Sorry for my hiatus in posting. I hope you all had a great holiday! Happy 2014!
To start off this year's posts, I wanted to share with you what I think is one of the greatest rewards of hiking with children. Now, there are several: teaching your child(ren) confidence, health benefits, spending time together as a family, teaching your child(ren) about the outdoors, and so forth. There is another though that is sort of a hidden--perhaps underrated--pleasure of hiking as a family:
An opportunity to communicate [with your spouse] !
Have you ever tried to have a conversation about something with an awake baby or toddler or preschooler in the room? Have you gotten far? It can be quite challenging to get more than a few words in sometimes before being interrupted let alone a few sentences. Being on the trail though, there is so much for wee ones to take in so they calm a bit often times leaving long gaps without interruption. For my spouse and I, we love getting a chance to chat about a new writing project or a critique of a film we've watched or even parenting techniques themselves. It is almost like a 'family meeting'. And in years to come it will be a great time to have a more focused conversation with our child(ren) about things in our lives at the time. We love these quiet moments among ourselves.
Feel free to leave your favourite things about family hiking in the comments below.
A day of snowshoeing and making snowpeople at Dingle Park!
