Wild Child: The Impact of Nature on Childhood Development

In this heartwarming episode of Wildly Curious (formerly For the Love of Nature), hosts Katy Reiss and Laura Fawks Lapole, joined by guest Melissa from Bewilder, dive into the importance of nature in childhood. They share personal stories and reflect on how spending time outdoors shaped their lives and how they are now using nature to positively impact their own children. From exploring the woods to the challenges of parenting in the digital age, this episode explores why getting kids outside is crucial for their emotional, physical, and mental well-being. Tune in to hear about the joys, challenges, and lifelong benefits of fostering a connection with nature early in life.

Be sure to catch Melissa's podcast BewilderBeasts: https://bewilderbeastspod.podcastpage.io/

Transcript

Hello, and welcome to For the Love of Nature, a podcast where we tell you everything you need to know about nature and probably more than you wanted to know. I'm Laura.
And I'm Katy, and we have a special guest with us today. We have Melissa.
What's up? And yeah, we're super excited. We're gonna do an episode today on the importance of nature in the lives of children, like in our own childhood, in our children's lives.
And we're really excited to have Melissa with us here from Bewilder. Do you say Bewilder or Bewilder?
Bewilder.
Okay, that's what I thought.
Like the big question mark.
Bewilder, I like that too.
That also works, either way.
Alrighty, Katy, do you wanna do nature news today?
I freaking have nature news. So we've talked about the ivory-billed woodpecker before, and how Laura and I were convinced that we were gonna go find it, even though that never happened. Whenever we were in Arkansas.
The story of our lives. We had this plan, and then we did it.
Which is so, like, I have ADHD. You have, like, honorary ADHD if you don't actually have it.
Yeah, I may or may not.
So that 100% is, like, ADHD. Like, I have this awesome plan. But that's why you have people around you.
Like, that's why we have Kim, to be like, okay, you actually need to do this thing. I need, and my employees here, they know that, and I love them for it, because I'm like, listen, you need to keep me going and get accountable and on a schedule, and I just needed somebody to keep me on a schedule to go find this ivory-billed woodpecker. But, they're fighting for it.
Fighting, they're challenging. There's a bunch of biologists, tend to be exact, that are challenging the federal conclusion that the ivory-billed woodpecker is extinct.
Oh, yeah. I hope we see the round. I wish people would fight for other things, like Sasquatch or, you know.
Well, I guess people do, but.
I mean, yeah, people definitely do. So there was a 10-person team led by researchers at the National Aviary in Pittsburgh, blah, blah. That is particularly, well, they're just fed up with it.
Like, they're just pissed off because.
Fed up with the feds.
Fed up with the feds.
Fed up with the feds.
Dude, that would be an awesome podcast. Anyway, I digress. Fed up with the feds and just talk about all the ridiculous, like, government things that happen.
Can I come back for that one because I have a list?
That would actually be really good. Probably get me arrested or something.
We're all putting a watch list. Suddenly.
So, they're in that group. I know we hit on this before for Nature News, but in the one that took the ivory bill woodpecker from Hey, It's Existence into Hey, Now It's Extinct, there's 23 others that were moved with it. And these researchers from the National Aviary said, like, absolutely not.
We do have enough evidence of it, mostly in Louisiana. And so when they started it, there looks like some others go ahead and started joining forces with them. And so now I guess the hunt is back on that they're like now determined to be like, it is not extinct.
We need, we have evidence. We need to just keep pushing forward. I mean, maybe it is just like a big foot thing where they're just like, the Ivory Bill Woodpecker is like, just leave me alone.
So we'll see. I mean, there's always been pushback about the Ivory Bill Woodpecker and whether it's extinct or not. And so I don't know.
It'll be interesting to see what happens with this. But I'm not far.
Like, there's a couple of species, well, right, backwoods, bayous, who knows, but there have been species that have been, what do they call them? Resurrected species where they come off of the extinct list.
So great timing, because this is about Easter.
So I've resurrected Ivory Bill Woodpecker.
And the third day comes out of the bayou.
Oh my gosh, that would be such a good t-shirt.
We need to get Josh on this one.
It's a little sacrilegious, but it could be really good. But so good. It's flying out of a hole in a tree instead of the tomb.
Anywho, alrighty, so as we said, we have the wonderful Melissa here with us today. And let's just give her a little bit of introduction. This is always the awkward part for our guests where we just tell them how amazing they are.
But so, this is in Melissa's own words. So she shouldn't be that self-conscious.
Well, it's in my own words from my website, which is in third person, which is always the hardest thing to write.
Well, right, because you're like, what am I saying? Is this too much? Well, this is Melissa.
I love it so much. I was reading it this morning. Okay, great bio.
