Are you looking for ways to enjoy the outdoors with your highly sensitive children?
Highly sensitive children are a joy to be around. They’re alert and empathetic, understanding, and attuned to their surroundings. At the same time, their powerful emotions can give way to jarring reactions.
This poses a challenge if you enjoy certain activities with lots of stimuli. Fortunately, the outdoors can be the perfect setting for highly sensitive children. With minimal noise and fresh air, you couldn’t ask for more.
How to Enjoy the Outdoors With Highly Sensitive Children
So how can you make the most of the outdoors with your child? Keep reading to find out some amazing tips!
Focus on Simple Activities
All children are different, so what they appreciate will vary. That said, most people agree that nature is relatively calm and relaxed. There isn’t much that goes on in the forest or woods. Animals conduct their daily routines and rivers flow. Unlike cities and suburbs, nature provides a quiet sanctuary.
With that in mind, focus on simple activities to do in nature with your highly sensitive children. Head on a short hike or rent a canoe and float around on a lake. Start small and skip the more intense excursions for now. Save the white-water rafting for another day. Any amount of time outdoors will help ground your highly sensitive children, so they feel less anxious, upset, or stressed.
Head to the Water
Does your child love the beach? Sometimes, these outdoor spaces are too crowded, which can overstimulate highly sensitive children. But you can still learn and have fun with water. Take this chance to teach them about marine biology and other essential environmental facts. Bring a bucket to play in the water if it’s accessible. Your child can search for rocks and tiny specimens. In such a relaxed environment, your kid can focus on one task without pressure.
If you want to take a trip to the beach, do so while there isn’t too much activity. The beach during winter doesn’t sound all that enjoyable, but it can be if you do it right. Bundle up and explore the sand to find different creatures. There’s a lot to investigate and experience.
When it comes to water though, safety is key. Make sure your children know how to be safe around water and teach them to swim. Check out this post on swimming and autism for some great safety tips.
Prepare a Picnic
For an even more carefree experience, plan a picnic and take it to your local park. Include fresh fruits, vegetables, and some sweet treats that everyone can enjoy.
If you plan to bring meat to cook on the grill, wrap it in a foil packet beforehand to make the process go more smoothly and quickly. Picnics are a fun way to enjoy nature without having to go too in-depth with other activities.
Outdoors With Highly Sensitive Children
Go for a Bike Ride
Pull the bikes out of the garage and go for a ride outdoors. Sometimes, highly sensitive children aren’t confident in their abilities to learn new skills. Luckily, there are tons of ways you can remedy this. Look for a bike that has safety features, so your kid feels like they’re on their own, but still has that sense of safety.
If that isn’t an option, scooters are fun and more comfortable to control. Experts recommend at least one hour of physical activity every day. A bike ride can accomplish that.
Explore Different Trails
Playgrounds are terrific, but not much beats a trail through the woods. Hiking on a path lets your child experience the wonders of the outdoors firsthand. Many local and state parks offer short routes with scenic surroundings.
These won’t take too long, but they still provide the perfect chance for your highly sensitive children to connect with the outdoors. As they get older, feel free to explore more difficult paths.
Check out this great post on how your children can enjoy hiking!
Outdoors With Highly Sensitive Children
Have a Scavenger Hunt
While this activity works anywhere, try to set one up in your backyard for simplicity’s sake. A scavenger hunt is a fantastic way to exercise the mind and sharpen specific skills. Kids can work by themselves or with the family to figure everything out.
Establish the hunt around a theme to create clues. For prizes, pick up little toys at the store or make coupons for future use. Children learn through play in various ways, which makes this the perfect educational opportunity.
Outdoors With Highly Sensitive Children
Prioritize Time in Nature
Nature remedies the challenges highly sensitive children face in crowded, noisy environments. The quiet sounds and sights outdoors will all help ground them. As a bonus, there’s so much to learn about the planet.
Try to spend as much time as you can with your child in nature. The benefits are extraordinary!
