...'cause here our hands are for gripping not clicking
at keyboards
and boredom can be tied tight in ropes and in knots
and our kids eyes can stop
from computers and screens and we can all get lost making sticks into dreams...
Extract from Hidden Woods by Hollie McNish, UK poet and spoken word artist
Social media feeds are really delivering the goods on the nature play front. There's three things in particular I can't get out of my head: hummingbirds, pyramids and some super fresh poetry. They resonate as individual items, and together create a powerful, inspiring and achievable framework to bring more nature, simplicity and play into my family's modern urban lifestyle.
Hummingbirds first. World renowned nature play advocate Richard Louv recently wrote this article for The Children and Nature Network, an organisation supporting the international movement to connect children, their families and communities to the natural world (of which Louv is Co-Founder and Chair Emeritus). The article draws on writing by Michele Whitaker, guest blogger for The Grass Stain Guru, and discusses caregiver's fear of real and assumed dangers in kid's outdoor play (e.g. lurking strangers, liability, noxious weeds, snakes etc).
The article offers seven ways to manage these fears and reduce risks to ensure kids get outside. Number two on the list is to adopt hummingbird parenting, an analogy that describes a parenting approach landing somewhere between the "helicopter" and "free range" parenting styles. The approach is described as follows:
Source: Children and Nature Network
