Jayden
Writer and community curator, TopParent
About
There is a particular hour Jayden writes for. The day is done, dinner is not ready, your child has found a second wind, and you have nothing left. If you have stood in that kitchen, he has too, most Tuesdays, with his three-year-old looking up at him waiting for the afternoon to become something. Almost everything he writes here starts from that moment.
He has spent more than thirteen years in education, long enough to have watched a thousand lovely ideas meet a real room full of small children and learned, sometimes the hard way, which ones actually survive. So when he points you towards a play idea or an event, it has already passed the only test that counts: would he reach for it himself, tired, on an ordinary day? If the answer is no, it does not make the cut.
That is really what the roundups are: a friend going through everything on your behalf so you do not have to. He would always rather hand you five things worth doing than fifty that leave you more worn out than before you asked. Not more ideas. One that fits this child and this moment.
If you are somewhere in that afternoon right now, you are exactly who he is writing to. Come and build this with us. We are figuring out the good afternoons together, one at a time.
Articles by Jayden
- Everyday moments
When there is another adult in the house
Two adults in the room, and both of you end up half responding. One thing to try: say plainly which of you is available and which is off.
- Everyday moments
The morning that starts badly and stays that way
Some mornings come apart before anything has properly started. You cannot rewind the hour, but you can stop one bad moment becoming the story of the whole day.
- Things to do
Free things to do with young children in Metro Manila
Three free National Museum buildings in Ermita, and a way to pick one from what your child is pointing at today.
- Everyday moments
When you have to stop something that is going well
The activity is finally working and now you have to end it. One option: decide what happens to the unfinished thing, and say it out loud.
- Everyday moments
The afternoon when there is no floor
Some play advice begins with a playroom, a garden or a clear rug. Here is how to choose play when your flat is small and the floor is occupied.
- Everyday moments
Three days at home is a long time
Long weekends are easy on day one and considerably harder on day two. How to pace three days at home without spending everything you have got by Saturday lunchtime.
- Our story
Building with parents, not just for them
What it actually means to build a product with parents, including the feedback we cannot act on and the requests we turn down.
- Things to do
Rainy-day places for young children in Metro Manila
Nine places to take a three to six year old when it is pouring, all of them under cover, with the walk from the car taken into account.
- Everyday moments
The before-dinner wobble
You have to cook and they have come apart at your knees. Why distraction rarely works at this point, and what does.
- Our story
What parents keep telling us about the after-school hour
Three things parents say to us again and again about the stretch between school and dinner, and what we changed because of them.
- Things to do
Things to do with young children in Metro Manila
Fourteen places to take a three to six year old around Metro Manila, grouped by what you feel like doing, with the traffic taken into account.
- Everyday moments
The first five minutes after they get in
The doorway, the bag on the floor, and a child who either explodes or goes quiet. Here is what to ask in the first five minutes, and why how was school never works.
- Play ideas
When your child has too much energy and nowhere to put it
When your child has too much energy and nowhere to put it, the answer is rarely to still them. Here are four indoor activities that give a high-energy child somewhere to go.
- Everyday moments
The 4PM stretch, and one small thing to start when everyone's done for the day
That worn-out hour after school, before dinner, when nobody knows what to do. Here is what to do with kids after school when you have nothing left in the tank.