Here we go. This is Melissa. She's been peed on and humped in public in her line of work way more than she liked to admit.
Same girl, same. I wish I was lying. She's been training dogs since 2005 and is currently a canine behavior consultant at Southern Maine.
She's the co-training director and vice president of the New England Dog Training Club, the oldest AKC obedience club in the United States. She's had the distinct pleasure to talk nerdy about dogs to patrons of the Museum of Science in Boston, elementary schools around New England, and to kids watching PBS's Design Squad. Dude, that's awesome.
That was a really fun day. Yeah, that was like peak.
It was a good day.
She's also been invited to speak at Tufts University, MIT and others. Her work's been featured in Maine Dog Magazine, Bark Magazine. Basically, she's a lady of many talents, mostly with dogs, but also with animals in general and kids.
We love you. We're glad to have you.
Yeah, and soon, chickens.
I think you left the part out of our bio, though. She's like the mom to one of the possibly coolest kids ever.
One of our best biggest fans.
Yeah, I don't mean to bury the lead, but yeah, AC who recommended an episode in season one, I think, or two.
Yeah, the badly named animals, which, listen, I listened to that episode again last night and I still, I'm an idiot, but I laugh at us, like I think more than anybody. And I laugh because that was such a good, from a kid, like that was such a good topic to suggest.
Yes.
And it always cracks me up because like whenever you guys say, this episode might not be for kids.
Like my nine year old has already listened to it four times by the time I've caught up and I'm like, well, oh, well, I have my friend and roommate from college, Debbie, her daughter, who's the same age as AC, is our other biggest fan. They'd probably be best friends in real life. And as soon as she becomes conscious in the morning, she's already played that episode multiple times by the time my friend even gets up in the morning.
Well, I think I told you guys that one of my friends is like this internationally renowned zoologist, like she's really cool and like over last summer, we had just moved to Maine from Boston and went up to Acadia National Park to meet her and her husband. It was so great. And when we went, so Ace is in the car with my friend who she has never met because she lives in Wisconsin and her husband's in the front seat and he's this introverted nice fella and I'm driving and I don't know where I am.
So I'm doing the white knuckles thing and my kid's in the back seat going, so did you know? Like it was like the whole animal sex episode.
And she is like, so the queen rips out the penis of the boybees.
So she's like, mom, mom, why don't you just like put on the episode? So like my friend Tricia and Ace are in the back seat and me and Jim are in the front like turning red like the color of half the cars are going by. It was really funny listening to those two nerding out.
They were like all into it and she was like eight at the time. So Ace is just like, yeah, and then animal sex and then this.
Did you know what?
Barnacle's penis is like 40 feet long.
Like yeah. That's so great because it's like, I love that that's her in for people like, yeah, I met this lady, but like, hey, did you know? Which is so me too as a kid.
Oh yeah. Did you know?
I'm like, and I distinctly as a child, remember the first time it was sixth grade that somebody wasn't, I discovered that not everyone thought things were as cool as I did about things like that. It was soul crushing, but I got over it.
That's okay. They were wrong. Yeah.
They were wrong.
Yeah, they were.
They're probably in jail now.
Well, yeah, I don't know who it was. Probably the Baltimore Aquarium came to our classroom with a couple of touch things and there was a starfish in there and I turned to this girl next to me. We weren't even really friends, just, you know, and I was just stoked and I was like, did you know that starfish can grow their arms back if they get cut off?
The girl looks me dead in the eyes and goes, so? I was like, what? That was like an existential crisis that not everyone was on the same page as me and it had not occurred to me until that moment.
Yeah. And we'll get into this too whenever we start going through the questions and stuff, but it's that curiosity factor that not just not everybody, everybody has. And I don't want to speak too much on it because I do want to, Laura and I had some really in-depth conversations about the childhood and getting kids into outdoors and stuff like that too.
So Laura, do you want to go ahead? Then that's a pretty easy segue. And do you want to go ahead and start going through questions and everything then?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So for this episode, I figured we'd just kind of do it like round-robin. Whoever wants to start, feel free.
So we're talking today about the importance of nature in childhood. So let's start with ourselves. Of course, we're going to have a million.
I don't even know if I could pin it down to specifically one. But in general, what is a very memorable experience you guys had as kids that kind of was one of your aha moments in nature?
I think for me, it was, and I've been thinking about this a lot since you proposed the topic. I can't think of just one, but there is this kind of broad strokes unifying thing about nature. And it's going to get a little Debbie down to here for a minute, but I'm sure you guys will bring it back.
You guys are fine. So my parents, we lived in very rural Maine when I was growing up. And so they were always like, go outside and don't come back unless you're peeing.
