Let those kids get messy!

If there is one thing I learnt from my 20 year career as a teacher, it is that kids need to be allowed to explore their environments freely and without restraint and they need to be encouraged to be independent and be able to think for themselves.

Our society is so different today than when most of us were children.  I remember walking home from school by myself at aged eight!!!!!  I have only just allowed my 8 and 9 year old to play in the front yard by themselves for goodness sake.  In my defence, we do live on a very busy street.

So parenting today has thrown up some very big issues for my husband and myself.  We also have two children with severe food allergies and that makes us even more prone to out of control over protectiveness.

However even with these obstacles, I still have that voice in my head telling me to let them be children and learn independence.  Ahhhhhh!

So how do we enable our children to feel the freedom that we enjoyed as children and keep them safe? There are sooo many ways that we can achieve this for them.

Allow them to dig and play in the garden.  We never had a sandpit but there has always been a designated digging patch in the garden.  Dirt was one thing they were not allergic to and once I stopped freaking out about how much dirt my son was eating it was awesome spying on them whilst they enjoyed their back yard freedom!!!  You must also allow them water!  You cannot have fun in the dirt without water!  Very messy yes, but very important.  There was a lot of showering in the early days!  They still love the digging patch! Letting the hose run at a trickle is a great way to include water and not run up the water bill.

 

Another thing I always did and this is going to make the neat freaks cringe, but I always had a freely accessible arts and craft cupboard.  I made sure it was in a cupboard because it was and is to this day a huge mess.  However it gets used every single day and I am telling you now that you have to include paints in this cupboard.  Last Christmas I woke up and could not find Grace and Joe and they were in the garage making a Santa sleigh. They had the drop sheet down and their painting smocks on and they were having an awesome time!!

I have also always encouraged pretend play and dressing up.  You don't need fancy costumes to dress up that is for sure.  Joe is the king of dressing up and imaginationing as we like to call it.  

Due to a variety of circumstances we have had to create a 70's childhood within the confines of our home and garden and I think like many of you facing the same parenting issues that we are not doing tooo bad a job!

I would love to hear what things you do with your little people to try and recreate a piece of your childhood experiences for them.  

KIDS ART NEWS update!!!!!  We are working on producing our designs on cushion covers!  How exciting is that!!!!  Here is a sneak peak.  Chan is busy testing materials for washability and colour.  And I get to design pretty things to go on them.

We also have a new range of kids quotes coming out soon!  We will keep you posted as they are released.