感受大自然

本文难易等级:

The magic of sunlight filtering through the trees, the soothing sounds of a mountain stream, and the beauty of nature are not just great seasonal therapy for adults. Kid's too can benefit from a hearty walk in the wilds.
 

Parents know exercise and fresh air are good for children's growing bodies — especially today, when statistics show that American children are increasingly overweight, partly due to lack of exercise.

Communing with nature is also good for their souls, scientists say. Research suggests that children learn more when exposed to natural light and the lack of such light has been cited as a possible factor of attention deficit disorder. Curiosity and Wonderment

Among the believers in outdoor therapy is the Freedman family, who use the great outdoors as a way to give their children a chance to meditate on a force greater than themselves.

"They ask us if God made this, did God make that," says Nick Freedman. "It's just a good chance to answer the questions, if you are willing, and we are."

His wife, Roxanne notes that it's therapeutic for the adults in the family too.

"We encourage their curiosity and their wonderment and we begin to see things through their eyes," she says. "That's what's most important. It slows me down, it slows him down."

The Freedmans take their daughters, Grace, 4, and Sarah, 6, to what they consider the ultimate playground, a trip to the woods. Their activities — tightrope walking across a fallen log, treasure hunting in a stream and checking out bugs — mean a lot more to the family than a ride on a swing.

"They see something that's just been born and they see things that are dead and or dying," Roxanne says. "So it's a great way to talk about life and death and all the stages in between."

Join in the Activities

While they are cherishing the environment and the creatures that share it, the children are also learning compassion, curiosity and self-reliance. But parents should remember that children learn these lessons by example, not by preaching, Murphy says.

"The key is to get out there with them and experience it with them, to be comfortable walking in the stream and looking at the rocks, because it's not important to them unless you're making it important and spending your time with them doing it," Nick Freedman said.

One activity suggested in the book, Sharing Nature with Children by Joseph Cornell, is "hearing a tree's heartbeat," is aimed at children who are six and older.

It can be done in the early spring, when sap is running through the tree. Choose a thin-barked tree with more than 6 inches in diameter and place your stethoscope against its trunk. Be very quiet, and move the stethoscope around until you hear the gurgling sound of sap inside the trunk, moving up to the branches.

Other Outdoor Games

Another tree activity involves having your child put on a blindfold in a part of the woods that has a fair number of trees, but not a lot of underbrush that they could trip on. Take a roundabout route, walk the child up to the tree and have the child feel the bark or rub their cheek against it. They should also wrap their arms around the tree and smell it.

Now, walk the child back to where you started, and see if they can find the tree again. Another activity to try is rolling over a dead tree trunk. Children will enjoy seeing the bugs underneath the tree scramble for cover. Often, there are a large variety of bugs, which they may be able to look at with a magnifying glass.

Generally, the longer a tree has been dead and decaying, the more life it supports. Explain how the dead tree provides food and a home for creatures and plants, and that it decomposes into the soil from which new trees will grow. Roll the dead trunk back when done, to restore the home.