You have to pee or you're bleeding. And even then the peeing just go in the woods. It really had to be an emergency.
You're fine. The bleeding, can you see the bone?
No, then just stay out. You're fine. Come back at dinner.
Shake it off. And so like that was always partly just go outside, go outside, go outside. But when my parents divorced, I was 10 and I'm the oldest.
And so my younger brother and sister were eight and seven. So when my mom left, it was just my dad who is in the military and a corrections officer in a state prison. So he had a very unique outlook on things.
And so for me, having those woods, having the lake right behind our house was like a refuge. It was like, I need to get out, I need to go explore. And then like when he would work, he'd work like second shift.
So he wouldn't be home when we got off the bus or like when we went to bed, he wouldn't get home until one or two in the morning. And so like all three of us were basically by ourselves taking care of a dog sledding team, taking care of our cats and each other, eating hot dogs and spam because that's all I could cook because I was 10. And just knowing that like out there was the only place that like I didn't have to be a 10-year-old babysitter.
And in charge of everything, I wasn't getting yelled at. I wasn't like this was like the only place where I could clear my head and just be me. And just sitting on like I had certain hidey holes that I could go to that were just mine.
Like and if I was really upset, like our neighbors had lakefront property that they just said, oh kids, you guys use it because they were like 9,000 years old and everyone down there. So like so we were always down there. I know it was really kind of great.
And then like so we I would sit like there was this particular rock that I would sit on and just be at peace. Like it didn't matter what time of day it was. Like I could just go out there and be fine.
And like you could watch the loons and like you could hear them and the frogs and lightning bugs. And the varmints podcast called them ladybug, ladybugs, which I will never not hear. Yeah, ladybugs.
But like having having access to that, I feel was really important. And then moving as an adult to the city until very recently in the most densely populated city in all of New England. And seeing that not everybody had access to that, like growing up, I just thought that that was a given, kind of what you were talking about earlier, Laura, with like, nobody else thinks this way.
And then seeing how hard it was to get back out there. So when I was a kid, it was like, go outside, go outside, go outside. And we just did.
And yes, there's the it was the 80s disclaimer.
Just go. But here, like in Somerville at the time, I had ACE for nine years. And like being in such a densely populated area was we could never just say just go outside.
There was no outside to go to. And so like realizing now that we've moved back, how important and I know we're going to talk about the kids now later, but seeing how much does she has changed for the better after having access to the environment and how certain health and mentally difficult things for her and emotionally difficult things for her are no longer even an issue now that we've moved out and working with dogs in the city. I wrote a book about living in the city with dogs because everything was just-
I was going to say that in itself is a feat.
And then sending those dogs to the country, half of the problems just disappeared because there was no noise, there was no triggering stimuli, things like that. So environment really truly does matter. And I mean, BF Skinner said that the environment was a big thing.
But when you really just look at the actual environment, not like a lab environment or this environment or that environment, it's like the actual physical freaking environment that can make or break an entire foundational learning experience and really set somebody up for success or failure. And I can see that now as an adult. And I think if I had lived in the city at that time when my parents divorced, I don't think I would have come out on the other side the same way.
Yeah, no, for sure. Your environment definitely shapes who you are. And I think it's really cool that you're going to see Ace almost at the same age that you were going through it like just it'll be easy to see how she experiences things differently than you, but around the same time.
Yeah, it's really interesting to see like a mirror, but from a slightly different perspective. Yeah, like her parents are together. She's got a really good supportive system, like and just seeing like, wow, like how could things have been very different for me, my brother, my sister, like, or maybe not like, who knows?
But it is really interesting to know that nature was always like a refuge and the only place of safety that I really, really knew in my immediate area before I could drive a car and take space when I needed to. Yeah. Yeah.
Totally.
So yeah, I know it wasn't a very specific thing, but that was...
That's kind of along the lines. Katy, is it okay if I jump in?
Yeah, yeah, no, go for it, because I think we all kind of have the same sort of theme going on here.
Because I think it's not... It is too hard to nail down one exact moment. Again, mine's also probably pretty broad stroke.
Two things. One would be the insane amount of time that I also spent outside, but I grew up in a suburban neighborhood, not like perfect suburbia, but like old 1950s neighborhood, lots of elderly people, but we were able to... My brother and I, who's only a year younger than I am, we spent tons of time outside and we were allowed to go anywhere we wanted in the neighborhood as long as we stuck together.
There's just those two kids just out there.
We even developed a biker gang. It was just the two of us. It was called the Cool Kids Club.
Riding around on our bikes with cards in the spokes, making trouble. Anyway, we were outside a ton and especially in our own backyard, our yard was part of the original neighborhood. We had trees in our backyard as compared to a lot of other of the nearby houses.
