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

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Thanks in large part to the screen-heavy nature of today’s world, studies reveal both children and adults are spending less time connected to nature. This, of course, despite numerous reports that show just how key exposure to the outdoors is when it comes to our physical and mental health. In her book, There’s No Such Thing as Bad Weather, Swedish-American journalist, blogger, and mother of two, Linda Åkeson McGurk explores whether the nature-centric parenting philosophy of her native Scandinavia holds the key to healthier, happier lives for her children. Below, we caught up with the author (whose children are now 9 and 12) to hear about her own upbringing as well as how best to get kids outdoors…even in the dead of winter. Thechildren all arrive into thekindergarten and goinside to their 'classroom', some arrive very early in the morning but the majority are all there by 9.15. Each class hadapproximately 14-15 children and 3 adults, 2 teachers and an assistant. At 9.15 both classes got dressed up for going outdoors, as I had previouslydiscovered each class spends a lot of time outside not justtheoutdoor class. The kindergarten has a huge outdoor area, divided intodifferent zones; atypicalplayground area with a slide, swings and sandpit, a steep bank and gravel area and a kitchen garden area. They also have use of lots of forest areas beside the kindergarten and above it.Some of the days the children got ready to go to a particular destinationlike the forest or woods, or out on thekindergarten boat (yes they have a boat!) whilst on other days theystayed inthe playground but used thedifferent areasthroughout the day. They might have started out in the kitchen garden or swings etc. The outdoor class ate theirlunch outside as much aspossible and as theyare theoldestchildren they didn't go inside for a resttime like the youngerchildren did afterlunch. I was in Trondheim last year. Now visiting Norway again in winter. Your writing is so funny. I’ll take the revenge advise. Chef Chris Bax: ‘A cooking fire doesn’t just add heat; it adds flavour’. Photograph: Joanne Crawford 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.

With flexible hours already commonplace in Scandinavia, thanks to policies encouraging both parents to participate in family life, many businesses are also giving employees the chance to work around their passions – including the great outdoors – more regularly.

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 few years ago, I got talking to a prominent researcher at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana about the Scandinavian attitude to outdoor play and nature connection. I told her about our commitment to dressing kids for the weather and getting them outside every day, as well as our obsession...As long as I can remember, my girls have climbed trees. Skinny trees, big trees, crooked trees, straight trees, old trees, young trees, pine trees, deciduous trees… They’ve climbed trees in snow suits in the winter and barefoot in the summer. On more than one occasion, they’ve climbed trees wearing... 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. So, now we move to onlinelearning for our nursery children and for manyparents this is ananxious time,especially if they have otherolder children at home and are trying to juggle work forthemselves too. But as Ilistened to many questionsfrom anxiousparents I realised what an impact NOT being in the nursery this year has had on their perceptions oflearning for a preschooler. 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.

Just found your blog and laughed out loud at this post! Am currently writing about an upcoming trip to Scandinavia and couldn’t recall the saying about bad weather… but you’ve summed it up nicely! With its sensible rules on wild camping, Scotland has to be the UK’s premier winter camping location, but it’s also its most demanding. One grizzled old-timer I met on a winter walk in Glen Affric near Loch Ness swore that his solution to sleeping out on snow and ice was to insert a west highland terrier down his sleeping bag. While this may appeal to some, I prefer the advice of Sara Lundy, a brilliant guide I hiked with in Idaho’s Sawtooth mountains. There's nothing better than a fight, especially when you're watching it from a safe place. You can yell encouragement! Hit him with the left, he's a big Jessie! The history of outdoor life in the Nordics is long and really incorporated with the culture, since we have a lot of land and a small population,” explains Angeliqa Mejstedt, who runs one of the region’s largest outdoor blogs, Vandringsbloggen, from the Swedish city of Västerås.

I came across a gipsy encampment, the first of many I was to see....I never saw any of these Romany folk working; always they were squatting before a fire, doing absolutely nothing at all but gaze in the embers. What their philosophy of life is, I cannot guess, but it must be perfected at a very early age, and I imagine none but those who are whispered the secret in their cradles can ever hope to understand it. Idleness has no defence; it cause mental and moral and physical stagnation; but the me I saw in these camps were completely inactive. They were not resting from their labours, but simply lounging killing time. It was almost pathetic to see them, for theirs were not happy faces, but the hopeless, expressionless faces of men sunk deep in melancholy....They were as men without hope, waiting for the end; they were refugees, outcasts, yet neither.” For a preschooler the next few weeks are not about sitting up at a tablelearning letter, shapes or numbers from books or tracingletters etc. In mysetting alllearning is done through play, at no point do we sit thechildren down and say 'Now we are going to learn shapes etc.' and that isn't how it should bedone at home either. To audience members who were arriving late) You haven't missed a thing, I was just killing time 'til you got here. So, the question is - what do you say to indicate that you like all season of the year, regardless of the weather and climatic peculiarities? Oh, how can I put into words the joys of a walk over country such as this; the scenes that delight the eyes, the blessed peace of mind, the sheer exuberance which fills your soul as you tread the firm turf? This is something to be lived, not read about. On these breezy heights, a transformation is wondrously wrought within you. Your thoughts are simple, in tune with your surroundings; the complicated problems you brought with you from the town are smoothed away. Up here, you are near to your Creator; you are conscious of the infinite; you gain new perspectives; thoughts run in new strange channels; there are stirrings in your soul which are quite beyond the power of my pen to describe. Something happens to you in the silent places which never could in the towns, and it is a good thing to sit awhile in a quiet spot and meditate. The hills have a power to soothe and heal which is their very own. No man ever sat alone on the top of a hill and planned a murder or a robbery, and no man ever came down from the hills without feeling in some way refreshed, and the better for his experience.”

Welcome to a new series here on Life in Norway – Shit Norwegians Say. Firstly, a hat-tip to Daniel-Ryan Spaulding for the name, borrowed from his awesome video “ Shit Expats in Norway Say“. Go watch and share if you haven't already! When it comes to relaxation he says meditation, silent retreats and even psychedelic drugs are, within the start-up scene at least, becoming popular alternatives to more traditional outdoor pastimes. Young childrenlearn by doing and by having funrather than sitting up at a table with books etc. Go for a walk if you can and have fun counting how many steps between lamp posts, what numbers you can see or letters orshapes. Life is a waste of time. Time is a waste of life. Get wasted all the time and you'll have the time of your life. But Angeliqa Mejstedt insists that the success of her blog, and the more than 100 hikes she’s organised in 23 locations over the past year, are a sign that friluftsliv continues to inspire young Scandinavians and that the concept has found new ways to thrive in a more digital world.There’s no such thing as a bad decision, Kali,” she would say. “There are only hard lessons and gentle lessons. In the end, you always learn.”