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Speaker 1: It's personal parenting for this morning. It is school holidays

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Speaker 1: for some kids, and so parents have that, I guess

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Speaker 1: perennial challenge of how do you keep your kids entertained

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Speaker 1: without spending money because money's too tight to mention without

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Speaker 1: also relying on screen. So you don't want your kids

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Speaker 1: waking up earlier in the day and only sitting on

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Speaker 1: the couch looking at a phone, looking at a tablet,

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Speaker 1: looking at a TV screen or a laptop screen, and so.

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Speaker 1: And kids also during the day they have really great structure.

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Speaker 1: They go to school, they have classes, they've extra murals,

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Speaker 1: Their days are quite structured, so there's very little time

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Speaker 1: to get bored. Home is a complete opposite of that.

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Speaker 1: You don't have the same kind of structure to keep

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Speaker 1: your kids engaged, and so you might be thinking, how

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Speaker 1: do I keep my kids entertained? So we'll talk about

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Speaker 1: that this morning, But I also want to hear from you.

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Speaker 1: What were some of the things you did as a

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Speaker 1: kid during school holidays that kept you out of trouble

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Speaker 1: or maybe got you into trouble, But it was the

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Speaker 1: things you did to make fun, to keep yourself distracted,

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Speaker 1: to get yourself out of the house, and just keep

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Speaker 1: yourself busy during the school holidays. Let us known O

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Speaker 1: double one eight three or seven O two send us

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Speaker 1: SMSs on three to one seven oh two and you're

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Speaker 1: what's up messages seven two seven two one seven oh

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Speaker 1: two joined on the line, resident human potential and parenting

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Speaker 1: experts Nikki Bush Nikki are very good morning too.

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Speaker 2: Good morning giroks as always.

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Speaker 1: Great to have you on the show. So this morning

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Speaker 1: we are talking about how parents can keep kids, I

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Speaker 1: guess entertained, not necessarily distracted, but also having fun as

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Speaker 1: they enjoy their school holidays. And parents are guess trying

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Speaker 1: to enjoy you know, what little time they have at home.

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Speaker 1: And I guess parents have a different kind of challenges.

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Speaker 1: They probably would have grown up in times where they

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Speaker 1: spent a little bit of time outside riding bikes, playing cricket,

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Speaker 1: playing marbles, playing whatever it is. It's a little bit

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Speaker 1: different for kids now. It seems kids are spending a

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Speaker 1: lot of time indoors, and a lot of it is

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Speaker 1: about safety and security.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, you raise an important point. Children are far

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Speaker 2: more contained than they ever used to be, largely because

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Speaker 2: of safety and security, also because parents are maybe working online,

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Speaker 2: so they're not outside able to watch their children doing

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Speaker 2: whatever it is that they perhaps should be doing, like

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Speaker 2: being on a jungle gym and running around in the garden,

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Speaker 2: et cetera. Whether you live in a complex or whether

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Speaker 2: you live in a standalone home, children do need supervision

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Speaker 2: obviously for safety reasons. And the other thing is that

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Speaker 2: you haven't mentioned is budget. And right now everybody is

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Speaker 2: super budget conscious because of this Middle East war and

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Speaker 2: the cost of living going up. So how can we

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Speaker 2: help our children to have fun out of nothing or

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Speaker 2: to create fun out of nothing with out at breaking

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Speaker 2: the bank? And I also believe that teaching children how

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Speaker 2: to create fun out of nothing is very much a

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Speaker 2: life skill that helps them to become resourceful and resilient

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Speaker 2: in the face of whatever life brings. And so I

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Speaker 2: thought that we should chat this morning about a couple

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Speaker 2: of things. And the one is that it's autumn, so

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Speaker 2: the season is changing and that provides a number of

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Speaker 2: play opportunities. And then children are multisensory learners, so let's

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Speaker 2: talk about providing sensory play opportunities for children. And then

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Speaker 2: the third is actually just using household objects to create

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Speaker 2: the fun out of nothing.

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Speaker 1: And so, like you say, we are in a different season.