Our yard was ringed in trees and bushes. All the wildlife lived in our yard because there was stuff to live under, so all the bunnies and things like that.
The haven of the foxes' backyard. There was that.
Well, as long as they could survive getting chased by toddlers originally, but we had trees that were climbable size and I freaking lived in the trees forever and very similar to you, Melissa. If I did need a moment, if I needed space, I would just go to the backyard and climb a tree and just hang out there, thinking, being by myself. I have a really good memory of going out in the snow, dead silent, you know, that silent snow, climbing a white pine and laying in its branches just surrounded by white and silence.
It was magical. Even though I wasn't supposed to be in that tree. My mom was always like, don't climb that one.
The branches are too brittle.
But clearly not, mom.
Some of the times they would break. But yeah, even just having, I mean, it wasn't even a big backyard. It was just a normal suburban backyard size, but it felt giant.
Because we had bushes to hide under and pretend we were bunnies. We had trees to climb to pretend we were, you know, feral children. We had the rabbits that lived back there.
Every once in a while, we had a piece of plywood that we'd lift up, and there were like a whole family lived under there, and if you were lucky when you picked it up, it was there. And scared the daylights out of me the first time, because when I picked it up, it realized I was there and went, oh no, like it was the loudest scream from the tiniest creature.
Well, you look like a giant.
It was the exact reaction that it should have had. It was very startling.
You also had parents, though, like your mom was very encouraging.
So the other way, I would say, would be the fact that if I wasn't outside on my own, I was outside with family. So my mom's part of a family of nine, my dad's part of a family of five. He's an outdoors guy.
He's not like a naturalist, whereas like my mom's family, they're into nature. They love identifying everything. There is no going on a walk without stopping every few weeks to be like, oh my gosh, did you see that?
So I learned to identify everything from a very young age. All my mom's sisters have like different interests. One's really into birds, one's really into plants, one's really into something else.
So it was always the, oh, did you see this? Did you look at this? Do you know what this one's name is?
So it's a constant push for the curiosity, encourage the curiosity, and then allow the freedom of exploring but teaching respect of nature like we weren't supposed to. We didn't take animals home because this was their home. We didn't carve in trees.
So it was very much like have the freedom, explore your heart out, but this is a wonderful place. We also need to be careful and have respect. So I was raised very much like I hope that I'll be able to do.
I have a career that is completely reflects how I was raised. I'm a naturalist and I love teaching other people about nature and encouraging that curiosity.
Yeah.
So I would say yeah, it's a combination of spending just a ton of my own time outside and having that independence and that refuge and then also being surrounded by family who love the same thing and it's infectious and just born curious.
Yeah.
Curiosity is awesome.
Yeah. It's definitely something that you're either, I feel like yes, part of it is you're born with it, but the other part of it is it's the nature versus nurture that goes back to it because I was a very curious, always questioning everything kid. It wasn't like a lot of times my mom especially, she doesn't listen to this so I can say this, but my mom especially, and my son is the same way and I get some of her frustration now, but I questioned everything and it wasn't out of like defiance.
It was just like, well, why does this do that? Why does this do that? And so my son now, he's the same way, but it's just I had that, I don't know, just hard curiosity for everything around me.
So I didn't grow up with anybody in my family that was intensely naturalist is what Laura had. But I come in Western Pennsylvania from a very outdoorsy family as far as like hunting and fishing goes.
Yeah, yeah. We've got like the practical outdoorsman.
Yeah, like very much so. And like for the family, anytime we would be outdoors, it was at our family cabin or camping, and it was always together on my dad's side. On my mom's side, I don't know if they've ever touched a tree.
No, they have. But they're just like not like the outdoorsy group, whereas like my dad's side of the family, which I'm much, much closer with, it was constantly like if we were going to be like part of our vacations in the summer, because I mean, we grew up like solid middle class. We went on like a big vacation every few years, but every summer we were mostly up at my family at camping or up at my family cabin, which is just outside the Allegheny National Forest and Northwestern Pennsylvania, which is a gorgeous, gorgeous national forest.
If you haven't been there, highly recommend it. But I mean, even where I grew up, like I grew up on seven acres and kind of in the middle of nowhere, I mean, relative close enough to stuff, but still far enough out of way that when my parents were building a house when I was a kid, it was the same thing like just get outside and have fun. So, my sister did not like the woods at all, but my big brother and I, like we would build forts.
One time freaking he built and I mean, he owns his own remodeling and construction business. So this totally makes sense.
Tracks.
But he built a three story fort with no nails whatsoever. Like, not like 30 feet high, but like it was maybe it was three levels, but I kid you not, it was probably like at least 10 or 15 feet high at least. And no nails, no nothing, which is everything stacked.
