When I had my boy for the day, I always made a point to going outside for at least an hour. Well, most days anyway. We live in a cold and variable climate and seeing temperatures as low as minus 20 degrees Celsius is not unusual in the middle of winter. These days we looked out the window!
What completely amazed me was how, for the most part, we basically owed the neighbourhood. Even on nice days, the majority of the people we saw weren’t actually outside at all. They were simply in transit protected by plastic and steel isolated from any interaction from pedestrians. Even in a busy city, it’s unusual to see anyone outside, even kids now-a-days. With plenty of things to do inside, like television, movies, computers, video games, books, and toys, kids can find any number of excuses to avoid nature.
This can be a big mistake, for it is nature who creates life’s rules, not things made by man. Nature is the ultimate ruler in our lives and no amount of avoidance will change weather patterns and physics. Brining children outside teaches them about the sheer unforgiving aspect of nature. How rain doesn’t care if it gets you wet or how winter puts life on hold and makes it snow and how points A to points B is just as far as your feet will take you. Even in a city center you can find examples of life beyond people. Squirrels and birds are common everywhere and some will even find deer and other small critters happily making their homes amongst us.
However this post is more to do with natures raw rules that what appears on the surface. Kids need to understand that while humans care, nature does not. Nature can be brutal and it’s laws even more so. For example, getting lost in the woods will find you friendless. While the sun can provide a bearing to safety, it won’t do so without you understanding it’s orientation. Hitting your thumb hard with a hammer thereby missing a nail, hurts – a lot – you shouldn’t do this. These are what I mean about teaching a child about the laws of nature. When it’s cold, we need to dress warmly with snowpants, when it rains, we need to wear rubber boots or take cover. When it’s windy we need to watch overhead lest a branch drop to near us due to gravity. That fire burns when it’s touch, that water drowns if breathed, that animals can attack when cornered.
Kids that have a foundation in nature understand how life really works and won’t complain when something doesn’t go there way. Instead, they’ll work alongside life’s rules to find solutions which partner rather than violate these immutable laws. Yes, learning life’s laws is not something that is as simple as going outside, but it does start there. An indoor life is a sheltered one and one detached from fact. Man can tame nature by staying outside of it, but it’s can’t break or bend it’s laws in any shape or form. The most successful of us, understand this. We work with what we’ve been given – within the set parameters of life to come to some solution that meets some happy medium. We work between what we want and what’s possible.
This entry too deep for a baby blog, absolutely!