With school out for summer, it’s the ideal time for children to dig into play and introduce adventure with it. The good news: adventures don’t always need to be expensive or extravagant. Here are some fun ways to combine play and adventure for your children.
Get outside.
Warm weather and more daylight mean more time for adventures outside! Take a trip to a lake or the beach and look for animals or other things that are native to those areas – birds, bugs, trees, and more! It could also include other things like letting them climb a tree on their own, taking a walk with them with their flashlight at night, or playing hide and seek or chase with glow in the dark bracelets.
Make your everyday space an adventure.
Camping is a great family trip idea, but you don’t have to travel far to have the same kind of experience. Consider doing a backyard campout this summer. Set up a tent outside in your yard or simply snuggle up in your blankets and sleeping bags to sleep under the beautiful stars. This is an exciting thing for children and doesn’t require a ton of planning ahead of time for parents or nannies!
Create an obstacle course.
This is a great way to encourage creativity and exercise too! Help your children create an obstacle course – either indoors or outdoors! They can get creative on what they want to add to it and how they want to complete it. It could be an opportunity to use their creativity and problem-solving skills, all while making it a fun adventure to race their friends or other family members.
Children learn by seeing and doing and it’s up to parents, nannies, and other caregivers to help instill a love for adventure at a young age. Prioritize going outside, make time for new experiences by taking trips (either small or big), encourage their imaginations during playtime, and let them be curious. When your children know it’s okay to ask questions, they stay interested in what the world has to offer them, and they want to get out to experience it. As adults, it is our job to give them a safe space to try new things and see how exciting living a life of adventure really is!
Pulling your children a bit out of their comfort zone and helping them find new fun things to do is good for them and is especially helpful for their emotional and mental growth. There are a variety of other benefits of adventurous play, too. It helps children to learn from mistakes, builds confidence and resilience, and helps them overcome fear and anxiety in trying new things. It also helps them learn conflict resolution and encourages independence and responsibility.
So, now that summer is at your fingertips, how will you give the children in your life the opportunity to play in new, more adventurous ways?