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Speaker 1: Summer is ended, we are in autumn now, sooner we'll

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Speaker 1: be in winter. And so this also gives an opportunity

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Speaker 1: to give I guess, teach kids about seasons changing, and

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Speaker 1: I guess different rhythms, right, because autumn is a very

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Speaker 1: different cadence to winter to summer to spring. So it's

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Speaker 1: an opportunity to use the weather as the weather itself,

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Speaker 1: the season itself as a teaching at all.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And I'm loving driving around at the moment

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Speaker 2: around sunset time or walking during sunset because the quality

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Speaker 2: of the color has changed. There's a lot more yellow

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Speaker 2: I'm noticing in the sunsets. So help your children to

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Speaker 2: become more aware of what's changing outside. And where I live,

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Speaker 2: we have a magnificent oak tree, and of course an

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Speaker 2: oak tree drops its leaves at this time of the year.

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Speaker 2: In fact, the first thing it drops are the acorns.

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Speaker 2: And that's when I always know that the seasons are changing,

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Speaker 2: because an acorn either drops on my head when I'm

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Speaker 2: out walking my dog, or when you're walking on the grass,

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Speaker 2: you feel all these lumps under your feet and it's

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Speaker 2: the acorns that have dropped into the So you can

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Speaker 2: talk to your children about the changing colors of the leaves.

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Speaker 2: You can talk to them about how some trees lose

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Speaker 2: their leaves and other trees don't, and what the words

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Speaker 2: are for that. And there's that crispness in the air,

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Speaker 2: a little bit chillier than it has been. But then

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Speaker 2: there are lots of creative activities you can do that

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Speaker 2: cost you nothing. So get your children while you're out

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Speaker 2: walking to bring along a little bucket or a packet

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Speaker 2: and go on a nature walk and collect all the

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Speaker 2: vibrant leaves that are falling off the trees. You know,

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Speaker 2: it's much easier to do this in Europe and the

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Speaker 2: northern hemisphere, but there are beautiful, beautiful tree lined suburbs

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Speaker 2: in Joeburg. Even if you don't have one of those

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Speaker 2: autumn trees in your backyard, go on a walk somewhere

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Speaker 2: else in Joeburg where there are these big trees, some

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Speaker 2: of these beautiful parks that we have, and get your

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Speaker 2: child to collect a whole lot of leaves, you know,

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Speaker 2: if they're in primary school or preschool, get a strip

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Speaker 2: of cardboard and get your kids to glue or staple

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Speaker 2: the leaves onto the strip of cardboard to create an

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Speaker 2: autumn crown. Children are playing dress up. So if you're

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Speaker 2: looking at children under the age of nine, between the

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Speaker 2: ages of three and nine, they can do dress up

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Speaker 2: and you can create autumn crowns. If you're having family

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Speaker 2: Sunday lunches or things like that, they can those leaves

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Speaker 2: that they've collected. Give them one of those wooden society

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Speaker 2: skewers that you probably have collected over time from every

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Speaker 2: time you've bought societies from the supermarket, and they can

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Speaker 2: thread the leaves onto these society sticks. My kids did

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Speaker 2: this actually, and we use them as the table floral

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Speaker 2: displays when we were having family lunches or family suppers

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Speaker 2: at this time of the year when they were in

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Speaker 2: primary school. Kids love to make things. They love to

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Speaker 2: create things. They love to see the fruits of their labors.

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Speaker 2: It's very rewarding for them. My favorite creative activity at

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Speaker 2: this time of the year is actually leaf rubbings. So

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Speaker 2: when you take those autumn leaves and you put a

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Speaker 2: piece of blank paper on top of the leaves, and

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Speaker 2: then you take a crayon. Using the side of the crayon,

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Speaker 2: you then color over the top of the leaves and

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Speaker 2: then of course you get the outline of the leaves,

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Speaker 2: the veins, etc. And I call this leaf rubbing magic.