And we had like the basement and then like off the second floor was like a porch. And then like the top, like it was intense.
And we stepped on the third floor. We got a nice little Juliet balcony.
It was essentially that. And so like growing up and to whenever you build your own house, I mean, like you have dirt piles to hang out in, which, I mean, sounds ridiculous, but like that's fun in itself. You know, growing, just having vines to swing off of in the woods and everything.
But the family cabin, I think, was one of the biggest like memories for us, because again, it was like the family time. Where our family is, where the family cabin is, it's Youngsville, Pennsylvania. If anybody is, I once at college actually knew somebody from Youngsville, which is like, how the heck?
Because it is such a small town. But we had like it was pretty much on like the on a mountainside. And so there was a creek that was ran through the on the base of it.
I mean, and it was just like trails and everything all through there. And it was so much freaking fun. But for me, it was like if we were fishing, it was also family time.
And so it was like my aunts and uncles were there, my grandparents were there. So it was always very much so family time. And so as much as I loved the outdoors side of it and then ended up, you know, making a career out of it, it was also that that family time, which, you know, is can be difficult.
We'll talk about this here in a couple of minutes, which can be difficult because I that's the biggest memory I held so close to my heart. But like with us and our son, like he's grown up away from family his whole life. So it's like finding other memories to kind of supplement that.
But yeah, same thing as you guys, it was always like kind of an escape because I did have ADHD and I was constantly on the go, go, go, go, go. In outdoors, I could be swinging from vines. I could be climbing trees and just like burn off all of that energy.
And even like fishing, I enjoy it. And I mean, now photography, especially like film photography, I enjoy both of those things because it slows my brain down. And so it is like a relaxing thing.
So it's always has been like my escape, because it's either been my escape to family where with my dad's side of the family, I always felt safe, like to just be, you know, be Katy who asks a million questions, me. But then also just let the curiosity just flow because yeah, we could do whatever we wanted outdoors and it didn't really matter.
I was just telling Laura, like going back up to the family cabin, I've been up there and seven and a half years since my dad died because it is like, it is like a really hard place to go back for all of our family because of like my dad, my dad died from pancreatic cancer. So it was pretty quick, pretty sudden. And we have like a little plaque up there, you know, to remember him and stuff like, but Luke hasn't been up there.
And so we've been like trying to schedule for the last two years and COVID hit and everything to try to get Luke up there because Luke would lose his freaking mind.
At least now, though, he can probably remember.
Yeah, now he'll remember it. And even like my grandfather that just passed, my dad's dad that just passed this fall, like Luke will remember him. Like Luke has very vivid memories of, I mean, Luke's six years old.
Like he will remember my grandfather and stuff. So, all righty. Yeah.
So good.
That's a, no, it's a good segue because, so obviously nature shaped who we are, all three of us, and so I'm sure we all hope for that for our own children. So, let's talk a little bit about, you know, why we think nature is so important, how we hope it shapes our children's lives. So, kind of as some guiding questions here, if you can introduce how much you want about your own kid, and then how much time do they get to spend outside?
Not enough.
I was just going to say not nearly as much as I would love.
Definitely not enough. So, for my son, Luke, again, just like you were saying, like, Melissa, like whenever you were a kid and how you can notice, like a noticeable difference with AC and stuff, being outside and not, like Luke is the same way. And there's that great book, Last Child in the Woods, which I'm probably going to reference a freaking lot.
But it goes into like the psychology of why being outdoors is absolutely essential and needed for kids like it just it just is it just really is in Texas. And now we live in Texas as big as it freaking is, it highly, highly lacks in public lands. Very, very much so.
Which is so crazy to think about. You think that like surely of all places, Texas must have giant fields and open plains and like all kinds of stuff.
Very, very lacking.
I mean, New Hampshire is like this big and it's got like tons of public lands.
I wouldn't be surprised if New Hampshire had more public lands than what Texas does. Like our big national park down here is Big Bend. And then we have like some smaller monuments and stuff like that.
And then state parks, we have some good state parks, but it's very, very few and far between. And anywhere in Texas, you have to drive forever to get to.
Well, that's true.
Forever. So I mean, we have some like little parks that are still in the woods.
This is a lot of like private ranches.
Yeah, you know, it is. It very much so is. But my brother, my big brother, again, living, he lives in Colorado Springs, which I say is just a short 10 hour drive, which really isn't a bad drive.
Consider again, whenever you're in Texas driving time, I mean, I can drive for 10 hours and still be in Texas if I wanted to.
Well, I think anyone up here, like all of us in the Northeast driving is, I mean, you're in another state pretty quickly.
Yeah, not in Texas.
Yeah, our states here are very wee.
Like when I had to take my certification exam for dog training, I had to get up at dark 30 and drive a half an hour to another state. And it was not that far.
I mean, you have to drive. I mean, I guess the Oklahoma border is pretty close. But other than that, it's so far.
But we do go up there to Colorado fairly often, not as often as we like, but I'm starting to now more because of my husband. And my son adores my brother, which is so cute, because I don't think they're going to have any kids of their own. And so seeing my brother be an uncle is a whole other thing.
But then it really gets him Luke into the woods, like getting out hiking. Like I literally am waiting right now for a Ford Bronco to come in and be built specifically because I want to get Luke out in the woods. And my brother does overlanding and stuff where they go drive our way out and they go camping and stuff.
And so I specifically bought that because I mean, one, they look awesome, but two, to be like this.
They also look really awesome in a slow-mo cop race. Keeping it relevant with really late nineties. Yes, sorry.
But I mean, I bought that like intentionally to be like, okay, Luke and I need to be outdoors a lot more. Like I know I miss it because Texas just it doesn't have woods. Like in the Eastern side of the state, it does.
But even like the woods here, it's just not dense. Like I remember after being even in Arkansas for a few years and going back up North after, I think it was maybe like a year and a half or two years. And I still do this every time where like my brain is like going back to Pennsylvania, I'm like, the understory here is so thick.
Like it's almost like a weird brain thing.
It's because all the rhododendrons and everything, like it's, yeah, it's really good.
And Luke picks up on that. I mean, it was one of our last trips that we went up, I think last summer. So he would have been five and a half.
And he goes, there's so many plants. And like, yeah, like, cause you don't realize it from a kid from him being a little Texan then going up north. And so like, he notices that stuff.
But again, like just having him in the woods where he can just explore and ask questions. And like I sent Laura a video last time we were up in Colorado, not too long ago. And Luke was like, what's all that green stuff on the rocks?
I was like, let me tell you what that green stuff is on the rocks. It's called lichen.
Let me tell you all about lichen.
But because like he's so much like ADHD like me, he just like absorbs it too. And so that's a great opportunity that he's just as curious that like I can just spew off as much as I know about these topics. And he's just there to like soak it all in.
And he remembers every word I say and hinges on it. And so yeah, so he definitely doesn't spend enough time as I like, but I have to be very intentional and purposeful to be like, we are going to go outside. I need to get him out in the woods more like, so it is very intentional because it's not like I live in an apartment right now.
And so it's not like just, you know, right outside of Fort Worth. Yeah, it's not just go to the backyard. So I have to be very intentional and purposeful in planning to be like, this kid's losing his mind.
I gotta get him outside and just like go on a hike and let him just explore.
Yeah, and with Ace, it was, for her, I think she really wants to be outside. And we're always like, go! And she's like, but I'm lonely.
Cause like she spends almost all of her time like reading or listening to podcasts, one in particular, and funny story, it's not mine.
So she really loves being outside. We got this house and she's got this tree fort and she can't wait to show her friends, but we moved during a pandemic and she has social anxiety. So like meeting new friends has been really hard for her.
Although since we've moved and going back to, and I talked to her that I might talk about this and she said it was okay. So that when we were in this city, she would have panic attacks going to art festivals just because there were so many people. It's overwhelming.
And she couldn't, it's incredibly overwhelming. And for her, it didn't, it actually took the pandemic to realize just how serious it was. I was just like, yeah, she's a shy kid.
I didn't think anything of it. Well, I mean, I thought about it a lot. I'm like, why can't you just go say hi to that kid at the playground?
Like, I'm watching all the other kids just run over and make new friends. And she would just like shut down and really struggle. And then when we moved, oh, sorry, during the pandemic, I could hear her, like they had a Zoom meeting with all the new rising third graders at the time.
You see all the kids and some of them are quiet, but they're watching and they're taking it in. And then you see a little black square and that's where Ace had totally just like ducked out and she was like hiding under a blanket during her meeting with her new teacher and her new classmates. And my husband and I at that point were like, okay, she can't handle this on Zoom and she knows these kids.
This was really hard. This was something else entirely. And then when she was matched to her teacher, she was like, oh my gosh, I really like that I can just type to her and not have to raise my hand and get called on.
So the chat feature was incredibly helpful for her. And then when it was like, okay, we get to go back, and she's like, what do you mean get? Like, I don't want to.
And she was thriving. And she was a good student anyway when she was in school. But emotionally, she was doing much better at home.
And so when we moved here, we thought, oh, God. This kid is from the city. She has never been on a bus.
And now she has to get on a bus. So like, here's the thing about buses. When you're in a city, in some cities, in ours especially, the kids had never, like all those little kid books where they're talking about, oh, the big yellow bus will come and it prepares you for going to school.
