Kindness: What Nature Can Teach Us

Nature is cruel. True or False? This is my least favorite saying since it is so incredibly false and leads to a lot of misconceptions about the natural world. The fact is that kindness is everywhere. Nature is not cruel. It is kind and through nature, we can teach our children a sense of empathy and kindness that is lacking in our modern world.

How many stories have you heard about an animal helping another? The internet is full of adorable pictures of a dog sheltering a kitten and other interspecies kindness. Within the same species, there are even more acts of kindness that you can witness. Living in the woods, I have seen squirrels helping each other across a branch or handing food to each other. They share and they care for one another. This is something we can learn from them.

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Why use Nature to Teach Kindness?

My first point of this installment of “What Nature Can Teach Us” is that parents need to start recognizing the kindness in nature, instead of being afraid of it. There are more dangers in a typical city than out in the woods and just as many opportunities to learn about kindness. If you can get over your fear, immersing yourself and your children in nature is the best way to teach them to love and take care of the Earth and all its creatures. The natural response to this love is kindness.

Here are some great activities that teach a love of nature any day, especially for Earth Day.

Kindness through Hiking

It’s no secret that I love hiking. I love taking both my baby and my toddler on hikes with me and exploring different parts of nature together. In 2020, I set some large goals related to hiking and the outdoors that you can read more about here. Hiking is one of the best ways to fully immerse ourselves in the natural world. It also provides a lot of opportunities to teach about kindness as well as respect.

Respecting the Environment

Whenever you enter a state park, you will always see signs that say to stay on the marked trails. The reasoning behind this is to respect the animal’s environment. Animals make their homes in many different places, including the ground, so when you go off-trail, you risk disturbing their habitat. Even if it is not intentional, you might step on something and so staying on the trails is a matter of respecting the Earth.

While I encourage my children to explore, I emphasize the fact they have to be respectful of their surroundings. This teaches them to be observant and to practice kindness toward the environment.

Showing my boys the creek I played in as a kid.

Pick up Trash

Another practice that I started early with my kids was to pick up all the trash we see on a hike. We carry a bag with us and if we see anything that doesn’t belong, we pick it up. Once we get home, we have sorted it into “trash rainbows” and made recycled art from what we collected. This is a fun way to show how anything can be repurposed into something beautiful.

Just like with any activity, it is important to explain WHY we are doing it to our children. Picking up trash is a way of making sure that nature is preserved and stays beautiful for other people to enjoy. It is a way to practice kindness and respect for the world that we live in.

Don’t Pick Plants

I know what this sounds like. Picking flowers and other plants might seem harmless, but if everyone does it, there will be none left to enjoy. When I tell my children not to pick the plants, I explain that they need to be left so that they can grow big and strong. They are an important part of our world and so we need to respect them and be kind to them.

Now, of course, kids will be kids and I won’t get upset if my son picks a flower to give to me as a present. When we are out hiking though, I explain that we are in their home and so it is important to leave them alone. This is all about teaching kindness and respect.

Make your Own Birdfeeders!

This past winter, we made frozen birdfeeders. This is a great activity to promote kindness toward nature and teach empathy. In the winter, animals have a harder time finding food so having kids make feeders is a great opportunity for a learning opportunity. Simply explain WHY you are making them (to help animals during the touch months of winter) and it turns a simple activity into an act of kindness.

If you don’t live where it is cold enough for frozen birdfeeders, check out these great options from Run Wild My Child.

Frozen birdfeeders are the easiest kind to make. Simply add some birdseed to a mold (I use silicone because I find it easiest to get the final product out, just put it on a baking sheet for stability when moving) and then add just enough water to saturate the birdseed. Gently stir each one together for the best results. Take a small piece of twine and push each end into the birdseed to create a loop and then freeze. Since I live in the cold weather, I just put them out on our deck overnight.

The next day, we took our birdfeeders out of the mold and hung them out in the woods for the animals! My son still likes to go to each spot and check on the feeders even though they are all gone. We also went outside and simply threw bird seed outside so that the animals and birds could find some easy food. My son always got excited and bragged to me that we were kind to the animals.

Gardening

Having kids help in a garden is one of the best ways to practice kindness in nature. Gardening is all about taking care of and nurturing the plants so that they grow. When kids help in a garden, they learn a sense of pride and accomplishment. They get to see how their kindness helped something grow.

This year, I plan am starting a small garden with my kids, using this kit from Grow and Make to start. Eventually, I would love to expand this garden, get them their own tools and grow more and more of our food. There are countless lessons learned through gardening, including:

Kindness
Responsibility
Nutrition
The science of plants, weather, etc
Simple Construction
Physical Activity
Nutrition
Teamwork

Follow me on Instagram to follow along with our gardening adventure this year!

More Nature Kindness Ideas

Bug Hunt: collecting and observing bugs is a great way to learn about them and therefore learn to respect bugs.
Butterfly garden: Similar to how a garden teaches kindness, so does raising butterflies! You can also learn about life cycles by watching a caterpillar form a cocoon and then emerge as a butterfly that you can release into the wild.
Involve kids in recycling efforts: teach them how recycling has a positive effect on nature. Maybe even go for a tour of a recycling plant to learn more.
Compost! You can also use your homemade compost in the garden to bring this lesson full circle
Go for an outdoor color hunt.
Eat outside so that you can observe nature more. Just remember to clean up after yourself!

Check out this awesome Outdoor Adventure Kit for kids. It is perfect for bug collecting and all your nature adventures and would make a great gift as well.