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Speaker 2: And young children today actually love retro type activities because

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Speaker 2: they don't know these things. We were exposed to these

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Speaker 2: things because there was a lot less that could be

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Speaker 2: bought for children back in the day. And I know

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Speaker 2: there's a big age gap between me and you, Googs,

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Speaker 2: but even for you, these were things that parents did.

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Speaker 2: You also can do these rubbings with anything like coins.

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Speaker 2: Take a nice five round coin, put that under a

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Speaker 2: piece of paper and take a crown and rub on

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Speaker 2: top or a pencil, and it's and it's like magic

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Speaker 2: because this picture appears out of nowhere. And children really

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Speaker 2: do look at these kinds of activities and they go, Wow,

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Speaker 2: who knew that you could actually do this? And then

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Speaker 2: another autumn thing that you could do is if you

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Speaker 2: collect acorns and pine cones and dried leaves and you

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Speaker 2: put them into a big into a bowl or a

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Speaker 2: shallow content. It actually doesn't have to be a big bowl.

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Speaker 2: And then you go and get things out of your

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Speaker 2: children's toy box, like little toy animals and maybe some

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Speaker 2: plastic shapes like circles and squares and rectangles and maybe

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Speaker 2: some coins, and then your children get to put their

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Speaker 2: hands immerse them in all of these crunchy leaves and

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Speaker 2: things to try and find these objects that you've hidden

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Speaker 2: inside the bowl. So these are things that kind of

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Speaker 2: peak your children's imagination and they're unexpected because remember what's

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Speaker 2: expected today is everything that is screen based.

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Speaker 1: And so this also kind of not only engages kids,

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Speaker 1: I guess their creativity. There's also that kind of it's

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Speaker 1: very tactile, and it feels as if kids don't have

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Speaker 1: as much fun or as much time touching things. I

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Speaker 1: remember making mudhouses, making mud cakes, scaling walls, climbing trees,

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Speaker 1: eating things from trees, not being entirely sure if they're

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Speaker 1: sanitary or safe. But a lot of my childhood is

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Speaker 1: very tactile, and it feels like kids don't have as

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Speaker 1: much fun touching things, feeling things, crunching things, squishing things,

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Speaker 1: which is such a great part of being a kid.

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Speaker 1: It's just like figuring out how things feel and using

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Speaker 1: your hands.

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Speaker 2: Yes, so some other sensory experiences we can create for

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Speaker 2: children include things like making your own plado so you

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Speaker 2: don't have to go and buy plato. You can actually

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Speaker 2: make plato, and plato is really easy to make, and

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Speaker 2: once again it's quite magical for children because they get

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Speaker 2: to see the science at work in terms of mixing

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Speaker 2: flour and water and oil and salt. And you can

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Speaker 2: go onto my ToyTalk dot cosa website for the best

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Speaker 2: plado recipe in town. You make the plato together, you

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Speaker 2: can divide the plato, say, into three balls, and then

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Speaker 2: you can add different things to each ball of plato.

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Speaker 2: Maybe each ball is a different color, so using food

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Speaker 2: coloring you create different colored plato. And because it's autumn,

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Speaker 2: you could actually add things like cinnamon or gin or

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Speaker 2: nutmeg from your spice rack into the plato so that

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Speaker 2: it now has an aroma. So you're creating aroma dough.

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Speaker 2: And children love things, you know. Sensory is not just touch,

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Speaker 2: it's also smell. It's also what they can see. So

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Speaker 2: by adding the food coloring, you change what they can

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Speaker 2: see because it changes color. By adding some spices, you

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Speaker 2: change how it smells. And then of course they have

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Speaker 2: that full on tactile experience of pushing and pulling plato.

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Speaker 2: But while we're on the subject of a sensory experience,

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Speaker 2: the other thing to bring your children's attention to right

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Speaker 2: now is the artemes tripped to around the moon, so

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Speaker 2: we can bring current affairs into sensory play. And on

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Speaker 2: my toy Talk website there is astronaut space pudding, so

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Speaker 2: now you can talk to your children about how do

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Speaker 2: astronauts eat in a zero gravity environment. And with that

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Speaker 2: in mind, with a little bit of instant pudding, some milk,

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Speaker 2: and some ziplock plastic bags, your children can actually make

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Speaker 2: some astronaut pudding. And basically it means putting one hundred

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Speaker 2: mills of milk into a ziplock bag, putting one tablespoon

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Speaker 2: of instant putting mix into the bag, zipping the bags

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Speaker 2: up tightly, and shaking them for a minute or two.

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Speaker 2: Once again there's signs at play here. And then you

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Speaker 2: put the space putting packs into the fridge to set.

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Speaker 2: And while they're setting in the fridge, of course, the

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Speaker 2: mixture is thickening because there's corn flour and custard powder

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Speaker 2: and things like that in the instant pudding. So when

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Speaker 2: it comes out of the fridge, it's now firm. It's

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Speaker 2: not hard, it's firm. Now you cut a little hole

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Speaker 2: in one corner of the bag and the pudding can

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Speaker 2: now be squeezed out of the hole and eaten, just

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Speaker 2: like astronauts eat in space. Isn't that a fun idea?

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Speaker 1: That is really cool, That's so cool.

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Speaker 2: But you see how we can bring things alive. We've

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Speaker 2: spoken about bringing autumn alive, We've now spoken about bringing

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Speaker 2: space alive. You can even then talk about things like

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Speaker 2: how do astronauts write in space? And there's the whole

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Speaker 2: story about the Americans versus the Russians trying to create

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Speaker 2: back in the day a pin that would work in space.

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Speaker 2: And I think it was the Americans who spent millions

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Speaker 2: on trying to create a pen that would work in space,

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Speaker 2: and I think the Russians decided they would just use

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Speaker 2: a pencil because that didn't get affected by gravity. A

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Speaker 2: I don't know that, you see. So we start talking

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Speaker 2: about gravity, do you want to get interested in gravity?

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Speaker 2: And then you can do all sorts of other things

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Speaker 2: around gravity as well. So really, you know, I think

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Speaker 2: the stuff just requires a tiny little bit of thought,

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Speaker 2: and I've actually done all the thinking for our parents.

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Speaker 2: Just hop onto ToyTalk dot COSA and you can go

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Speaker 2: and look at craft activities, cooking, activities, science activities. There's

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Speaker 2: so much you can do with children that costs you

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Speaker 2: absolutely nothing, So there's really no excuses for not having

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Speaker 2: fun with children. And if you go and look at

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Speaker 2: the cooking section, the stripey jelly is always an absolute win.

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Speaker 2: So using different flavors of jelly, which all have different colors,

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Speaker 2: you let each layer set before you make another layer,

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Speaker 2: and so we're teaching children delayed gratification because each layer

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Speaker 2: requires three hours to set, and so if you're going

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Speaker 2: to make five layers, you're going to do this over

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Speaker 2: two days. So your children will make one layer with you,

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Speaker 2: and then you need to send them out to play

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Speaker 2: or give them another activity to do while they wet

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Speaker 2: for that layer to set, and you can time it

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Speaker 2: when the time it goes off in three hours time,

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Speaker 2: come back and we're going to make the strawberry layer.

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Speaker 2: And then you teach them time by using a timer.

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Speaker 2: You teach them how to wait, you teach them how

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Speaker 2: to watch in wonder as things develop. And so we

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Speaker 2: must do lots of things with children that are the

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Speaker 2: antidote to instant gratification because those children who learn how

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Speaker 2: to deal with their frustrations of delayed gratification of the

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Speaker 2: children that actually do better in life over time.

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Speaker 1: And I mean we've spoken about this, the importance of

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Speaker 1: you know, there's so many there are very few things

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Speaker 1: in life that don't require you to wait. You wait,

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Speaker 1: You're waiting everywhere. You're waiting in the shop, you're waiting

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Speaker 1: at home affairs for your appointment, You're waiting in the airport,

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Speaker 1: you're waiting for your plants to grow, You're waiting. There's

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Speaker 1: just there are large parts of just being alive that

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Speaker 1: will require patience and way, and so kids can learn

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Speaker 1: that they can constantly be learning that lesson, like with

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Speaker 1: the jelly that you know, if you take the jelly

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Speaker 1: out too soon, you're just going to have, you know,

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Speaker 1: colored water. If you open your cakes while they're baking,

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Speaker 1: they're going to collapse in the middle. So this kind

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Speaker 1: of this need for patients is a lesson you can

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Speaker 1: constantly teach kids, and it doesn't need.