And like, our kids never saw a big yellow bus until their first field trip in June. And when the bus rolled up, they were like, you got a room full of five year olds with their eyes open like a cartoon going, yo-yoing, like a ba-woo-ga. And they were like, a bus!
And this bus is taking them to a farm. And these are city kids, most of which have never been to a farm. And they could have just driven on this bus through our city and would have been a thousand percent happy.
They get to the farm, they pick apples or something, they have a donut, they pat a donkey, I don't remember. And then they get back and the whole time they're like, when do we get to go back on the bus?
They just want to go on the bus. They're like, nature or whatever.
Get us on the bus. And so now she's nine and she has to go upstairs on a bus, look at a stranger who's an adult, turn 90 degrees and walk down a row of kids so she doesn't know. And they're all staring at her.
So it took us about a week at the first day we stopped and we just watched kids get on the bus. She didn't go to school for the first two weeks that we were here. We just watched the bus and then we followed the bus and then we watched the kids get off and then we went home.
That's awesome that we did that a bunch. You were able to recognize that and not be like, just get on the damn bus. Because so many parents would have.
Which is honestly, yeah. And if I didn't see it from her perspective and if I didn't see it during COVID, there's no way I would have seen it in time to just get on the stupid bus. It's a bus, you're fine.
And then I had to stop and think about my work in behavior consultation and going at the animal speed and working with the animal in front of me and then looking at my kid and going, oh, I think that's what this is.
My son is training a puppy so many times, and I get people, like, the weirdest, I'm like, no, listen, it's not a bad thing. It's just science and listen.
The science is the same, yeah.
Exactly. Learning theory is across all species. And once I realized that, I was like, oh, okay, she's not being, she's not being obstinate.
She really just can't do this. And so like really taking the time to work with her. And as a result, she's thriving.
She hops on the bus, she comes home, like she goes to school, she's made friends, like she's excited to have them over. It's just still kind of COVID-y. And we live on the far side of town.
We are like the last house in our town. And like her school is 16 miles in the other direction. And so she's in town.
And so all of her friends are way out there. We're way back here. We're like, great.
You still can't see your friends.
It's just really hard to get to.
So we're navigating that. But like getting her outside and like nature has been so important to her. And I think that she's been able to adjust because she's had time to decompress and have trees and now chickens and space and just enough room to decompress and figure out what she needs and then can use those reserves to go out like a happy introvert, right?
Like happy introverts use energy to socialize and extroverts gain energy. And so for her, her battery drains just really fast. So yeah, but moving here, she's joined a softball team on her own.
She's done all these things that like my husband and I still look at each other like, who is this kid? This is not the kid that moved a year ago. And we attribute a lot of it to just the environment.
I mean, because you said you said it was Boston, right?
Yeah, we were in Summerville, Massachusetts.
It was like the next town over from Boston. I went up to Boston because I don't even know how I was in college for my now sister-in-law was running in the Boston Marathon and we were there for like a week. And I was like, just the amount of concrete that's there.
I was like, I need green. Like and then I moved to Texas, you know, but I was just like, like, like, like, and so it very much so is like the amount like I could never live in New York City. Just I mean that I would be too overstimulated and just way too many freaking people.
I know I'm an extra. That is just way too many people for me. But also the concrete, the amount of concrete, I just can't do it.
Like I just can't do it.
Yeah, we can't go back like now that now that we've been here for a while, we're like, oh my God, how did we do this for so long? Like we did this for, we keep thinking like Ace is nine. By the time she's 18, half of her life was in the most densely populated city in all of New England.
And then like the other half is like out and kind of like the sticks. Like we got this like, like a chicken and three acres. Like how, like there are, we're on a dead end dirt road that the bus won't even come down.
We have to walk half a mile to get the bus. Like we pass cows. We really just turned at 180.
We're in the wilderness.
Yeah. So as I say, Laura, you have a baby, baby.
Right. So it doesn't, I haven't really, I'm not in the same boat as you all yet. But the answer is still not enough because I, I mean, as a baby, if it's, it's, you know, it's been the winter.
I haven't taken her out very much because it's just cold. She can't do it yet anyway. We went for a lot of walks in the fall.
And we have a, so it's never going to be as much as I want, at least for now, because I live in an apartment complex in, not, I don't live in Baltimore. I'm in Ellicott City, which is a wonderful little city. And I have a state park literally like down the road from me.
There's green space everywhere. I grew up in Pennsylvania, but like South Central. So I was not far from cities, but I came from a small town next to the mountains.
Now, I always pictured that the closer I got to Baltimore and DC, that there would be no green. It would just be urban sprawl forever. And that's not the case wonderfully.
