There's No Such Thing As Bad Weather: A Scandinavian Mom's Secrets for Raising Healthy, Resilient, and Confident Kids (from Friluftsliv to Hygge)

Product Information

Every Scandinavian has his or her own way of dealing with the dark winters. The Finnish stay awake by drinking more coffee than people anywhere else in the world. The Swedes build elaborate sunrooms and go on vacations to Thailand. The Danish have hygge, one of those unique phenomena that doesn’t translate well but evokes images of a family cozying up in front of a fireplace, drinking hot chocolate, and playing board games. The Norwegians eat cod-liver oil to boost their vitamin D levels and seek refuge in their rustic cabins in the woods. Many a Scandinavian has dreamed of calling it quits and moving to warmer, sunnier, and more hospitable latitudes. Some entertain the idea every winter, and a few retirees actually act on it. But more than anything, Scandinavians get through the winter by maintaining a sense of normalcy. Snow happens. Sleet happens. Ice happens. Cold temperatures happen. Life goes on. The trains may not run on time after a big snow dump, but society doesn’t shut down either. Weather-related school closures are virtually unheard-of. Wainwright also said: “ The precious moments of life are too rare…we should hoard them as a miser hoards his gold, and bring them to light and rejoice over them often. We should all of us have a treasury of happy memories to sustain us …to be stars shining through the darkness.” I’m not going to try speaking for David here, and he’s already replied, but I found this quite interesting…! And, it would be even better if Ulf were to return and give us some more of his opinion!

You might be familiar with the English expression to ‘look like a drowned rat’. In German it’s the same except you swap ‘rat’ with ‘poodle’. Admittedly, a sodden poodle might look more ludicrous than a rat. 9. Es gibt kein schlechtes Wetter, nur schlechte Kleidung — There is no bad weather, just bad clothing

Must everyone, everywhere give their children exactly the same freedoms and same restrictions? Surely not. And this book has more blind spots than a homeschool mom driving her Mom Bus to soccer practice. British humour, I think I’m right in surmising, comprises of improvised word-play (invention of new but instantly recognisable expressions), brutalist observation and extremist opinion- or scenario-making (however fantastical – pretty much like the German model – which also lends itself to surrealism), and the somewhat fatalistic dry irony (which encompasses a lot but might easily include the blunt German model and the wry Norwegian weather observation) I also thought it was so ironic how the US sometimes teaches about the outdoors by going to an indoor museum. I definitely think more unstructured outside play and imaging should done. My son had a teacher who rode her bike to school and did outdoor learning. I really appreciated her willingness to think o The author expertly combines personal memories of her childhood and that of her children with scientific data and research to show the significant disparities in the way children interact with nature in [the U.S. and Sweden]... A fascinating exploration of the importance of the outdoors to childhood development." Of all the Norwegian phrases out there, I'd wager it's this one you'll encounter first. Most likely before you even land in the country, if you're (un)fortunate enough to be sat next to a native on your flight.

In preschool a lot of classes already use an online tool to keep in touch with parents and share what is going on in the classroom so that makes it easy to switch to home learning in many ways but thispandemic has made it harder to let parentsexperience a play basedcurriculum in person. An unplanned, uncontrolled event which has led to injury to people, damage to equipment or the environment or some other loss. Although in general references to clothing are quite rare in the materials we’ve been working on, a small number of accounts from the archives use clothing to describe the unexpected nature of the weather, whether it be mild weather during winter, or very cold wet weather in summer. Here are a couple of examples: Any Forest School experience follows a Risk–Benefit process managed jointly by the practitioner and learner that is tailored to the developmental stage of the learner. So here I am 16 years after I finished my DASE in Early Education, embarking on a new course through the University of Edinburgh - A Froebel in Childhood Practice Certificate. This course can be done in person over 2 week in the summer but I am doing it online over 8 months.A comfortable child can play outside for hours, so high-quality outdoor gear and play clothes are well worth the money. If the clothes are durable, chances are they can also be handed down to younger siblings. There were days that the staff had aparticular aim and hadgroups of children with them to help e.g building planters, weeding or repairing structures but otherwise thechildren are leftto playalone and develop their play as they want to without adult interference. By having 2 teachers in each class it also meant that 1 teacher could take asmall group into do more specific tasks e.g. precoding, whist theothers were safely outdoors with the other teacher and assistant. It is important to remember that the deadliest of all mushrooms, the well-named Death Cap, exists within our county. Every year people die from eating poisonous mushrooms. Games that involve balls, snow, or ice are even more likely to be restricted. Forget snowball fights, King of the Mountain, and sliding on frozen puddles of water—these activities have all been banned in the name of safety. This leaves the teachers in a tough spot. “I hate when it snows, because all I have to do is run around and tell the kids what they can’t do,” says one veteran teacher. When I ask her if the kids are allowed to play on the ice, she laughs, but it’s a sarcastic laughter. “Ice? Well, a kid fell on the ice and hit his head. He got a little goose egg and had to go to the nurse. Now the kids can’t play on the ice anymore. It’s all about safety.” But suffice to say I become a teacher in 2000 and was determined to teach nursery or preschool rather than primary and so as soon as I had a job as a nursery teacher I began my Masters in Early Education so Icould have a betterunderstanding of how the youngchildren I was going to be teaching operated and how I could best teach them. I ended up stopping at a DASE (this means I didn't do a dissertation) and this extra qualification certainly gave me the confidence to defend my practice and the rights of the youngchildren I teach to an ageappropriate curriculum.

