Getting your kid to just go outside without it being a sport
It is really hard to tell your kid to stop doing something you yourself are in the habit of doing whenever there is a moment in between things, or you just want to "relax".
Rage scrolling instagram has never brought us any peace of mind, but as a parent we try to do better by our kids even if we don't do better by ourselves.
But kids do as adults do not as they say. Avoiding this reality just turns parents to policemen and kids into rebels trying to get away with it.
So what do we do with these inescapable facts? We can do the hard thing or we can use some key elements of what makes our phones and what's on it so fascinating.
And it might just be pure magic!
When the world is too stimulating, we all would rather re-focus our mind on a smaller surface area to help us tune it all out.
Step 1:
Our activity needs to be something that is right in front of us and stays there much like an app on your phone.
Step 2:
It needs to keep our attention with high definition color and dynamic interactions, akin to video.
Step 3:
It need not speak.
If you've ever watched videos on mute, it can actually become a more relaxing experience, but the way videos and especially social media videos are edited, they remove all breaks and silences between sentences, did you notice that?
Breathing in between speaking sets the rhythm. When the pauses are edited out to shorten the video or keep your attention, then the rhythm is set to high and your attention will inevitably fatigue.
When you leave social media, your focus will be worse off. So silence but vivid color and interaction is how this activity wins.
Now for the activity, it's really simple, and perfect for a nice relaxed morning in the garden or the park.
You will need 6 things laying around the house:
1-Wax paper (any supermarket)
2-Pipette or water dropper (go into your medicine cabinet and clean the old dropper of a no longer used medicine, or buy a pipette from an arts and craft store)
3-Food coloring (Blue/Red/Yellow) or any combo
4-A toothpick
5-liquid detergent
6-3x small water bottles or cups
Parent's role:
a) Add a food coloring to each of the bottles or cups, make sure you can still see through it if you hold the bottle up to the light.
b) Set out the wax paper, about the size of a laptop on an even surface
Kid's turn:
a) Use the pipette and drop a few different color water droplets from the bottles on the wax paper. You will notice they form perfectly round domes thanks to water's surface tension.
b) Use the toothpick to move them around, arrange them how you like and even mix different color droplets together to get whole new colors.
After you've had your fun, now it is time to. transform the droplets into a new shape.
c) Add a bit of soap on the tip of the toothpick, and begin popping the droplets like balloons. Once this step is complete, you can no longer get them to take droplet shape again, you'll need to just tip the wax paper and all the water will run off onto the ground.
And just start again.
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video credit: ChagrinValleySoap
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