Garry Landreth is no designer of nurseries or cartoons. Garry L. Landreth, Ed.D., LPC, RPT-S, is internationally known for his writings and work in promoting the development of child-centered play therapy, is a Regents Professor in the Department of Counseling and founder of the Center for Play Therapy at the University of North Texas. (http://cpt.unt.edu/about-us/meet-our-founder/)
Lance practices play therapy through his work with Family Resources, and we both understand the benefits. He saw Garry speak when I first found out that I was pregnant. I remember because he missed our first pre-natal appointment to see Garry. Anyway, Lance came home and said that it was a great lecture, but one thing he told me truly stuck in my mind. Nurseries are not set up for babies. They’re set up for adults. One example Garry gave was that the many mobiles are designed so the baby is starring at the underbelly, which isn’t very fun at all. Also, all pictures in the room are hung at a very high vantage point, for adults to admire.
I have spent some time thinking about how I would like our child’s nursery to be interactive and fun, while keeping him safe at the same time.
1. We are looking for a mobile with the characters and images on the bottom so the baby can see it. I haven’t really found any, except I did see one in IKEA today. Here it is!
2. We want to have interactive games and things he can touch and play with in the room such as a chalkboard or easel, and things that can stimulate his imagination.
3. I asked all of our future baby boy’s cousins and little friends to draw or paint a picture for him. I decided that we should hang some of them high as adult are in the room, and put some of them down low on the wall in plastic frames or on canvas with a velcro back so the baby can pull them off and play with them. We would also like to have a large velcro area so he can rearrange them and add his own art to the mix.
My niece Olivia and my nephew Jacob had already given us some of their own art projects, so I put some work into getting them ready to hang yesterday!
Jacob’s art had color, but Olivia’s art was just done with a pen, so I wanted her frames to be colorful and Jacob’s to be elegant. His art will be an “adult” piece hung high on the wall, and Olivia’s will sit lower.
I bought a shadow box to put Jacob’s in.
I bought two black canvases for Olivia’s drawings and painted them with bright colors. These will be hung low on the wall with velcro so baby boy can take them off.
I can’t wait for the other pieces to arrive! Here they are all together and finished!
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