Ask your children to draw 'nature' and you will be amazed by the result

BanyolesA few days ago we were listening to an episode of the podcast Stabbing pains dedicated to one of the four elements: the earth. They mentioned a lovely exercise that a university professor posed to her students: Observe what they stepped on for an entire week.

The most widespread responses were parquet, cement, tiles, but almost no one said landAnd they didn't experience it as a strange absence. Because, as explained in the podcast, we've learned to understand each other. out of the earth, as if we were external agents, observers of everything but disconnected from our origin. And it is evident that they do not tell us enough that humanity, etymologically, comes fromhumus: We are daughters and sons of the earth.

An exercise with children

We invite you to do another exercise, ask your children to draw nature, without giving any further instructions, you will surely notice that they draw landscapes where vegetation, rivers, seas emerge, but rarely, although the earth is our main home, do they draw themselves inhabiting these landscapes.

On the other hand, if we ask them to draw their house or a park, they usually inhabit these spaces with children and adults. In the podcast, they also shared a beautiful parallel: the earth rotates at a dizzying pace, autumn and winter would be equivalent to its sunset and night. Spring and summer are its day. And like humans, who spend the night resting and are activated by the light of the morning, she also rests, regenerates, and awakens right now, with spring. We think it's a beautiful image to share with children.

Knowing and playing in nature

If you need excuses, equip yourself with guides from your environment, binoculars, salt water... Have them observe these rhythms, invite them to take off their shoes, explain to them why it is important to put their feet on the ground and step on the ground that supports us. To us, it seems like an essential exercise in rooting in order not to lose something. Children inhabit and make spaces their own with all their senses when they play, jump, smell, and have significant experiences.

And who knows, maybe the next drawing of nature they ask for will reflect them and you.