One trick I've found helpful for establishing independent play when they are little is sometimes offering music or an audiobook in the background. My almost 3 year old plays independently pretty well, but when she was starting out or now on days when it's a harder transition for her, the sound almost seemed to help her detach from me and not be as distracted by me as I went in and out of the room with my tasks.
I don't want to overstimulate her or constantly have noise in our home, but I do love having music as I go about my tasks, and she does too.
Great ideas! I am an artist, so I always have art supplies on hands. Even in our family room, I still keep pens, and adult coloring books for my older children. It works, they love it, and even when I have friends come over they’ll pick it up and just play around with them. I believe that what your children are surrounded with and the more time they have to be “bored” the more creativity and independence they will show!!
> Kids are extremely active little humans. I think they’re often not given enough opportunities to burn off energy, and so we adults need to create them.
We are seeing this firsthand at the moment with our toddlers. We're in the middle of an international move, so between housing. We moved out of our large home last week into a small apartment Airbnb.
Previously we had enough space (indoors) to play chase, hide and seek, or build a big "the floor is lava" trail.
Now all of that is gone and the only option for physical activity is the single park that is a 20 minute walk away and very weather dependant. (The built environment for kids sucks here.)
It's obvious in retrospect but eye opening how much we relied on the space in our house to give them physical activity in all weather and without the effort of having to go anywhere.
Obviously saying everyone with toddlers should just have a big house isn't especially useful advice. But it also surfaces one of the many small, hidden ways that local government make parenting harder by rarely offering good amenities to make up for that. Is there a neighbourhood park within a 5 minute walk for little toddler legs? Does it have some shade so it is actually usable in the middle of the day without needing to slather them in sunscreen and long sleeves for sun safety? Does it have some open area for silly running around and falling down and makeshift games in addition to just jungle gym equipment? Etc etc etc
I saw my name and thought, “rad, another Ginny on Substack? Oh wait that was me.”— Thanks!
Great suggestions here. I’ve found lately, for getting big energy out, inviting my son to whack at a decomposing tree with a hammer has been great for the both of us.
Regarding interesting toys and environment – this reminds me of adventure playgrounds, which are are absolutely wonderful. I haven’t encountered many in the US, unfortunately – The Yard on Governor’s Island in NYC comes to mind https://www.govisland.com/things-to-do/recreation/the-yard but we used to go to a lot in Spain, for instance. In parks in central Barcelona you would get these free outdoor ludotecas with random junk like old crates, tools and tyres lying around and it would keep the kids entertained for hours. I saw a lot of them in Denmark too.
The Wikipedia article says in Canada only Calgary has one, apparently
Something like this isn’t hard or expensive to recreate at home, though of course it could be lonely and it would be lovely to have a communal space like this where children could hang out.
One trick I've found helpful for establishing independent play when they are little is sometimes offering music or an audiobook in the background. My almost 3 year old plays independently pretty well, but when she was starting out or now on days when it's a harder transition for her, the sound almost seemed to help her detach from me and not be as distracted by me as I went in and out of the room with my tasks.
I don't want to overstimulate her or constantly have noise in our home, but I do love having music as I go about my tasks, and she does too.
Great ideas! I am an artist, so I always have art supplies on hands. Even in our family room, I still keep pens, and adult coloring books for my older children. It works, they love it, and even when I have friends come over they’ll pick it up and just play around with them. I believe that what your children are surrounded with and the more time they have to be “bored” the more creativity and independence they will show!!
> Kids are extremely active little humans. I think they’re often not given enough opportunities to burn off energy, and so we adults need to create them.
We are seeing this firsthand at the moment with our toddlers. We're in the middle of an international move, so between housing. We moved out of our large home last week into a small apartment Airbnb.
Previously we had enough space (indoors) to play chase, hide and seek, or build a big "the floor is lava" trail.
Now all of that is gone and the only option for physical activity is the single park that is a 20 minute walk away and very weather dependant. (The built environment for kids sucks here.)
It's obvious in retrospect but eye opening how much we relied on the space in our house to give them physical activity in all weather and without the effort of having to go anywhere.
Obviously saying everyone with toddlers should just have a big house isn't especially useful advice. But it also surfaces one of the many small, hidden ways that local government make parenting harder by rarely offering good amenities to make up for that. Is there a neighbourhood park within a 5 minute walk for little toddler legs? Does it have some shade so it is actually usable in the middle of the day without needing to slather them in sunscreen and long sleeves for sun safety? Does it have some open area for silly running around and falling down and makeshift games in addition to just jungle gym equipment? Etc etc etc
I saw my name and thought, “rad, another Ginny on Substack? Oh wait that was me.”— Thanks!
Great suggestions here. I’ve found lately, for getting big energy out, inviting my son to whack at a decomposing tree with a hammer has been great for the both of us.
Regarding interesting toys and environment – this reminds me of adventure playgrounds, which are are absolutely wonderful. I haven’t encountered many in the US, unfortunately – The Yard on Governor’s Island in NYC comes to mind https://www.govisland.com/things-to-do/recreation/the-yard but we used to go to a lot in Spain, for instance. In parks in central Barcelona you would get these free outdoor ludotecas with random junk like old crates, tools and tyres lying around and it would keep the kids entertained for hours. I saw a lot of them in Denmark too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_playground
The Wikipedia article says in Canada only Calgary has one, apparently
Something like this isn’t hard or expensive to recreate at home, though of course it could be lonely and it would be lovely to have a communal space like this where children could hang out.