We don't wake our toddlers on Saturday, they wake us up
Every Saturday, we go to Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) for nature infused mornings. Somewhere along the way, our daughters stopped following us and started running the whole mornings themselves.
A few days ago, I overheard Tashi giving Tara firm instructions.
If you wake up at seven, she said, we will not be able to go to the National Park. So, you have to get up at five on Saturday, not your normal time.
She is not even four.
That small exchange, overheard by accident, is the clearest proof we have that something is working.
We go to #SGNP every Saturday morning.
It is a two-hour drive there and back, and we have learned to guard our ritual fiercely.
Just the four of us, some music playing, and a forest waiting at the end of the road.
This is our family time, and the girls understood that long before we ever put words to it.
This week, they brought their cycles along.
Watching them get ready has become its own quiet lesson.
They climb into their rear seats on their own. They pull the belts across and click them shut without a glance in our direction.
The long drive used to turn their stomachs, and even that they have learned to manage by themselves now. We used to do every bit of this for them.
These days we mostly just drive.
Yesterday, while driving back, one of their pants got wet due to spilt water, and they changed it on their own. This was all while I was driving and Pankhuri was in the co-driver seat. They unclasped their seat belts, changed their dress, and clasped their seat belts with lot of effort, ‘uhhumm’, ‘nahi ho raha (it’s not possible)’, ‘aap kar do (pls do it for me)’, ‘aarrgghh!’ and finally, ‘yay, mumma, maine khud se kiya’ (I did it on my own!).
And after that, they slept like this :)
It’s amazing what children are capable of, when you give them the freedom to explore and expand.
Then there is the park itself. It calms you from somewhere deep, somewhere underneath your thoughts.
The pace of everything slows down. All week the city races, and then on Saturday, under the trees, it finally exhales.
We walk and we run. We stop to watch the monkeys fling themselves from one branch to the next.
The girls ask their endless questions, and instead of handing them a quick answer, we let them sit with it and reach for their own.
Some of what they come up with is better than anything we would have said.
None of this arrived quickly.
The independence we see now, the seatbelts, the settled stomachs, the easy way they handle their cycles, was built ‘ONE Saturday- AT A TIME’ across more than one year now.
The same drive. The same forest. The same small responsibilities handed back to them, week after week, until they owned each one completely.
We never really pushed them. We just kept showing up and kept trusting that they could do more than their age suggested.
They proved us right and then went further. Now they are the first ones awake. Some Saturdays it is two small voices, at an unreasonable hour, telling us it is time to go. :)
So, we get up.
We would not miss these mornings for anything.
And it turns out, neither would they.
The PI Square Way
At Life of PI Square, we believe children learn best when nobody is forcing it on them. When their curiosity has room to wander. When they are trusted to explore, to question, to fail, and to try again.
We built this for our daughters. Now we are sharing it with families who feel like something is off about the default path, but don’t quite know what the alternative looks like.
Want to join us for a Saturday morning at SGNP? Or curious about how we approach learning at home? Reach out. We’d love to walk with you.
Because parenting is easy. When you trust your children.
📞 Call us: +91-96540-55169 🌐 Visit: www.lifeofpisquare.com 📷 Instagram: @lifeofpisquare 📧 Email: parent@lifeofpisquare.com