Children's Imaginative Play in Nature

Beautiful fall day with park picnic and “playing house” while I just enjoyed the scene. The carved tree house, rock ledges, and stream are perfect for this trio to gather “salt”, worms for dinner, smash some acorns, gather berries, and make a fire... with a British accent, of course. It seems big brother was “dead” —- aka playing golf with Dad ;). Better yet? No other kids come over, still playing at the actual park on the swings. Their kingdom was theirs for the having. Then again, we have never had other kids join my nature kids... Change that. One little girl wandered over today with her mom. Though she was having fun trying to explore, her mom, who hadn’t let go of her hand, made her go back to the park... and never stopped telling her she was going to get hurt. While my kids jumped and balanced and wandered.... We are a bad influence for kids who don’t get to climb on top of the play structures or climb the tallest tree or stand on the tree house instead of the safety on the ground. As a whole, We have to quit telling our kids the bad that might happen. They scrape their knee? Or they most likely have an adventure in the woods where their imaginations took off... the outside world far gone. They learn to get back up with a brave face, brush it off, and let sister “Doctor” it as you do in your play forest house. Have you ever read that article about how behind kids are developmentally because they don’t play and hang upside down and balance to develop their vestibular senses? Fascinating. K mighty have declared to have found a sedimentary rock, said it was the most breakable kind, and took it to her sister for verification. While being British, of course. That museum yesterday made some sort of impact I guess ;)