Why traveling is more than sun, summer and beach
What are your favorite childhood memories? Almost certainly summer, sun, dripping ice cream and seemingly endless hours in the water play a major role.
Children who travel often learn more easily. This is what brain researchers from Germany have found out. Because even if children don’t remember the details of the holidays later, foreign stimuli stay with them unconsciously and improve the brain’s ability to structure itself. The greater the difference in language, scents or food, the more intense the learning experience. This also ties in with the globegarden educational programme “Our World”, in which we familiarize the youngest children with the differences of the world.
Children store stimuli and experiences unconsciously
From about the age of three, we store the images of summer holidays (and other powerful events such as Christmas, birthday parties, the first day at kindergarten ...). The earliest lasting memories are possible between the end of the second and the end of the third year of life, say brain researchers. Recent Canadian cross-sectional studies suggest that we actually remember when we were just two and a half years old.
Yet some remember things even further back? “There seems to be a pool of potential memories from which both adults and children can draw snippets,” says Professor Carole Peterson of Memorial University of Newfoundland. And she acknowledges that some people can remember further back than others.
Travelling educates children and makes them tolerant and open-minded. So let’s go and pack your bags. For as the writer Jean Paul wrote: “Our memory is the only paradise from which we cannot be driven.”
This is how holidays are remembered best
- Take a first aid kit for the road. It includes an extensive entertainment repertoire. It includes books, music and radio plays, but also classic guessing games in which white cars or lorries with green tarpaulins have to be discovered.
- This question is guaranteed to come up: “When are we finally going to get there?” It’s best to explain to the children beforehand how the journey will take place. Maybe your child is interested in maps and you show the route - as part of our educational programme “Our World”, they have an idea of the globe or different countries and cultures from a certain age.
- The whole family recovers best when expectations are not too high. Parents need to take a hard look at themselves, because children are mostly low-maintenance in this respect. So: The holidays are not there for you adults to catch up on what you think you missed in everyday life. Better: relax, enjoy and just be together. Because when the parents are relaxed, the children usually are too.
- In the evening, talk about the day’s experiences in bed. Developmental psychologists say that remembering together makes children strong. It promotes development, they become more emotionally balanced and content.
- Can you hold on to the memory like a balloon? You can at least try ... After the holidays or at the end of the year, you can look at photos of your beach holiday together. By asking open-ended questions, you strengthen the memory, because the children start to talk.
