Recently many of you reposted this article on facebook, and a few of you sent it to me or linked to it on my timeline.
Here are my thoughts.
Obviously, I am 100% pro children spending the MAJORITY of time outdoors, and I'm huge on masterly inactivity (un-managed play in the context of clearly defined rules and cultivated habits of obedience, attention, and truthfulness.)
I want kids outside, especially doing nature study. As much as possible.
I do think there needs to be a space where they can make their fort, and I do think nature can take it. Yes. I remember all too well the disagreements I had with my father in law about what the kids should and shouldn't be allowed to do outdoors.
He wanted them to play outside, but it seemed that every activity they took up worried him. I understood his concerns, but felt strongly that they should be free to build and be, even at the expense of a few shrubs or flower beds. We can re-seed grass, but those lessons learned outside digging are priceless.
On the other hand, I also think that equally important, is the need to teach children from the youngest of ages that they have a place in nature. They are both "over" it and "in it."
They must learn to take authority, yes, but also they must learn their place in it and the impact of their decisions. I watch them, year by year, in this dance.
The first bug they notice-- something alive that isn't like them. The first time they discover a bird won't come to them. The first time they realize a flower is delicate and easily broken. The first time they get stung, or bit. The first time they fall out of a tree. The first animal they bury. The first decaying animal they discover and attempt to pick up. The first dandelion they reach for that dissolves into a stem, seeds flying on the breeze.
I go on nature hikes with many, many children and I find that most of them don't have a sense of their own *smallness* in nature, which is one of the best lessons nature can teach us-- that we can not control. We can build, but nature can destroy it in an instant. We can know everything there is to know about survival and still encounter the one thing that takes us down. Now, this is a lesson learned best over time, and gently, and typically not through "free play in the woods," of course. But there are other lessons as well.
Take the time to teach them tracking, or to learn how to read scat, for example- a skill that can both feed them and give them ample time to escape disaster.
Take the time to teach them to bird stalk-- not only because they will find in the birds a perpetual friendship that grows deep over time, but also because it can help them find shelter, listen for danger, and prepare for weather.
Take the time to teach them about the stillness of the mountaintop, the roar of the waves, the music of the forest. Let them hear nature talk so that they learn to quiet themselves.
Let them learn to sit and observe quietly, to return to the same places each day or week, or month and be greeted by the same friends in nature-- that tree or rock or stream or animal who, with the seasons, looks and acts differently to adapt to it's environment.
Teach them that to want to take an animal out of it's environment and make it a "pet" is the seedling of objectification-- one of the greatest evils of this world. More rewarding than a pet is a free, wild animal that loves you, and who you love. (Are you coming with me on that one? It is one of my favorite lessons that so many people seem to miss.)
It frustrates me to see children (and inexperienced adults!) rumbling around off-trail, touching things. Conservation of resources is an important lesson, as is stewardship, and rule-following for the good of all. People are perpetually "ruining it for others" with careless wandering through protected areas.
It is also dangerous. Here in the Carolinas 80% of what's "out there" will damage you, and I'm constantly amazed to see kids-- and parents-- wandering through poison ivy, over potential snake zones, and through dangerous spiderwebs. Children will get ticks, they will get ant bites, yes.
But by all means, teach them how to avoid these things and don't just let them loose to learn through each injury. The results could be deadly.
It also frustrates me to see children who have not been taught that nature did not create neat trails of concrete with porta-potties and water fountains placed at equal distances through the woods.
Many children hardly notice the difference between a pristine, protected and untouched field and a garden. Many children's only experience of nature is a weekly trip to the botanical gardens.
Take them to state parks and wild areas. From time to time, camp with them in sleeping bags far from campgrounds and folding chairs. Let them see the stars far from the city lights.
But.... "Leave no trace."
This is the motto of every bushcraft enthusiast and naturalist, and one it is our duty and responsibility to hand down to our children.. It is a lesson I seldom see being taught to children these days, even by park rangers. It is one the ancients handed down to us-- those precious ancients who in every country were chased out of their wildlands and into captivity and eventually into their own private hells by those who left a trace.
"Leave no trace" ensures safety. It also ensures conservation of beauty, it ensures friendship with nature and also survival for future generations and for those around us now. "Leave no trace" is the essence of a relationship with nature, but because of the nature of Man it must be balanced with our primal call to "Forge a Path," a vocation which also cannot be ignored.
We are men, and not animals.
We will travel. We will discover. We will conquer. We will build. We will settle. It will be glorious! We will hopefully take only what we need, replace what we can, and live in friendship and harmony with that with which we can co-exist peacefully.
For me, the most important thing in life is to find balance, and spending time with children in nature is one of the best ways to teach this important lesson.
By all means-- let them play and explore! But never forget to teach them, to train them, to hand down the lessons of the ancients who came before us and successfully lived WITH nature. The world has enough disrespect, destruction, and thoughtlessness.
Put them in nature to give them a sense of wonder, awe, and humility.