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Speaker 2: To be boring, absolutely, and you know that these are

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Speaker 2: life skills. They are life skills to set your children

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Speaker 2: up for success. And we want our children to grow

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Speaker 2: up to be independent, resourceful and resilient children one day,

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Speaker 2: so that we are confident in letting them go into

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Speaker 2: the big wide world. While I'm talking about this, I'm

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Speaker 2: actually giving a talk that's open to the public to

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Speaker 2: all parents and educators next week. So I'll be presenting

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Speaker 2: at Faramir Primary School on the East Rand on Thursday

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Speaker 2: the sixteenth at six that's the sixteenth of April at

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Speaker 2: six pm. They're charging eighty round ahead and I've left

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Speaker 2: the details with your producer, so anybody who is looking

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Speaker 2: to come and join us. I'm presenting my signature let

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Speaker 2: Go and Let Grow Talk, which is full of practical

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Speaker 2: ideas and personal stories about my children and many other

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Speaker 2: children I know who who have learned through the hard

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Speaker 2: knocks in life and by not making life too easy

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Speaker 2: for your children, that this is how we create resourceful,

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Speaker 2: resilient and independent children. And what we're talking about this

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Speaker 2: morning fits right into that category. Because if we run

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Speaker 2: around entertaining our children and keeping them happy and not

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Speaker 2: allowing them to get frustrated and bored, they will grow

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Speaker 2: up with this concept of learned and learned helplessness. And

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Speaker 2: we don't want helpless children. We want helpful children who

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Speaker 2: know how to keep themselves occupied. Boredom is a great thing,

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Speaker 2: you know, and That's why school holidays can be really,

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Speaker 2: really good, because children have to learn how to entertain themselves.

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Speaker 2: I think you and I were both readers books. I

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Speaker 2: couldn't wait for the school holidays because my mum would

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Speaker 2: take me to the shops to buy a new book,

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Speaker 2: and I read so voraciously that I was finished that

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Speaker 2: book on the first day, which meant we then had

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Speaker 2: to go to the library to go and get more

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Speaker 2: books because we couldn't afford to keep buying new books.

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Speaker 2: But that was the most exciting thing for me on

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Speaker 2: the first day of school holidays, was going out to

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Speaker 2: buy a brand new book. I think most children don't

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Speaker 2: look forward to that kind of thing anymore. What they

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Speaker 2: really want is some connection opportunity, some connection time with

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Speaker 2: their parents. And if you can use the limited connection

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Speaker 2: opportunities you have with your children to do the kinds

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Speaker 2: of things that we're talking about this morning, you will

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Speaker 2: create rich and fond memories that your children will remember

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Speaker 2: for the rest of their lives. And in this very

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Speaker 2: busy world where we spend a lot less time with

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Speaker 2: our children, we do want our children to have fond

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Speaker 2: memories of their time with us.

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Speaker 1: Niki. As always, it is a great pleasure having you

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Speaker 1: on the show. Thank you so much for your time

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Speaker 1: this morning.

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Speaker 2: That's a pleasure. And I hope I'm going to see

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Speaker 2: some of our parents at Faramir Primary next week.

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Speaker 1: That's how we wrap up our parents in conversation that

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Speaker 1: this morning. I still want to know what were the

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Speaker 1: ways you kept yourself entertained as a kid, the things

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Speaker 1: that kept you out of trouble, But you know, maybe

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Speaker 1: some of the things actually got you into trouble. Send

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Speaker 1: it through to us.

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Speaker 2: I know.

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Speaker 1: Seven two, seven oh two one, seven oh two