Six Months Connecting with Nature

I remember being six years old living on Texas acres watching lightning storms from the porch with my dad and crunching through leafy woods with my mom. I remember stuffing apron pockets with wild blackberries and walking home purple-fingered, jumbled between two big happy dogs. I remember perching high in my great-grandma’s fragrant magnolia tree, stomping on pecans to eat the flesh, watching deer at dawn and picking sticker burrs out of my lacy socks.

Despite treasuring my own nature-rich childhood, I was slow to replicate it in my own children’s lives. Before 2016, whenever they tired of blocks and books, I was more likely to pick up the remote than open the backdoor. For days at a time, our only outdoor time might be hikes across parking lots. I considered the trajectory of our habits and decided to change our course.

So, for ninety mornings in a row, I prioritized outdoor play. Every time my kids asked to go outside, I said yes. And when they nagged to stay inside, I took them out anyway. Some days we went to the park, but most days we spent over an hour in our tiny backyard. I planted flowers and threw balls and watched bugs with them, but mostly I read in a lawn chair and let them find their own fun. I let them be bored. I let them complain, knowing that unstructured time in nature catalyzed the best play and learning. Before long, their curiosity and creativity bloomed.

I overheard their pillow talk, “let’s see if the finch eggs hatched” or “let’s pretend lost kittens” or “let’s see how deep we can dig.” Outside, a stump became a throne, a wagon a ship, a bush a cave, a circling bird a dragon and crushed leaves fairy medicine. They went from waking up thinking about what to watch to thinking about what to do.

Like other habits we have cultivated, nature play has changed our family culture. Five years later, my kids are outside almost daily catching toads, catching bugs to feed said toads, pretending frontiersmen, foraging nuts, walking the porch rail or just lying in the grass thinking. They wake up saying, “let’s expand the fort,” “let’s ride bikes” or “let’s dam the creek.”

I still have to shove them out the door sometimes. They go through long seasons of playing outside for hours on end, then short stents of preferring indoor activities. During those stents, I give them the easy choice between going out or doing chores. Outside, they may mope around bored for a half hour before an idea hits. But once they find something to observe, think up an experiment to conduct or contrive a game to play, they don’t want to come in.

Through the years, our children gain more than happy memories from spending time outside. Nature gently teaches foundational ecology, botany, zoology, geology, meteorology, astronomy and physics, even math. It sparks curiosity and creativity while stretching attention spans, powers of observation and critical thinking skills. It grows patience, empathy, strength and lasting peace of mind. Outside, children can connect with others undistracted and get to know themselves. We have found that nature is a life source of beauty and place of rest.

This article was printed in the Winnsboro News in May 2021 as part of the series: Six Months Cultivating Skills, Joys and Habits into Your Children.

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