then words and sentences. You can support language development by talking a lot with your child and responding when they communicate (source: raisingchildren.net.au). It’s perfectly normal for a child to develop sooner or later than expected, and you can always talk to a child health professional if you’re concerned about a language delay. Learn more @ www.feelingsfirst.ca

Language Development in the Early Years was originally published in parentingplace on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Early conversations set the stage for good relationships. Talk or sign early and often with your child, even when they can’t talk back. Listen, respond and follow their lead, encouraging them to guide where the conversation goes. This is called “Serve & Return” — a series of back-and-forth interactions that are important to building language and socialization skills. When your child is just a baby, these “conversations” can include mimicking each other’s facial expressions and noises. Learn more @ www.feelingsfirst.ca

Children Don’t Need Speech to Talk was originally published in parentingplace on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Help your child to appreciate and value difference, while promoting justice and fairness. Use story time to introduce them to characters of different racial, cultural or ethnic backgrounds. Introducing your child to diversity from an early age can help reduce biases and promote an understanding of their own identity, acceptance of others, and a genuine interest in the world around them. Learn more @ www.feelingsfirst.ca

Celebrating our Differences is Key to Accepting Each Other was originally published in parentingplace on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Six Benefits of Skin-To Skin Touch in the Early Years was originally published in parentingplace on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Setting limits and boundaries with our children can feel hard, but is important! It’s natural for children to want to push those boundaries — it’s part of their development and part of how they learn independence. Children thrive on repetition and routine. Having boundaries can help our child feel less stressed, and learn what behaviour is okay and what is not okay.

Here are three helpful strategies: front-loading our expectations, offering positive choices, and ACT that we can try when you need to set limits and boundaries with our children:

1. Front-loading our expectations, and what will happen: Let your child know in advance what is going to happen, and what you expect them to do. For example: letting them know before-hand how long an activity will be for, and what it will look like.

— “You want to watch your favourite show! First, we are going to eat our lunch, clear the table, and then we can watch it together!”

— “I love playing with you! We can play together for 10 minutes (show the clock, or set a timer), then you can keep playing with your blocks, or you can play with your dinosaurs.”

2. Offering positive choices: Giving your child choices and options helps them feel like they have a say and some control in what is going on, which can side-step those tricky power struggles. You want to offer choices that you are okay with, not choices that you will have to say no to.

— “It’s time to get ready for daycare. Would you like to wear your dinosaur shirt, or your striped shirt?”

— “It’s almost time for bed. Would you like to read two bed-time stories, or three?”

3. ACT — Acknowledge their feelings, Connect before correcting, Teach an alternative:

• A: Acknowledging their feelings — Acknowledging your child’s feelings shows them that you understand what they want and that you have empathy for them. It also helps them to feel heard and strengthens your connection with them.

— “It looks like you are very angry with Mommy. You wanted to eat a chocolate cookie and I told you we needed to eat our breakfast first.”

• C: Connect before correcting — When our children have big feelings, connecting with them helps them have a place for these feelings to go. It helps them know that they are safe with us and their emotions are accepted (even if their behaviour is not). A and C often go together. You can connect by getting down to your child’s level, making eye contact, connecting physically like rubbing their back or giving them a hug, and acknowledging their feelings. Physical affection can help release oxytocin, which can also help you and your child calm down. Physically getting down to their level to communicate will also help them feel closer to you. When children are flooded with emotions it is hard for their brains to listen and learn anything new. If we try to scold them or tell them what to do when they are upset their brains cannot absorb information. Connecting with our children before trying to correct them will help them feel calmer and safe enough to hear us.
• T: Teaching an alternative — We need to teach our children what we want them to do. Even if they’ve been told something a hundred times before, young children need repeated reminders of expected behaviour. We all learn from repetition. For example, when we tell a toddler, “Don’t run”, we’re not actually telling them what they’re supposed to do instead of running. Instead, we can offer positive choices here.

— “It’s not safe to run across the road. Would you like to hold my hand, or would you like to hold onto my jacket?”

• Let’s put them all together:

— Acknowledge child’s feelings: “You were very angry at your sister. She took the toy you were still playing with.”

— Connect before correcting: Physically get down to his level and make eye contact.

— Teach an alternative: “It’s okay to be angry, but it’s not okay to hit. Next time, you can say, ‘I’m not finished with that!’ or come and let me know.”

It’s natural for our little ones to try to push the limits that we set. But when we are consistent and kind with these limits, we are teaching our children what’s okay and what’s not. The parts of their brains that are responsible for logic, reasoning, and impulse control won’t fully developed until they are in their twenties. Until then, they need our help to learn how to be in the world.

Setting Limits & Boundaries was originally published in parentingplace on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

You can help a child feel safe by building predictable daily routines including meals, sleep and play times. It’s okay to be flexible — just follow their natural rhythms and change things up as they develop. When kids know what to expect, they feel more grounded and secure, which can help them counteract stress from things beyond their control. Learn more @ www.feelingsfirst.ca

Routines Relieve Stress was originally published in parentingplace on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Children need to feel confident about who they are, what they are interested in, and can miss out on important experiences when their play is limited by gender expectations. Talk with your child about gender equality from an early age, model positive attitudes and acceptance of gender differences, encourage respect and accept how they wish to identify. Gender is fluid in the early years, but gender stereotypes can last a lifetime. Learn more @ www.feelingsfirst.ca

Gender is a Conversation, Not an Expectation was originally published in parentingplace on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

How often do you catch your child doing something kind? Encourage the kindness you’d like to see and acknowledge your child’s positive behaviour. Learn more at www.feelingsfirst.ca.

Encourage Kindness was originally published in parentingplace on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.