by Anna Wilkins
Executive Director, North County Land Trust
Just in case you need to hear this again, getting outside and into Nature is good for you and your kids. If you have kids and this is as far as you have time to read, my point is: It’s never a waste of time to get you and your family to spend time outdoors.
And if you are still reading, it’s likely you don’t have young kids, because otherwise you’d be chasing them down, or fixing a snack, or folding laundry, or stepping over the laundry to try to find the shoes that might be under a bed. It can be tough to prioritize something that is not already in your routine. But I’m here to remind you that getting you and your kids outdoors is important enough to try.
When I was a kid, both my parents worked. My sister and I would take our bikes and ride on the old railroad beds through our city forest and off down the trails that seemed to have been there since the dawn of time. There were stone bridges over brooks and cellar holes long forgotten in the middle of what we considered the deepest woods.
We built forts, played in the river and along the banks. We bushwhacked and discovered tiny islands in the brook or on the edge of the reservoir. We met beaver and porcupine, snakes and toads. I wasn’t worried about anything out there. I wasn’t worried about the way my body looked, or if I was popular with other kids. I didn’t stress about school or if I was good enough at sports. I was just exploring, playing pretend games and being in a place that didn’t really care if I was any particular way at all.
When I had my own kids, it wasn’t difficult for me to take them for hikes in the woods, first strapped to my body, then to my back, and then running along on their own, in short bursts, like little whirling dervishes. It wasn’t difficult because that’s where I wanted to be, too. But I know that’s not everyone’s comfort place.
If you’re more ‘indoorsy,’ don’t worry, because there’s no incorrect way to be with kids outside. It can be a back yard, a city park, a vacant lot, or beach. It can be for twenty minutes or two hours. Research shows that outdoors is the best place for a child to grow. For infants, a normal part of brain development consists of the elimination of neurons (brain nerve cells) that are rarely or never used, which is why ‘windows of opportunity’ for cognitive development are time-sensitive periods in a child’s life. The more rich and varied a young child’s experiences are, the more neural pathways the brain will keep. Nature is infinitely variable, unlike our constructed play sets and toys, and nature is all around us, even in city environments. Time spent outside with your young child is never wasted.
Kids can be hard to motivate, though. And, with older kids, there are more and more insidious distractions. Our attention is a commodity now, and kids are a big share of the market. Video games, YouTube Channels, social media sites, etc. all have developed products that are designed to be addictive so our attention can be bought and sold.
My son in particular has always been fascinated with technology. When he was 4, I would make him cardboard smartphones, laptops, and digital cameras that he would play with for weeks. My husband would give him broken electronics so he could push buttons and turn dials. But, in this day and age, it is difficult to keep kids separated from our online, screen-based virtual culture.
When they were small, our kids were excited to go for walks in the woods. But our excited young kids became reluctant feet draggers, who grumbled as they joined us on one-hour forced marches through the woods. Many, many times my husband and I let them stay home so we could actually enjoy our forest walks. But I also saw a trend, particularly for my son, that when we did force him to come along, about ¾ of the way through he would start to enjoy it. By the end, he was actually glad he went. It was mentally exhausting to listen to the complaining and still be patient, understanding and encouraging. It seemed like there was an inverse relationship when measuring walk enjoyment for my son and me.
The ultimate outcome gave me a bit of hope that I wasn’t completely wasting everyone’s time and energy. But in my son’s belly-aching moments, I wondered if this was how it would be for the rest of his childhood. Would it ever be that he actually enjoyed our walks? Is he just not as “outdoorsy” as me and is this going to scar him for the rest of his life? Is he going to become someone who bulldozes the Amazon rainforest as retribution for forced hikes with his overbearing mother?!? Resigning myself to the fact that the final nail in the earth’s coffin could stem from my parenting techniques, I stayed the course and the forced marches continued, as often as I could bear them.
Almost overnight, when he turned 10, my son decided that he liked walking in the woods. He is a cautious person, who often has a hard time connecting with his peers. He recently told my husband, after a walk in the woods that he initiated himself, “When I’m in the woods, I can just be.” That is exactly what I wanted for him. And I know myself, as a kid who had that, and now an adult who has that, he will have it for the rest of his life. He’s found out that when you are in nature, you can just be.
The only reality that makes sense to me is the one that is literally tied to the ground we walk on. It’s the only place where I make sense every time I seek my center.
We are more connected to place than we know. Where we live influences our perceptions, culture, tastes, ways of travel, language, and more. Like wine grapes, we absorb the water and the wind and the pollen, the flavor of the land around us. It’s not just a backdrop. If you don’t get to know and begin to have a relationship with the land that is all around you, you are missing out on knowing a piece of yourself and your community.
Kids are wired to be in nature. Follow their curiosity. Follow your own curiosity. Go drag your family out for a forced march through the woods. If you can find that other shoe…
Written for, and first published by, Ashburnham Conservation Trust in their August Newsletter 2023.