Sunday April 28th – One of the most piercing cold days as ever came since the beginning of the world & great coats & cloaks are in danger of being quite threadbare by wearing them constantly It’s an encouragement not to hide by the fire with an iPad in your hand but to dress your kids appropriately and get out with them, to the park, or the wild, or even just for a walk to the shops rather than a drive. I don’t think I’ll ever embrace the true Scandinavian culture, but I am convinced that fresh air, outdoor play and an integration with the wild world are incredibly important and that I will need to actively seek to involve them in our lives as much as possible. There’s No Such Thing as Bad weather is a funny, engaging and thought provoking read.

You might also like

You have to get them out now, not when they're thirteen, regardless of how torturous it can be sometimes." Linda McGurk offers a perfect antidote to the hyper-vigilant, extra-electrified, standardized-tested, house-arrested, 21st-century childhood and the experts who push it. Practical and wise, There’s No Such Thing as Bad Weather proves just that, and much more.” Keeping the blood moving worked a treat too. We chalked a start and finish line and were soon racing up and down, hopping and skipping with the kids.

In Scandinavia, where I was born and raised, it would be very easy to make excuses for not going outside. The northern part of Scandinavia—which truly comprises Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, but for all practical purposes of this book also will include our eastern neighbor, Finland, which shares much of the same culture—reaches well beyond the Arctic Circle, and the climate in the region is partly subarctic. Heavy snowfall is common in the winter, especially up north, although white Christmases are not guaranteed. The Gulf Stream helps moderate the temperature, especially along the western coasts, making it warmer than is typical of other places on the same latitude. Still, anybody who has spent a winter in Scandinavia knows that it is not for the faint of heart. Temperatures can range from Let’s Bring out the Patio Furniture to I Think My Eyelids Just Froze Shut, but one facet of Scandinavian winters always remains constant: the darkness. Principle 4: Forest School offers learners the opportunity to take supported risks appropriate to the environment and to themselves. If There’s No Such Thing as Bad Weather doesn’t make you want to move to Scandinavia, it will at least make you pledge to bring more Scandinavian habits into your life. With abundant warmth and humor, and important research, Linda Akeson McGurk makes the case for getting your family out into nature, no matter the season, and shares invaluable tips for enjoying the benefits of outdoor play, even in the land of mall-walking, video games and relentless academic pressure.”What is the argument in favor of the Swedish approach? There’s an obvious appeal for those of us who like being outside, but not everyone does and learning to read certainly isn’t bad. What the best argument for ‘Go play outside’? A perfect antidote to the hyper-vigilant, extra-electrified, standardized-tested, house-arrested, 21st-century childhood.” —Richard Louv, bestselling author of Last Child in the Woods and Vitamin N This is one of those easy little books whose whole idea could be summarized in one paragraph or even a single sentence: Get your kids outside! Could the Scandinavian philosophy of “There’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes” hold the key to happier, healthier lives for American children? June – drank tea at Mrs Pigots… walked on the green put on my great coat being very cold indeed, N by E