Cultivating Children

I’m in a spring mood, an “everything is unfurling and fresh” mood, and a “thinking about children” mood. Recently, some friends and I visited an old friend’s garden and his great-grandson was there. This 5-year-old was excited to follow us around as we dug up things, pulled weeds, and pruned unruly growth. The experience reminds me – and I want to remind you – that we need to encourage children to explore, enjoy, and learn from nature. We need to cultivate them just like we cultivate our gardens.

Purple spotted butterfly caterpillar

The Vitamin N book that I read and profiled last year had great ideas for getting more involved in the natural world. Some of them are planned activities, but there are many spontaneous things we can do. Why, just walking to the mailbox can be a path to a discovery of bugs, fallen leaves, broken twigs, and all sorts of cool things.

If you need some ideas on what things might excite kids, here are a few that I scribbled down as we await the birth of our first grandchild in April:

Here in Georgia, we have ‘little brown jugs,’ which are the hidden flowers of Hexastylis arifolia. I will gently peel away the winter’s leaf litter to show these unusual flowers. Older kids would enjoy examining traditional flowers more closely to see why insects play a role in pollination (they help move the pollen from one part to another). Another lesson might be about pines and grasses and how they use wind pollination to get the job done.

Little brown jugs visible after leaves removed

Another spring topic is the magic of a seed sprouting: how nature packs just enough energy into a seed to get it started but then it uses its new leaves to get energy from the sun to grow more.

Ripe maple seeds ready to twirl down

The dispersal of seeds is a fascinating subject. From blowing dandelions to watching maple samaras twirl to the ground, the work of the wind is just one way that seeds get where they're going. Throw some seeds into a moving creek and talk about where the water will take them.

A cluster of berries is a good way to develop an interest in birds that eat fruit – and poop out the seeds - and talk about why little children don’t eat just any berries that they find!

Use the unfurling of a fern’s frond as a lesson in growth. Take a picture of it each day and compare how it changes from day to day. Perhaps use the photo to sketch a drawing.

Watch a bee visit a flower and get the pollen she needs for her babies (packed onto her legs). Later, research ‘bee bread’ with your youngster, to learn about how a female bee mixes pollen and nectar to make food for the bees that hatch. Focus on native bees, most of which create solitary nests for babies that grow up in the provisioned cell their mom made for them. We need more children growing up with an appreciation for our native bees.

A female bee gathers pollen and nectar on her legs

Any time of year, get down on the ground and find the many bugs and critters that work our soil: earthworms and roly-poly bugs plus many more. Find them under rocks, under leaves, even under the pots of plants on your porch. You don’t have to go far to find these guys. Talk about how their job is to eat the dead leaves and other plant debris, pooping out fertilizer packets for the plants to use. Without their services, we'd be up to our eyeballs in dead plant material. They also are food for birds like robins, Eastern towhees, and our state bird, the brown thrasher.

During the summer, find caterpillars and research what they become. Will it be a moth or a butterfly? If you can’t figure it out by an internet search (I usually type: ‘yellow caterpillar with black dots’ or a general basic description), create a free account on bugguide.net and upload your picture.

There are so many things in nature to inspire kids. Step outside and see where it takes you. If you’re stumped, let them start the topic and take it from there. We need more kids who understand that nature is a thing, is an important thing, and is something that we need to take care of. In addition, research increasingly shows that time spent in nature is good for our mental health and well-being.

So get out there and cultivate some kids - yours or otherwise. It'll do us all a lot of good.