How to stop your kids driving you mad in lockdown – 16th to 20th April 2020

This 2020 Coronavirus lockdown is really tough for everyone, restricting us to our homes, limiting us to accessing nature in our gardens or during walks. For many people, we have a garden we can sit in and leafy roads we can walk along whilst taking our daily one hour allowance of freedom.

Mya-Rose Birdgirl Craig on a Lockdown Walk Copyright Mya-Rose Craig

Mya-Rose Birdgirl Craig with Chris Packham on Colledge Green, Bristol Copyright Mya-Rose Craig

However, for many people, life under lockdown is even more difficult. Now think about children living in deprivation in our inner cities, especially those who are Visible Minority Ethnic (VME).  Parents waiting for universal credit to come through so children living off ‘free school meal’ food hampers.

At home with a number of siblings in overcrowded homes, with no space for any kind of quiet contemplation or even just your own space. Parents without the skills to home school, no computers, no printers, no paper, no paint, no felt tips or crayons.  No garden, concreted drive at the front of the house, broken washing machines left on the pavements, only built up roads to walk along and now banned from entering parks. It is really important for everyone especially primary age children to get outside daily, to take in the air, watch the clouds,  to absorb nature – the trees, grass and flowers. As humans were are part of nature and have developed to live as part of it. It is really important for your physical and mental health to relax, calm and reduce anxiety & fears and that is exactly what connecting with nature helps us do. There are ways that you and your children can connect with nature, in any small green space, balcony or even out of the window.

Day Sixteen – 16th April 2020
For day sixteen, look up some animals, birds, amphibians or insects from another continent and draw them or make art to represent them. If all or part of your family originally lived in another country then have a look at the animals that live there. For example, my mum’s family are from Bangladesh and so I would show my niece and nephew photos of Spoonbilled Sandpiper and tigers.

Spoon-billed Sandpiper on Sonadia Island, Bangladesh

Day Seventeen – 17th April 2020
For day seventeenth, look up at the night sky and look out for a full moon from a window.  If you’re lucky, you might even see some stars.  Feel a connection with the worlds above.

Day Eighteen – 18th April 2020
For day eighteen, singing in a local green space either alone or with a few family members that you live with.  Singing is really good for lifting the mood especially with drums or a guitar.

Young Birder Birdgirl Mya-Rose Craig

Day Nineteen – 19th April 2020

For day nineteen, pick up sticks on a walk and then turn them into a dream catcher or anything your children imagine them to be, such as a snake or giraffe.

Day Twenty – 20th April 2020
For day twenty, make a bird feeder out of a toilet roll by sticking suet or peanut butter onto the outside. Roll in seeds, oats or anything thing else you have in your kitchen cupboard that the bird might eat. Hang up on a balcony you can view, or in a green space, you can walk past. Or fill a small drinks plastic bottle with birdseed, put a stick through the narrow neck with holes and hang upside down.

Credit: Andy Hayward WTML