Exploring Our Children’s Potentials

If you’re planning for a family holiday, would you choose to spend more time indoors or outdoors?

I know some families prefer to stay indoors on holidays, away from the sun.

And they shared with me reasons like :

– They simply love to be in air-conditioned rooms

– Their kids would sweat profusely when outdoors

– They don’t wish to get darker-skinned / sun-tanned

– They don’t like to be exposed to grass, mosquitoes, bugs, etc

…

As I always say, every family has their own way doing things.

They have their own unique preferences and styles, which of course is fine by me =)

As for OUR family, when we can, we prefer to venture out and experience more of our beautiful nature.

(So thankful that my husband share the same preference =)

[Camping at Batu Tapak Camping Ground, Sukabumi, West Java]

Here are our three main reasons WHY :

1. We’ve spent so much time in the ‘city’! 

Day in, day out, we see concrete walls.

Buildings. Traffic jams. Pollution.

Most things are man-made.

The fact that we live in Jakarta makes it naturally harder for us to see or interact with nature and its beauty.

We don’t get to see much big blue skies, the ocean, the beach, nor the mountains.

And even on days when we could catch a glimpse of beautiful sunsets, we’re most likely stuck in a traffic jam at the time, making it somewhat harder for us to truly absorb and enjoy the beauty of what’s already been displayed up in the sky.

So, where possible, we’d like to take a break, away from our city, and enjoy more of nature =)

…
 

[Exploring the areas around Batu Tapak Camping Ground, Sukabumi, West Java]

2. Imparting life lessons and appreciation of God’s creation through positive exposure and real experience

I truly believe that we learn the most when we have real experience and exposure of something.

Watching beautiful sunsets, catching glimpses of fishes below the jetty, even catching grasshoppers and releasing them back to nature.

Like, rather than looking through pictures of paddy fields, we’ll remember more about them after going to paddy fields ourselves, yes?

And, instead of just ‘talking’ about the importance of ‘persevering through difficulties in life’ and ‘not giving up’, such life lessons could be learned too when we go hiking and climbing over big rocks, eg.

…

[Canoeing together and waited for the sun to set]

3. Better awareness of the need to preserve our God-given nature

As we bring the kids to see more of the nature’s beauty, we have more opportunities too to talk about the importance of taking care of it.

Like when we went canoeing recently at Pulau Putri, we saw the big blue ocean and the beautiful clear water surrounding us. And so it was real and ‘contextual’ when I mentioned to the kids about the importance of not littering and spoiling our environment.

(If we often are exposed to nature’s beauty, we have a natural inclination too to ‘not’ want to spoil it, I reckon)

…

Oh one last thing.

I also feel, the parents’ attitude towards nature and the outdoors also plays a big role.

Because kids naturally watch how their parents live out their lives and absorb everything.

eg. What kinds of comments do they make when they are outdoors with the family?

Do the parents themselves litter?

Ah anyway.

I personally hope more and more families grow to love the world that God has given to us.

We may not be able to do ‘much’, but we sure can contribute by not making our nature worse, and by instilling the love and appreciation for the outdoors and nature in the kids, since young.

Food for thought.