Nature Calls

We live in a suburb. A “greater metropolitan area.” Lots of pavement, buildings, cars. Lots of people all around us.

Still, there is also a lot of nature to be found, even in the suburbs. For our little ones, even the front yard, side yards, hill-down-to-the-street, and plantings around our swimming pool—small though these natural oases were—seemed filled with all kinds of interesting, constantly changing natural organisms.

The kids had favorite spots and secret places. Underneath some huge elephant-ear leaves was a hide-away, and behind some nandina bushes was a little fort, and there was a “trail” blazed through the ivy on the escarpment, and a little “room” in the middle of the dreadful yuccas some previous homeowner had planted. There were beetles and spiders and ants and birds and snails to watch. Pill bugs under the rocks, earthworms in the soil as we dug holes in order to plant seeds, a paper wasp nest left empty, a caterpillar on a leaf, a ring of mushrooms growing unexpectedly in the grass. All of it was fascinating to little ones.

We walked to the park on nice days, when we didn't have TOO much to do, and when we weren't sick. That little neighborhood park was almost always empty during school hours, so it served as a sort of large backyard for us, just a couple of blocks further away than our actual backyard (which was basically a pool). Further away were actual wilderness areas; about an hour away were some mountains, an hour and a half in another direction were stretches of desert, and to the southwest, again about an hour away, were seashores and the Pacific Ocean. We were able to get to non-suburban nature a couple of times a month. And of course much further away were huge swaths of wilderness that we were able to experience a few times a year. Getting out into nature was a pretty big priority for us during vacations.


Some families don't prioritize nature quite so much, I have noticed, and other families are driven to live closer to nature than we do, moving out of the cities and the suburbs, into rural areas or forests, along the coast or in the mountains and deserts that we only visit. Surely there is a wide range of healthy choices about exposing kids to the natural world, not one “correct” way. Still, I'd like to explore a few thoughts on the topic.

1. My husband and I quite naturally talked to the kids about the aspects of nature that we treasure, and it definitely rubbed off. After years of us all gabbing about the sky and stars and planets and weather and clouds and storms and landscapes and rock formations and wildlife..(and so on and so forth, pant, pant!), especially as we went on outings or took road trips, we noticed that our kids are much more tuned in to natural stuff than some people are.

Parents would tell us that they would have their kids watch every video they owned on a road trip in their special back-seat VCR system or RV—and we would wonder why they wouldn't prefer their kids to look around at the land they're traveling through. Books on tape or music can keep kids entertained on road trips—but they will be able to engage with the landscape at the same time... On one camp trip we were all in ecstasies over all the live sand dollars and Pismo clams revealed by a retreating tide, and we were mesmerized by the sight of otters and dolphins in the surf, and later we were electrified by the beauty of an amazing gold-and-crimson sunset, and still later we were thrilled by a meteor shower (still, to this date, the most “falling stars” I've ever seen!). But as we abandoned our picnic table, our fire ring, or our tent to point and call out, to take photos and whoop for joy, there were moments when I would glance sidelong at the campers and RVs that lined the beach on either side of us, and I would realize that none of the other people camping at Pismo were noticing (or caring about?) any of the above.

Luckily, we seemed to have infected our kids with the noticing-and-caring attitude.

2. Whatever is learned in nature is so rich in context it seems to “stick” better than much of what is viewed on TV or read about it in a book. The kids learned more about geology walking around Yellowstone Park and Lewis and Clarke Caverns than they did from any other method. Our zoo passes were a passport to learning about animals even more than our library cards were. Tropical rainforests in Hawaii and temperate rainforests in Washington taught lessons of biodiversity, ecological niches, and interdependence. Of course, we should all enjoy a combination of experience, reading, and quality shows, but I can't help thinking that being in nature is the greatest teacher of all.

Even if it's just a backyard garden in suburbia.

3. Our kids became the teachers. On some aspects of nature that my husband and I weren't quite so knowledgeable about, nor so interested in, my kids turned the tables on us. They began to inform us about issues and update us on the the latest science. For example, sustainable agriculture, high-fructose corn syrup and margarine, grass-fed cows—I didn't tell them about this stuff, they told me. Which is cool.

In other words, our kids have the ability to infect us right back.

4. Alone-time in nature can be hard to come by for kids, but it is possible to arrange. Back in the “good old days,” when things were either safer or at least seemed safer, many kids were allowed access to the big outdoors all by themselves. But these days many of us do not feel comfortable allowing our kids to walk alone to the neighborhood park, say, or hike alone in the regional park. (It's always been good practice, even for adults, to use the buddy system in the wilderness, at a lake, or in urban spaces where mountain lions have been sighted.)

Even with the worries of our times, there are ways for kids to be safe and at least somewhat solitary out-of-doors. Obviously many fenced-yard situations would fit both bills, but even in parks and the wilderness, our kids can be away from others but within eyesight and hearing range. For example, as a teen Lindsey arranged to hike partway up a Colorado mountain trail, alone with her sketchpad and poetry notebook, while I stayed in sight at the chair lift station at the base of the mountain. She could easily see me (if she stood up), and we could have called to each other if we had needed to. It wasn't totally 100% safe (nothing is), but she and I both felt that it was pretty darned near perfect.

So mostly alone out in nature is doable, even for kids. And valuable.

5. Being in nature presents opportunities for confidence building. Conquering the challenges presented by the outdoors, it seems to me, gives a boost of self-confidence much more potent than that gained from conquering an opponent in a game or sport. For example, there was something very primal about the feeling my youngest experienced when she walked, hiked, and climbed almost all day and finally reached the top of a mountain at age 8. She had that same exalted, I-did-it feeling when she kept up with “the guys” and scrambled, swam, and climbed all the way up a cascading river at age 18.

In nature, our kids can meet real challenges. Build real confidence.

So I'm a big fan of nature. Big swaths of it, or even the kind we find in bits and pieces in the cities and suburbs.