I love this time of year. The air is getting cooler, the days are getting shorter, and the trees are beautiful. Just yesterday we headed out towards the local university in a wind storm, and we felt like we were in the middle of a red and yellow leafy wind tunnel. Everything is winding down towards a good sleep, which sounds like a plan to me.
In my daily life, I teach kids about the outdoors. I teach partners too, and teachers. Every year in the fall, a group of amazing early childhood educators gets together at the university close to where I live. This weekend I got to share a workshop with a group of them – a workshop about being a nature mentor to the children that they teach. What we talked about is relevant to parents as well, so I thought that I would share it here.
A lot of research has been done on why kids get interested and active in the outdoors. What helps them develop a sense of wonder, calm, and excitement about nature? Living close to natural places helps children access nature. Adult mentors also play a role. This mentor helps the child discover trees, rivers, beetles, and salamanders and enjoy being outdoors.
“But I’m not a scientist!” most people say. It doesn’t matter. The most important thing is that the adult appreciate nature, get excited, and express wonder and respect. I find this comforting. I don’t know everything about nature. No one does. But I’m happy to know that my evening bat-watching expeditions (with a thermos of warm milk, of course!) are routines that will help both my daughter and I relax, reflect, and wonder –
and they’ll provide memories that both of us can return to in the future.
When my daughter was a baby, we would go on a walk every.single.day. Yes, every single day, rain, sleet, snow, hail, thunderstorm or…you get the idea. I wanted her to get used to being outdoors and to experience the outdoors in all sorts of weather. We watched the weather and the changing seasons. We talked about the changes we saw. Yes, she couldn’t talk yet, so I did most of the talking. I like to think of this as early nature mentorship.
Sometimes adults feel like we need to be specialists in order to talk to others about something. But when it comes to our kids, we’re rarely specialists in all of the places their interests will take us. What I find heartening is that this doesn’t matter. What matters is our enthusiasm and willingness to participate. We don’t need to know everything – we just need to be there and explore with our children.