Unless we are willing to encourage our children to reconnect with and appreciate the natural world. We can’t expect them to help protect and to care for it.”
– David Suzuki
We recently shared this on our timeline and I really wanted to write something about this as well. I have been reading a book called “Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder” by Richard Louve. In this book he talks about how children are not getting out in nature and having free play. The kind of play where kids can use their imagination, build forts, make dams and tree swings and do as they please, not the structured play like organised sports.
Some of my happiest and amazing memories as a child is staying and playing at Kauri Creek, a farm which bordered a large saltwater bay. We were always up early playing and exploring the bush, the mudflats, fishing, catching crabs, finding natural clay in its many different colours and just hanging out with my sisters and cousins in our natural environment. Our parents only saw us when we were hungry and wanted to eat!!!
Where are some of your fondest memories? What were you doing? Who were you playing with? Was it out in nature? Would you let your children do that today?
For a lot of us our memories will involve nature and the natural environment. Could our children say that now?
In his book Richard talks about how being in nature enhances our creativity and relaxes our bodies and our minds. Much of our learning comes from our senses and from doing, from making, from feeling with our hands. How much of who we really are, is cut off from not having access to nature and the natural environment.
Master 10 has always loved nature and water!!!! As a toddler if there was a puddle anywhere he would find it. When he was about 5 or 6 I asked him to fill the water up for our pigs as it was a hot day. It was taking him a while so I went to check on him. This is where I found him. He was having a great time sloshing in the mud with the pigs.
Living on a farm it is easy for him to have access to the natural world and we can see how it has created a love for nature and the environment. It has also given him a sense of the cycle of life. He sees birth, death and everything in between. He will spend hours at the creek trying to catch shrimp and guppies and making little dams and channels to change the way the water runs. We allow him to just be with nature.
What time have you spent in nature today?
What I am trying to say with this blog is, how much of the destruction of the planet is because we have lost touch with the miracle this planet truly is?
How much time have your children and you spent in nature today?
What could you do to change that?
Tanya
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