I'VE written before to praise parents on giving their children experiences rather than material items, and I think the weekend just gone falls into that category.
It would have been easy on Sunday, listening to the rain falling on the roof, to have forgone the Carterton Daffodil Day festival and kept the kids indoors. Now, I've not raised small children, so it is possible that's the option from hell. But it was impressive, when I got to Middlerun farm to photograph the daffodil picking, to see how many families there were.
It makes me realise that kids like to get geared up in their wet weather gear if there's a special opportunity to be explored, and it's not too cold. I can remember getting geared up to go mushrooming or blackberrying when I was a kid. Getting wet isn't a problem, and foraging comes pretty naturally to a child. So does keeping score, as I observed one child proudly counting out his 24 daffodils.
I came late to children, taking on stepchildren as teenagers, but the principles still hold true: experiences are worth more than materials. It can be difficult to instil that kind of value in a youngster (and teenagers even more so) but all you can do is provide the experience and hopefully, as a family, you have a great time.
The festival's steam train ride is another great example, with kids perched on parental shoulders, despite the rain, with fingers in their ears as they marvelled at this black monstrosity belching smoke. With steam trains, there's a lot of "big kids" around as well - train enthusiasts - and that helps with the fun atmosphere. Kids like it if the adults are having fun as well. Kids copy adults, and if the adults think it's fun, the kids think it's cool.
