Resilient Children Part 2

When accused of getting her pink outfit all dirty when she was young, my daughter promptly corrected her by saying “I’m not dirty, I’m all covered in Fun!”

Like I shared in Resilient Children Part 1, creative problem solving in response to the unknown is one of the great gifts of spending time in nature with a mentor.  Coyote’s Path is one such nature mentoring program.  check out this recent weekend description:

November Coyotes Path Story of the Day

We had some great experiences on the land last weekend.  They learned first hand how to expand sense awareness, listen with deer ears, walk quietly like a              fox, and played some fun games to test and hone their new skills.
In the afternoon we did some 1 match firemaking.  For many of the kids it was their first experience making a fire without adults leading the way. They got to see bowdrill and flint and steel.  Lunch around the fire on a brisk november day was pretty sweet. 

Later on we watched from a distance the buzzing of our little village preparing for the night ahead – some kids were coming down the hill with loads of firewood, others putting up a tarp, some were working on building the fire, it was such a sweet sight to see the group activated like that and hear their voices and laughter through the woods.
Lucia and Hiyam built a tipi that lit without any birchbark, using tons of hemlock “whispys”, which they were very proud of.  Making cornbread in a skillet over the fire was pretty fun, and Sallie took up the role of tending to it and turning it and making sure it didn’t burn.
Then came the night game, and it was a good one! A spirit ghoul was trapped in our world because he missed the gateway back to the spirit world on halloween, and it was our challenge to build a gateway to send him back so he wouldn’t haunt the forest any more.
They were on edge the whole time, but they worked together to make a little fire to start the gateway, burned sticks for their ancestors, told something about them, and then sang an ancestor song.
The kids spent about an hour after that around the gateway/ancestor fire, first telling excited stories about the night game, and then just being together under the stars. It was a sweet moment, and Dihyana and I left and watched from up on the hill, giving them a chance to just be there together and take care of their fire and each other.
It was a cold night in the 20’s, and most of the kids slept near the fire, which eventually went out. But they built it back up to a roaring fire at 4:30am, and Eli decided to stay up and tend it until the morning. He didn’t get much sleep, but he spoke about the peaceful sunrise he witnessed all by himself while tending the fire!
We closed with some highlights from the day/night, and everyone agreed they’d be there for the overnight in December.

I would love it if, as a culture, we realized that our greatest asset in raising Resilient Children was right in the back yard.

Resilience = Able to cope with change

Resilience = bounces back after significant impact

Here’s the Research:

Children need to Play in the Dirt to be Healthy, Too much clean and sterile is not good for them

Children who play in Natural Landscapes are more active and less sedentary

Children who play in nature are healthier, get better grades, cope with stress better, reduce obesity risk, and have increased creativity.  Take that to the bank.

Happier, Healthier, Smarter…What else do we want ?

If you like Resilient Children, then Like this article !  Thanks !!!  (please ! Leave Comments)

all the best,

Mark

 

/4 Comments/by
4 replies
  1. Craig Brant
    Craig Brant says:

    I love the part(s) when you left the kids on their own to enjoy their time together and take care of each other AND the part of “not much sleep but witnessing an awesome, peaceful sunrise”. That is sooo powerful for young people (for any of us really from my memory of those kinds of things :)!

    Thanks!
    Craig

    Reply
    • markmorey
      markmorey says:

      Thanks Taryn, I think we could start a mother and young ones group, Oaks and Acorns, that gets the families going in nature routines now, making it a habit
      for when they are older.

      Reply

Leave a Reply

Want to join the discussion?
Feel free to contribute!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *