About Playful Tulip
Who am i?
Hello! I’m Matilda, a South African qualified occupational therapist, wife, mom of two exuberant little girls, adult-aged diagnosed ADHD’er and an expat.
I am passionate about child development and supporting adults to play, connect and grow their relationships with the children in their lives.
I simply love to play and the process of creativity inspires me!
My education and experience as occupational therapist, combined with my training in sensory integration and infant massage, have all provided me with so many tools to enrich my parenting journey. And now, as a mother, I would like to share some of this knowledge and experiences with others.
I believe that learning should be fun and creates wonderful opportunities for adults and children to connect and grow together.
“Play is our brains favourite way of learning”
— Diane Ackerman —
Play and playfulness are both key to this! And that’s what Playful Tulip is all about.
Hoping to inspire playfulness
With this blog, I would like to create a supportive environment where parents and children are allowed to be themselves.
That means my photos will most probably have a few dirty dishes or a pile of laundry in the background, my children’s clothes won’t match (mine probably neither), the planned art activity looks more like a science experiment and yes, the dog(s) join in the fun.
I would like to share ideas that are realistic and information that is helpful. Yes, I will post my epic failures, because I believe we can all learn from it. Humiliation is often the key to being playful, and I am sure you have wonderful tips and tricks to teach me as well.
My dream is to help develop an parenting environment of support and mutual learning. Thus, I would like to invite you to share … share your tips, tricks and epic failures, share your needs and questions, but most of all, please share those special playful moments you experience with the child(ren) you so dearly love.
the hard reality of parenting
However, with all that being said, I must admit, even with all my qualifications and work experience, becoming a mother has been tough, way tougher than I ever expected! The pressure is sometimes overwhelming and it always feels as if there’s something I don’t know.
Parenting seems to be filled with so much mess, stress and uncertainty, not to mention the mountains of guilt … Social media is flooded with picture perfect ideas, which are more often than not, completely unrealistic. There is so much competitiveness, pressure and mountains of unfiltered information, it’s hard not to feel like one is drowning, when all you want to do is just support your child(ren) to grow and reach their full potential.
As a new mom I realised how overwhelming all the information about child development and learning can be. Friends often ask me questions about their child’s milestones or share how they feel pressured or confused about how to help their child develop certain skills – for example, crawling, walking, handling scissors, potty training, developing a pencil grasps. I realized that most answers had one thing in common – limited availability of information about child development that is both easy to understand and implement at home.
Knowledge that I have taken for granted and implemented without having to think about it, could change the lives of so many other families – create connections, develop understanding, reduce stress, improve self-confidence and inspire creativity.
This sparked the idea of creating accessible, uncomplicated information on child development and simple easily implemented resources to support parents.
why playful tulip?
When I decided to create this blog, my dream was to provide a space where I can share some of my knowledge and experience with other mothers. I knew play and playfulness would be at the heart of it. Choosing a name, however, was not so easy. Luckily I had a wonderfully creative sister – Louise – whom immediately had the cutest idea, Playful Tulip!
“playful”
For inspiring fun and emphasising the importance of play and opening yourself up to playfulness.
“tulip”
Firstly, tulips are almost synonymous to where we’re living as an expat family – the Netherlands. Something few people know, however, is that tulips aren’t originally from here, but with all the nurturing it received, it has grown into a symbol people internationally associate with the Netherlands. For me, this represents the delicate nature of children and how nurturing (connection through play) can help them blossom into their full potential.
Also, Tulips are often seen as symbolising happiness, love, joy, well wishes – communicating a strong message of love. Thus, representing our love for the children in our lives.
