We believe that children are our future
Let’s start with a quote from that 70’s George Benson classic – The Greatest Love of All (written by Michael Masser and Linda Creed in 1977, revived by Whitney Houston in 1985 for all you music buffs!)
I believe that children are our future
Teach them well and let them lead the way
Show them all the beauty they possess inside
Give them a sense of pride to make it easier
Let the children laughter remind us how we used to be.
Well if that song isn’t stuck in your head now, you’re obviously under 30!
When did we loose touch with Nature
As the descendants of cave painters and inhabitants of a predominantly green and blue planet, we want to help people stay in touch with the earth in way that’s good for our fellow creatures.
We believe the most profound divisions from the natural world happen at an early age and can be repeated and widened by children who become parents now fearful of the natural world. For example…
Don’t get your clothes dirty
Don’t touch that you’ll get germs
Yuck, it’s a jellyfish
Eek, it’s a spider
Stay away from the water
Don’t bring that near me
Is there any point to wasps?
We all need to reconnect with nature.
The Alternative
We would counter these as follows
Don’t get your clothes dirty – Wear your old clothes and have fun!
Don’t touch that you’ll get germs – Here’s how to look at it or handle it safely …
Yuck, it’s a jellyfish – Look at this fascinating creature, would you like to know more about it?
Eek, it’s a spider – I am afraid of spiders but you don’t need to be, they are amazing and important, let’s find out about spiders …
Stay away from the water – Learn to swim, learn how to be safe around water, understand watery places and the creatures who live there.
Don’t bring that near me – Let me look at that it’s fascinating, shall we find out more about it?
Is there any point to wasps? – Wasps are beautifully coloured and fascinating. They eat thousands, millions of garden and farm pests and are themselves, food for many other beautiful animals such as badgers, birds and dragonflies. Wasp nests are palaces built by wasp-workers from paper. All wasp workers are female so a wasp colony is perhaps the epitome of girl power. A grown man with rippling muscles may be terrified of this tiny being which weighs less than his little finger nail but a little girl who understands the wasp can safely feed one with a drop of honey on the palm of her hand.
Nature Deficit Disorder
There are lots of books available talking about nature deficit disorder and the effects that being disconnected from nature are having on our children.
These two are well worth a read
Kith by Jay Griffiths and Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv – both remind us of how important nature is to childhood.
“The commons was home for boy and bird but the Enclosures stole the nests of both, reaved children of the site of their childhood, robbed them of animal-tutors and river-mentors and stole their deep dream shelters. The great outdoors was fenced off and marked ‘Trespassers Will be Prosecuted’. Over the generations, as the outdoors shrank, the indoor World enlarged in importance.” Jay Griffiths, Kith: The Riddle of the Childscape, 2013
Another excellent read is Feral by George Monbiot in which he talks of bringing wonder back into our own lives by re-connecting with nature.
“The thought that most of our children will never be startled by a dolphin breaching, a nightingale singing, the explosive flight of a woodcock, the rustle of an adder is almost as sad as the disappearance of such species from many of the places in which we once played.” George Monbiot, Feral, 2013
Reconnecting Children with Nature
How did we end up so scared of nature and so disgusted by it?
There’s nothing wrong with industry, agriculture, technology, health and safety or organised sport and other activities. But each, in their own way, can partition us from the natural world bit by bit. It does not need to be so, we can have the best of both worlds in every case, what’s missing is awareness and information.
Our Aim
We would love to be part of reconnecting children with nature. The aim of our children’s range is to give children the knowledge about our fellow planet dwellers. To empower them to know and to want to know about nature and how they can make a difference. We started our range with the leatherback turtle T-shirt. We accompanied this with the Ruth the Luth colouring book, letting youngsters know how important their actions are in the fight against plastic pollution.
Our newest T-shirts, Octopus, Seahorse, Jellyfish and Shore Crab are all accompanied by story books to colour that are told in rhyme and filled with facts about the creatures.
Let’s get outside, let’s reconnect with all of the amazing things that being out in nature has to offer. We are responsible for keeping our children connected with nature, for their future and the future of our beautiful planet.
