TAKING CHILDREN OUT-
Taking children to museums, exhibitions, zoos, sports events, factories, dairies, circuses, amusement parks and beaches can be enormously rewarding both to the children and to their parents. Children` s curiosity and their desire to master new experiences are intense.
They talk about new events in their lives and reenact them in their play for days and weeks afterward. This is how they learn and mature.
New experiences for children are exciting for parents too because they can share in their children` s delight and can relive the best days of their own childhood.
Children keep parents young and lively. When excursions go well, the love and companionship between children and parents are heightened. But there can be strains that turn excursions sour. New experiences are more tiring than familiar ones, particularly for small children. It` s hard for parents to make allowances for this. Most adults when visiting a museum or zoo would like to see it all, at least briefly to make sure they have not missed anything especially appealing but they can protect themselves by quickly ignoring what doesn` t interest them.
Young children cannot be that selective. At a zoo every animal engages their intense interest. Therefore it` s wise for parents to plan in advance to see only part of any exhibition perhaps not more than one and a half hours worth, when they take along preschool children. In this same connection it also is wise though difficult for parents to let children go at their own pace.
The typical scene at the zoo, for instance, is for the adults having seen enough of the elephants to press on calling back to the child, “ come on hurry up we want to see the giraffe over here” but the child is still lost in wonder at the elephant` s trunk or eating habits, so aim to follow the child rather than pull her.
Adults also tend to keep talking at the child about what impresses them, rather than letting the child find her own interests and then ask questions about them. Children who have the meagerest appetite at home become ravenous when they see hot dogs, ice cream, candy and soda pop at a ball game. Even when the game is over, you are leaving the grandstand and the child will be able to raid the refrigerator at home within fifteen minutes, he insists that this drink or this bag of popcorn is essential to ward off death from thirst or hunger and that the stuff at home won`t do.
The souvenirs which irritate parents because of their trashiness, inappropriateness and expensiveness fill children with longing. The solution in on way can be to give them a fixed sum of money at the start for all souvenirs, rides and food and let them do the balancing of their own desires, that is better than having to argue about each request.
