Three ideas (about child-rearing) worth stealing from the Danes

So this subject is a little outside the bounds of stuff I have been posting about ( architecture, food, museums in Denmark), but I have reared a few children, so I feel like I have a bit of authority here. And while few other countries can aspire to the social contract that allows new parents 52 weeks of family leave* and generously subsidized daycare for children ages 0-6**, here are three simple, replicable ideas that even poorer nations can borrow.

"Time to sleep" TV
 In 2009 Danmarks Radio launched its kids-only channel, Rama Sjang, and made two interesting decisions. First, they decided not to broadcast its regular fare of cartoons and kiddie TV shows during the hours when children should be sleeping. And second, instead of playing 'dead air' during sleeping hours, they instead produced and broadcast footage of people sleeping.

So if you turn on Rama Sjang between the hours 8:30PM and 6AM on weekdays and 9 or 9:30PM to 6AM on weekends, you will only see footage of someone sleeping, and hear the sound of the clock ticking, maybe some snoring, and occasionally some farting. There is text to indicate "We are sleeping now, see you tomorrow morning" and how many hours and minutes until 6AM. The sleepers range from puppet characters that appear in their daytime shows to professional actors to celebrity Danes -  like football players, news broadcasters and politicians. In the summer, the sleepers are outside - in tents, under the stars, or in trees. You can also listen to just the soundtrack of ticking, snoring and farting sleepers on DanmarksRadio.

See, for example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFnp1zesa9I

Suttentraer/ Pacifier trees
Both of my kids used pacifiers and getting them to give them up was a horror show. So I was interested to learn about the tradition of Pacifier Trees here in Denmark.

At age 3, children are encouraged to donate their pacifier (sut) to the Suttentrae. Parents bring their kids to the tree, maybe attach a note to it, tie it up alongside the hundreds of others pacifiers, and wave good-bye. Some kids then get a replacement gift, like a toy or something that doesn;t go in your mouth.

The most famous of these trees is in the big park in the Fredericksberg section of Copenhagen. This picture is from a smaller tree near the playground in Faelledparken, in the Osterbro section of Copenhagen.

Pacifier tree in Faelledparken, Copenhagen

Apparently, there is a Pacifier tree somewhere in Brooklyn, NY, so I guess the idea is catching on.

Snowsuits and rainsuits:
There's a great L.L. Bean commercial where a family dressed in snowsuits is playing on a beach in winter; the tagline is "There's no such thing as the wrong weather, just the wrong clothing."

That's the basic idea for childrens' wardrobes here in Denmark, where the weather could be better. Every child from 0 to 10 years has both a regnsaet/rain set (rubber pants with suspenders, raincoat and rubber boots) and a full-length flyverdragt/ snowsuit with a hood and long pants with stirrups. The dragter come in winter and non-winter weights. When our daughter was in a Danish nursery school, we were told to buy these two items; it was not just a suggestion.

Nursery schoolers in snowsuits on Gothersgade after a field trip to the Danish Film Institute, Copenhagen

And the result is, kids are comfortable and are able to play more freely. The nursery schools and day institutions for children bring the kids out everyday, regardless of weather. On any weekday, you will see kids bundled up in rows of extra-capacity strollers, or walking along in rows holding hands on the street. They go everywhere - to parks, museums, the library, to Parliament, businesses - you name it. Here on Nyhavn, they come to visit the wooden ships owned by the National Museum. I have seen kids getting a tour at the grocery store. I have also seen a class of four-year olds in snowsuits on the Metro with sandpails get out at the beach stop - in November.

Kids in snowsuits enjoying a winter picnic in Kongens Have ( the King's Garden), Copenhagen

Kids also play much harder, because they're dressed for it. They slide down hills on their butts, climb trees, sit in the dirt and stomp through puddles. In Vesterbro, near Kodbyen, we saw two boys in rainsuits riding their bikes through a public fountain and about four inches of water. It looked like the most fun thing in the world. On a very slushy day last week, I saw a dad walking down a shopping street with his snowsuited kid, who was happily splashing through the side gutter. I wasn't the only passerby smiling at the sight.

If one purpose of play is to learn about your environment - what it feels like and sounds like, what is soft and what is hard, how some ice is thin and some ice is thick - then it certainly helps to be properly dressed for that exploration. It also helps if your teachers not only allow you to explore the world with your body, but encourage it.

To this last point (although it is sort of tangential to the snowsuit argument), I recently saw a group a middle-school aged kids on a field trip to Castellet. When they left the fort there was a nice grassy rampart, and the teachers basically told them - "OK, go run around now before we get back on the bus." Which is just about the last thing a teacher would say at the end of any field trip I have ever been on or chaperoned in the US. But it was exactly the right thing to do. The kids got some exercise and burnt off some steam, and the teachers got a group of kids who were better prepared to sit down for a while and learn something.

Danish schoolkids burning off steam at Castellet.

*18 weeks for the mom, 2 weeks for the dad, and the rest as they see fit
**all parents pay, but not more than 25% of the actual costs