Meet Sergei! A fabulously engaging Dad to two young boys who became an online sensation with his creative science experiments for kids (@thedadlab). We met him at The LEGO Idea Conference and have been smitten ever since by his premise: keep it simple, do it *with* your kids, be curious! Above all, he’s an every day Dad who loves spending quality time with his kids.
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Biggest parenting challenge right now:
- Making my children try new foods and expanding the list of foods they eat.
What do you wish you would do more/less of as a parent?
- More: Travel with my children. Read more – together. We always seem to run out of time at bedtime.
- Less: I wish I needed to do less convincing about brushing teeth.
5 surprising things about parenting:
On your child’s learning: Children are capable of doing much more complicated things than parents think they can.
On school: School is different from when I was a child. Children are even taught in completely different ways. I didn’t realize that there were so many different ways of learning.
On toys: It is really difficult to find a ‘good’ toy. A good toy is one that children play with and learn from at the same time. It is open-ended and grows with them. Ironically, going to the biggest toy fair in the world, finding great toys and sharing my findings are how I started @thedadlab.
On food: Sand, paint and flowers somehow easily find their way into my children’s mouths. And yet, it is so difficult to make them eat the food that I make for them!
On childcare: Growing up, I blindly believed that my parents knew all the answers. Whatever they were doing, they were doing it the right way. After becoming a father, I understood that it just looks this way from a child’s perspective. In reality, parents just learn as they go – I know I do!
Rainy days – What do you do?!
We do a lot of simple art and science projects at home. (Of course!) I share them all on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and my book because I truly want to inspire kids (and parents) to love learning about art and science. Simple and clever can be fun, and art and science should be accessible. But there’s an art to finding great experiments for kids: 1) use stuff that you typically have at home (if it’s work, nobody wants to do it); 2) teach something that makes kids wonder, “Ohhh, how did that happen?”; and 3) engage with as many senses as possible.
The crafts my kids love are often inspired by activities I liked as a child. It just goes to show, childhood joys are timeless. Favorites my boys are loving right now:
- What’s in the box? – A child’s brain thrives on imagination and that’s what makes this simple game so much fun.
- Raw eggs + inertia – We love this classic science experiment. It is quite easy to do and it teaches children about inertia, something we see around us every day.
What does your morning routine look like with the kids?
- Alex wakes up at 6 am, and while everyone is still sleeping he is reading books that we left out for him the night before.
- When Max wakes up, both of them start playing some kind of game. Their favorite: when Alex (the older one) creates a workshop on how to make a craft for Max (the younger one). Turns out, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
- Then, we have breakfast, brush teeth and go to school. It’s not exciting. Our morning routines are pretty much on auto-pilot – and we like it that way!
What’s something you say to your kids every night at bedtime?
Like many children, mine do not like telling me what is happening in their lives. So every time we go to bed, we talk about the best thing that happened during their day and what happened that they did not like. Their desire to stay awake longer makes them share with me all the important moments of their day.
What are your kids’ 3 favorite books?
Words of wisdom you’d share with a new parent:
- Film A LOT of videos of your children. You won’t notice how quickly they grow up; videos are great for taking you back in time.
*Plinkit is proud to share these parent profiles as they authentically represent the diverse voices of our Plinkit readership. The views and opinions expressed in these parent profiles are those of the authors and may not necessarily reflect those of Plinkit Pte. Ltd.
