My New Norwegian Home

Back in September was when I first learned about babies napping outdoors. The first post about babies sleeping outdoors can be seen here!  My initial reaction was a quick one and I kept thinking, "Wow, if that happened in America, Child Protective Services would be getting a call!" When I get a reaction from other Americans it's very close to the same as what I first thought about it, but more words and phrases are tossed around like, crazy , insane ,  "freezing to death",   kidnapping, " what are they thinking!?!? !", poor babies, neglect  and abuse . I explain, go into detail of this practice (Nordic cultures do this with children without a second thought) and sometimes it soaks in and they understand and other times it just simply doesn't. I'm not entirely sure if people get this image of moms wrapping their children in a blanket and tossing them into snow or what exactly is going on there. I hope this blog post clears up some things thoug...

Oh there is so much to learn about living in another country. Right when I think I have most things figured out, something else comes along and surprises the living daylights out of me. I was at my friend, Eirin's house today when she told me she had to bundle up her baby so she could sleep outside. At first I didn't pay too much attention until she began to literally bundle up her baby in thick clothing and that's when what she said dawned on me and I said, "HUH?" She began to laugh at me and asked, "You don't do that in America, do you?" She went on to explain babies and children in daycare and kindergarten will nap outside unless it gets too cold. Too cold meaning below -10 degrees Celsius - that's 14 degrees Fahrenheit! I was a bit surprised when I started to learn more about outdoor kindergarten in Norway, but I had no idea about this! I just HAD to follow her outside to see how this was done. Eirin explained to me the benefits of childr...

Children in Norway, Sweden and Finland are only allowed to have candy on Saturdays. Again from our visit with friends this weekend it came to our attention this is a Norwegian custom after our friends' children were handed candy. They were enthusiastic when their mother held up cups of candy when they stopped jumping on their trampoline and ran to get some candy. We started talking about their "Saturday candy" and I questioned what "Saturday candy" was. We don't celebrate this in America, so it had my curiosity. It's called Lørdagsgodt in Norwegian which translates to Saturday candy. I was told that Saturday was their favorite day of the week as children because they knew they'd get candy or as they got older they'd be given money to go buy candy. I know I certainly couldn't live up to only having candy one day a week, so I had to ask the parents what they do and where they hide their stash - candy stash, of course! They told me where it wa...

Here's an interesting video I found concerning kindergarten in Norway. When I first heard about this I was thinking, "How on Earth can they let babies play outside like that!!??!?! They'd get sick! What are they thinking!?!?!" I think that would be the reaction of a lot of Americans and teachers would have to deal with listening to complaints of angry parents, but now after reading up on this and watching videos about these children I understand more about why children are more or less outside to explore and prevented from being sheltered the way indoor classrooms allow. Norsk Kindergarten  <---- You can see here how different the kindergarten is in Norway from the kindergarten in America. Longer Video on Norsk Kindergarten  <---- This video is longer, but goes more in depth about the kindergartens.