The sprog is 3 years old and is growing up fast...
It is my wish… No, it is my duty to bring her up with an appreciation of the world around her and for the people that inhabit that world. I want her to be the sort of bold, bright and engaging person that has the audacity to carve her own path in this world without having to conform to the expectations of others.
And that’s not to say that I would be happy if she set her sights on being a waitress for the rest of her life.
Not that there’s anything wrong with being a waitress. Some of the nicest people I know are waitresses. Oh dear, I may have dug myself a hole here.
What I mean is that I want her to have ambition to be the best that she can be in whatever field she chooses. And if that is food delivery then I want her to aspire to own a chain of cafés or have an award winning restaurant or something like that.
So how can I inspire my daughter to be the best that she can be and also give her the courage and self-belief to achieve her (for want of a better word) dreams?
The answer lies in ADVENTURE.
What other community encourages self-worth like the adventure community? What other course of action will develop confidence than achieving adventures you never thought possible? What other medium teaches the importance of goal-setting, the value of time over money, the reward of hard graft, the euphoria of completing a difficult challenge or the introspection that not achieving a challenge brings?
I’m telling you, adventure is the best thing to achieve all of these things.
And I’m sure you would want the same for your kids too.
So how could you bring more adventure into your sprog’s life?
1. Start Small – Just a trip to the park can be an adventure for a sprog. Remember that they are little and are experiencing things for the first time. So finding woodlouse under a rock is a perfect introduction to wildlife and the world around us. Will they have the confidence to hold a woodlouse in their hand? Yes – Amazing. What does the sensation of having the creature crawl on their palm feel like? No – Never mind. We can build our confidence so that next time they can have another go. Maybe even just seeing the creepy crawlies is a brave thing to do.
2. Be a bird expert – Take a different walk to town / swimming / ballet. Walk through a park. Walk through a housing estate. What can you see? What type of birds are in the sky? Get them to mimic the sounds of the pigeon or magpie. You don’t need to know all the bird names to copy their voices.
3. Be a tree expert – What types of trees are overhead? You will seem like a nature genius if you just learn 3 or 4 types of tree. Go for Oak (acorn), Sycamore (helicopters) and Chestnut (conkers) to start with as they are the easiest to identify (and have the most fun underneath.
4. Eat a meal in an adventurous location – Otherwise known as a picnic. Pack a small bag with some sandwiches and some fruit and go and sit in the local park and have lunch under the big blue sky. Just doing normal things in different places is adventurous.
5. Go to a forest – There is nothing more adventurous than a forest! Build a den. Play hide and seek. Walk along fallen logs. Jump in muddy puddles. There is something really childlike and exciting about running around a forest.
6. Visit a river – along the same themes as a forest. You don’t have to go in the water (in fact I actively encourage you not send your offspring in unless you know the patch of river well!) but you can still spot fish, play pooh-sticks on a bridge and catch critters in a net or bucket. Hours of adventurous fun!
7. Get the kids to plan the adventure – When we have an adventure day, I like to involve the sprog in the planning. Whether it is giving her a handful of options or just letting her find her own way. Is it going to be a walking adventure or a bike adventure? Do we need a picnic? If so, what’s going to be in the sandwiches? (Hopefully not ham and strawberries like last time!) Which way should we go out of the front door? Left or right?
8. Share your experiences – whether it is meeting reindeer or rowing across a loch or dolphin spotting or summiting the 6th highest peak in the UK (all of which the sprog and I did on a recent trip to Scotland) make sure you share the experiences with your little one. They may not remember everything you achieve together but they will remember the feeling of enjoyment that they felt growing up experiencing and spending time with you as their parent. Go on, enjoy your time together.
9. Camp out – This is starting to get a bit more involved but I cannot express to you enough how much enjoyment the sprog has got out of camping. We really do not do it enough and we definitely didn’t start early enough. She was probably 18 months before she slept under canvas and she could have done it a lot sooner. I’m not saying it will be easy and you almost definitely won’t get a great night’s sleep but, oh man is it worth it!
10. Put it all together – This is my next aim. To have an overnight expedition together where we have camp out somewhere and complete some sort of experience either on a river, or in a forest, or on a mountain. But I want it to be planned by her, doing what she wants to do (from a list of options I give her). I want her to take ownership of the challenge that she will be setting us so she has fulfilment of our success or understanding of our failure. This will be where the true life lessons will be learnt.
If I had one final viewpoint about adventure with a sprog, it would be this. It isn’t always supposed to work out the way you planned. That’s part of the adventure!
Good luck, have fun, be adventurous!!
Let me know in the comments below if you can think of anything else that you need to consider when taking a 3 year old on an adventure. Apart from bringing a pack of baby wipes. Always bring a pack of baby wipes!