I know, bad pun for the weather at the moment. I’m sitting here on a Saturday morning, just having had my porridge (has to be done on a cold morning) and sipping my cup of coffee - having just done all breakfasts. The house is warm, and I can see a little melting and defrosting outside.
As I think, everyone in the UK knows at the moment, we’ve had this bad weather front in (was it something like The Beast From The East or some name like that given), and even though we usually get very little snow down here, we too have been hit by it. One of the reasons for living down here is the fact that it’s usually nice and mild. But this time we got hit by the snow.
When it started to snow, not so little Miss was loving it. She was laughing and thinking all about what she could do. The thing is, both our kid's schools closed on the Thursday, the day it started to come down bad here, so she had all this time to watch it fall and wonder at the snow fun she could have,
Little Mr though, well, he was a different story. The thing is, it’s all change. One minute he could see the pavement, the grass in the garden and the next all he saw was this white stuff covering everything. For children that have issues with change, well, this can be a worrying time. Everything has changed.
Now, little Mr is often OK with some changes, but his whole outside environment had changed. Thursday late morning my wife decided to take the kids out, get them out of the house. This was before the worst of the weather came in. She took them first down the local recreation ground, though there was no snow at that time there so not so little Miss didn’t want to stay.
So, they got in the car and went to a local country park, where there was snow. Little Mr normally loves a walk around this country park - however, he didn’t want to stay long - I think it was down to the change with the snow, and maybe a little cold.
Thursday evening, we staying in - other than me having to walk up to the shops.
Friday, yesterday, we decided we would get out the house, just to walk up the road. Kids were going cabin crazy (so to speak) so we had to get out. The shop we thought of is about 10 minutes walk.
We wrapped them up and went out. This time little Mr was having loads of fun, crunching in the frozen snow, zipping around on the pavement.
It was a bit of a transformation in his acceptance, but at this point, it had been a whole day with the snow down so it wasn’t something new or strange. It’s amazing to see the change when something of change is accepted. It’s quite similar to when we go to a new place, I’m thinking in August when we fly out (hopefully) o holiday.
It just shows, that, snow can supply a change that can be uncomfortable for some children. If that is the case, then don’t let your enthusiasm of building snowmen with you children rush you into taking them out in the environment they haven’t yet accepted. Give them time to adjust, which may include a meltdown because of the change. Let them look out the window, get used to the white covering, then when they are accepting and pulling you to the door - then take them out. They may or may not want to interact with the snow - but it has to be on their terms.
We learned this over the past few days - I say this as it looks like it’s slowly melting. Hopefully, it will go soon and we won’t see any more for a while. March and snow?
So, what have you all been up to through this snowy weather, that is if you live in the UK? Do you have any snowy tales to tell? Why not share them with us - I would love to hear yours.