Due to current and impending weather conditions Primary Day will be closed Wednesday, 2/12.

Some Simple Opportunities of Winter

Given the cold and the dark, January and February can be challenging months for adults, with accompanying books, products, therapies, and methods devoted to more successful “wintering.” For young children, though, the winter months are often times for consolidation of earlier learning and enormous growth. Over my years in schools, I have observed that the cognitive growth spurts that occur between the start of winter break and the end of spring break are often stunning. After all, any four month period is a significant percentage of any 4 – 8 year-old’s life.

What are some ways parents can help support and further the growth that our teachers are orchestrating in our classrooms? Consider revisiting these basics:

  • Be sure to maintain daily time for reading aloud together, not just at bedtime. Reading together for even 15 minutes is a great intermezzo to whatever else is going on. So is seizing brief periods for proud emerging readers to demonstrate their newly minted competencies.
  • Make sure to get Primary Day-aged children outside to play even though it requires lots of bundling up and even if it’s not for long. Our teachers find that 20-30 minutes outdoors can be transformative and spur further “productivity” and cohesiveness.
  • Double down on your commitment to have a sit-down family dinner together at least 3 or 4 times a week. Studies have consistently found that children from families who have prioritized eating together are far less at risk in adolescent years to experiment with risky behavior including antisocial behavior, substance use, and precocious sex.
  • For young children who almost universally enjoy being helpful, winter can be the perfect time to add to or initiate age-appropriate household responsibilities. Things as simple as putting dirty clothes in their place, setting the table, or making sure there is water for the dog can be helpful to the family and pay long term benefits for the chore doer.
  • Allow for unstructured time, playing with toys whose use are open-ended, and getting bored. Children develop creativity when offered such opportunities, and such moments are accelerants to developing age-appropriate independence.
  • Make the time for simple, not necessarily lengthy, family outings that involve being outdoors in nature.  Again, study after study has found that such time is beneficial to one’s overall sense of well being, calm, and wonder. 
  • As always, stick firmly to limiting screen time.

I’m sure you could add to this list. Please consider sending me an email sharing one of your family’s simple but powerful winter routines. I’ll share some of them before the end of winter.