Nature. It relaxes.

Nature.  It relaxes!

You might also enjoy:

• Nature Calms Children
• This is my Rock

ice in the stomach

Risk taking should be part of childhood. We learn through the point where we feel challenged. The feeling of having a knot in your stomach is the place where you feel out of your comfort zone. - Rattler Magazine

We all know that feeling that you get when you see your child just about to do something risky.

Your stomach does a little lurch, and you hold your breath without even realising it.   The part of your brain where common sense lives has a little holiday as thoughts of calling out a useless "be careful" or stopping the play altogether take over.  You may already be mentally dialling 000.

Have you ever thought of what the child is thinking at that exact same moment?

Anticipation?  Determination?  Nervousness?  Exhilaration? Excitement?  Fear?  Wonder?  Abandon?  Joy? All of the above?

At the Unwrapping Risk Conference last weekend, Claire Warden shared that in Denmark they actually have a name for this knot in the stomach feeling.  

'Is i maven' translates as 'ice in the stomach' and is seen as a positive emotion and one that both children and adults seek and benefit from.

Wouldn't it be sad, if through our well intentioned desire to keep our children safe, we denied them the chance of experiencing challenges that bought on that incredibly important feeling of 'ice in the stomach'?  

Let's - as parents and as educators - strive to be risk aware and not risk adverse so that children can fulfil their right to a childhood of adventure, challenge, exploration, freedom and risk taking.


For more on risk in early childhood:

• Young Children, Play and Risk

• When benefits Outweigh the Risk

take me outside day

Tomorrow is Take Me Outside Day.  Admittedly this a Canadian campaign, but it is so worthwhile I think we can embrace it where ever we may live.


According to the campaign, children in Canada are spending an average of nearly 8 hours a day indoors, in front of screens.  This isn't just happening in Canada.  A 2011 Australian study reported a similar dramatic and worrying shift in childhood activity in Australia from outdoor play to indoor activity.

It seems that in the short space of one generation we have gone from being a nation of outdoor kids to a nation of indoor kids.   

So let's commit to just 45 minutes outdoors with the kids tomorrow.

This is what we will be doing:

I'll be marching the boys out the back door and down into the bush for a walk after school.

They will probably complain so much that you would think that I was marching them through the gates of hell, but the usually stop by about the 10 minute mark!

What will you be doing with your kids outside?

There's no rush. A wander in the bush.

If you go down to the bush today you might see us...just hanging around.

No agenda.

No hurry.  No time to be back.

No boxes to be ticked.

Just plenty of time to wander through the landscape wherever curiosity leads us.  

  In today’s world of standardized testing, TV, organized sports and electronic toys, children have very little time for just being kids and engaging in real self-directed free play - especially in natural settings.

Let's take free play seriously!