Don’t Treat Nature as a Snooty Museum

Is there a “right” way for kids to play in nature? A mom dropped us a note to say:

At my son’s pre-k, he and another boy were picking leaves off of an overgrown bush while adults were talking. The boys were quiet, engaged, and the bush seemed pretty hardy.

When the teacher and the other boy’s dad realized what was going on, there was lots of Very Concerned Talk about respecting the bush, and keeping it nice for the other kids, and sort of a glance towards me like: Really? You watched this?

Whatever. It’s not like it was an orchid, or poison oak. And they weren’t decimating it.

Then again, here in LA, there are some lovely canyon hikes that are frequently spoiled by taggers spray painting rocks and trees. No respect. And it’s really a bummer to try to get into nature and all you see is the selfishness of others.

Or is that the price of allowing exploration — like supporting free speech and hearing some undesirable things?

Signed, A Nature-Loving Mom

For perspective, we turn to a yellowing article in Orion Magazine that was particularly wise about kids and nature. It quoted naturalist David Sobel, who said that…

Much of environmental education today has taken on a museum mentality, where nature is a composed exhibit on the other side of the glass. Children can look at it and study it, but they can’t do anything with it. The message is: Nature is fragile. Look, but don’t touch.

It’s an approach that may actually cut kids off from nature, Sobel argues — one that could create fearful and, well, boring associations with the outdoors.

No one wants to sound like – or raise — a nature-trampling jerk. But I think it’s okay for kids to pick, pluck, move, squish, haul, and use the physical equivalent of their “outdoor voices” outdoors. Some of the fiercest stewards of our lands, from Teddy Roosevelt on down (and up), have actually been hunters, attuned to ways of the wild. The more time you spend outside, the more it makes you marvel.

If we want kids to have any true, deep feelings for nature, they can’t grow up thinking of it as the too-fancy-for-everyday-use living room. It has to be the playroom, where happy memories are made.

To that end, let’s encourage more time out there! If you live near the woods, a park, or even someplace where weeds grow unwhacked, make it a place where kids gather. Consider starting Free-Play Fridays (or Thursdays! Or every-other-Sundays! Whatever!), as recommended by The Anxious Generation – and us!

Bonus: The more at home your kids feel outside, the less they will wish to be inside. As Simon Stumpf, a director at the  Ashoka Fellowship of Social Entrepreneurs, likes to say, “Nature in my co-parent.”

That makes your parenting job a lot easier.