Plus, the joy of an unscheduled Saturday; making neighborhood maps; harvesting what you grew
|  | Sunday, May 31, 2020 | | | | |
 | | PHOTOGRAPH BY FSTOP123, GETTY IMAGES | | By Rachel Buchholz, KIDS AND FAMILY Editor in Chief
We all love spending time with our families. But if someone asked us three months ago if we loved them enough to be shut in with them 24 hours a day, seven days a week for an indefinite period of time, perhaps there would’ve been a short pause before saying, “Uh, yes?” And though all that together time has meant plenty of nice family bonding, it’s also meant, well, all that together time.
As nerves understandably become a bit frazzled the longer we stay at home together, one thing seems to help: practicing kindness. Studies report that showing compassion or gratitude can boost those feel-good hormones (serotonin and dopamine) in your brain. So encouraging children to bring a snack to someone without being asked or to give a random hug to an annoying sibling isn’t simply being nice—it might also be helping to boost their mental health.
Kids are finding ways to practice kindness outside their families. In Oakland, two sisters are creating keychains to raise money for kids who can no longer rely on school lunches. Two Arizona brothers started making cards for healthcare workers. One South Dakota girl wrote a letter to her mail carrier thanking him for his service—and received dozens of notes in return. And here’s a collection of kids’ suggestions to love your neighbor.
The most important thing parents can do to foster kindness in children is to model kindness themselves. Encourage them to continue to care for the planet (here’s a fun save-the-world-from-plastics challenge from our Almanac 2021) as well as other people. That’s especially crucial now, as hate incidents against people of Asian descent have been increasing since COVID-19 was first reported. If it comes up, discourage children from associating the pandemic with any one group of people, and encourage empathy instead.
“Kids understand fairness at an early age,” says Harvard lecturer Josephine Kim, faculty at the Center for Cross-Cultural Student Emotional Wellness, in this Nat Geo article about talking to kids about xenophobia. “We can harness a child’s keen sense of fairness to encourage empathy.”
Granted, there’s not a lot that’s fair—or kind—about the pandemic. But maybe if we continue to look for new ways to treat each other fairly and kindly while we’re together at home, we’ll be able to treat the world a little better once we’re finally able to emerge. Let us know what you find!
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 | | PHOTOGRAPHY BY WESTEND61, GETTY IMAGES | | We dare you to read this note about maps: We’re not talking about your parents’ old road map they used to find some out-of-the-way campground. The maps we’re talking about are made by kids. These maps can show where all the squirrels live in your neighborhood, your home from a pet’s perspective, or even what your town will look like in a hundred years. This Nat Geo article of mapping activities will inspire kids to get creative and explore—even if they can’t go much farther than their front door right now.
Unlikely families: Sometimes you can’t choose who you have found yourself hanging with during quarantine. Neighbors who rarely socialized with one another are holding happy hours on adjacent porches and driveways. And after an Airbnb reservation, an American couple, their two dogs, a Chinese couple, and their set of newborn twins have created an unexpected temporary family in a Salt Lake City suburb, the Washington Post reports. “It’s a privilege to be able to help them out in this really weird situation,” says Sylvia Newman, landlord and sometime baby burper for their tenants, a young family from China.
The upside of unscheduled: No Saturday rushing to soccer or gymnastics? Doing shopping online instead of fighting weekend supermarket crowds? One day last weekend, recounts author Clint Edwards for the New York Times, “we got up late and spent the morning as a family in our small garden.” They streamed The Call of the Wild in the afternoon and sat around a backyard fire pit at night. It was probably the most wholesome and family oriented Saturday in decades, Edwards said. Reflecting amid the tragedy of the pandemic, he concluded: ”Perhaps what we really needed all along was less on our plates and more time with one another.“
Readjusting: There are clues that our connections to the internet may help us reorient ourselves after the pandemic passes. Scientists have studied astronauts and Antarctic explorers to the effects of isolation, and found that the 24/7 communications that astronauts achieved may have eased their reinsertion to society after their return to Earth, City Lab reports. That’s good news, I guess.
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 | | PHOTOGRAPH BY ARIEL SKELLEY, GETTY IMAGES | |
Grow more than just food. As we continue to spend oh-so-many hours together, a lot of parents have turned to gardening to pass the time. And why not? Fresh air, sunshine, a little movement, and yummy veggies are all healthy reasons to get digging. But gardening can also foster life skills in children, like patience, self-esteem, and responsibility. This Nat Geo article explains how, as well as provides some quick tips for getting started.
Family discussion: Is time passing faster or slower when everyone is at home? One expert says it’s the opposite of a family vacation, which speeds by but later, you’ve created so many memories it seems like weeks upon weeks. Now, even if the days feels slow, because you’re generally in the same place with the same people, so “when you get to the end of the week and look back ... you have made fewer new memories than usual and time seems to have disappeared,” writes Claudia Hammond for the BBC. Do you agree? If not, let us know what you’ve done to vary the days. | | | |
| TRY THIS: BOREDOM BUSTERS FOR KIDS | |
 | | PHOTOGRAPH BY © SHEDD AQUARIUM / ALICIA ATKINS | | Keeping kids’ brains active: National Zoo and Aquarium Month starts tomorrow! And even if your kid hasn’t been to either one in a minute (and likely won’t be for a few more), they can still go wild. Show them what happens when animals are let loose at zoos and aquariums when humans aren’t around, like Carmen the Magellanic penguin, above, visiting Kayavak the beluga whale at Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium. Then have them go behind-the-scenes to learn what it’s like to be a real zookeeper in the Nat Geo Kids video series Sam’s Zookeeper Challenge, or check out the fun ways keepers prevent the animals from getting bored. (An orangutan playing with giant building blocks? Yes, please!) Kids can even create a prehistoric zoo at home with this Spinosaurus figure with VR enhancements.
More on the Spinosaurus: Monday is Dinosaur Day, and how better to celebrate than by gathering (virtually) in our Explorer Classroom at 2 p.m. Monday to hear researcher Nizar Ibrahim describe new discoveries on how the giant terror would swim—yeah, a swimming dinosaur!—to hunt down its prey. Register here!
Need more learning-from-home ideas? This week, NatGeo@Home will have a personality quiz to find out what kind of planet protector your kid is, a recipe for DIY ice pops, and tips for starting a family book club.
This newsletter was edited and curated by David Beard and Rachel Buchholz. Have a healthy and a sane (as possible) week ahead! | | | |
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