Maryland is full of state parks and green spaces. Yeah, like really surprisingly so. So I have lots of places that I can take her.
But I live in the apartment complex, so it just will have to be, all right, we're going to get up. We're going to go in the car. We're going to go somewhere to get there.
Although I have... Yes.
I have found, like in my apartment complex, it backs up. There's a creek at the back of the property that kind of wraps around it. And on my own, I've been exploring and like birding back there.
And it is like a little band of forest where there is a lot of stuff back there. So even in this like urban apartmenty place, there is still some little spots that we can go. And so like I would take her, put her in her little carrier, and walk around with her and we'd go birding and she'd pass out as I would be looking with binoculars.
But so we spend some time outside and then we have a balcony. So when it's nice out, the cat and I and baby, we always hang out out there. Of course, yeah, of course the cat.
He would love to go out on walks too. But I was dealing with too many fleas for a while. So I could treat him.
But I think too, it's very different nowadays being a parent. I don't want to say you have to prioritize it, but that's really the biggest difference. Because when I was a kid, I had a stay-at-home mom.
And we lived out in the middle of nowhere. So it wasn't like I had both parents that were so busy all the time. It's just like life gets in the way.
And so it's like, I think nowadays just the way that life is, it's so much harder to find time.
Well, because we all have to make a living because of the cost of everything. But I also like, I know that in a few years, I do want to buy a house and my priority is going to be having a great backyard. And then at the very least, even if we don't get out to the woods, it will be go to the backyard and play.
You need a white pine or that white tree.
Well, they definitely grow really fast. So yeah, it would get, but yeah, like, because I definitely come from, like, where my town is, it abuts to the Appalachian Mountains. And there's all this state forest out there with dirt roads.
And everyone just goes out driving there. And so like come Sunday, that was woods day for my family. My mom would go, the woods are calling me.
Like I need... And so, yes, but I thankfully I work at a place where I can just hop outside and go walk in the preserve. But I need to know that like a Laura will get that at some point.
I'm just thinking when you were talking about the trees, Ace, when she was like four, she was in preschool, and again on this urban playground, there were a couple little trees up there and she would go, she'll probably hate me telling this part of it, but when she was little, she like we tried the gender neutral thing, but she was having none of it. She was like, I like pink, I like this, I like that. We're like, okay, you like what you like.
So she would go like her grandma would make her these elaborate poofy tutus. That's amazing. So like, yeah, so like her first, it's dark but funny and I like it.
You can cut it if it's too dark for you guys. But like her first lockdown drill, like the cops walked in and saw like a room of like huddled kids and like the teacher standing there trying to prepare them.
And there's ace and like a big smile and pigtails and like this giant tutu.
So anyway, so one thing I noticed and this is kind of like almost gendering nature, what little nature you have. So this tree, like all the boys would climb the tree and ace would climb the tree and those big tutus and all of the other girls were hiding under the slide and playing patty cake or whatever or doing whatever they want. And anytime the girls would see ace go to climb the tree in her ridiculously Gaga-esque, right?
I thought it was the best. And I'm standing there like tattoos, like looking like I just like left the military with like my cargo pants and like black tank top and my girls up in a tree with like this big tutu. And the moms would be like, no, no, no, you can't climb the tree, you'll ruin your clothes.
And so the girls would just like kind of like, and then they would just go back under the slide. And I'm looking at ace and I'm like, that's so awful. You're telling girls from the jump, they are four, do not climb that tree because your clothes are more important than your curiosity.
Boys can ruin their clothes, but girls can't ruin their clothes.
Yep. And so I kind of made it a point to be like, climb higher, kiddo. And I was not the favorite mom.
Whatever, we'll sew it or we'll make it.
I'm like, your grandma made this for you.
Anything you wear, most of her clothes were hand-me-down dresses from other kids.
Older cousins.
What do you call when you dunk the baby, the baptism and stuff. They would, other fancy pants things, she would get these hand-me-down, really beautiful dresses that I'm like, well, we're not going anywhere, but she wants to wear it to kindergarten, sure, wear it. Clothes are meant to be worn and used, and I'm not going to tell her not to climb a tree.
So she'd be up there, higher than the boys, I need to point that out, sitting there in this ridiculous tutu while the other girls at four were already being told, you can't engage with nature.
I want to see a picture. I just, that's like, that should be like a motivational poster of a little girl in a tree in a princess dress, higher than all the boys.
Yeah, I'm like, come on down, and she just like hopped down, like her tutu kind of functioned as a parachute.
But I mean, I think that goes back to the point of what they talk about the signs in The Last Child of the Woods is how, and I know Laura and I saw that there's so many times that girls are much more inclined to the structured play because of how they're raised. Boys, and structured play is anything that's like, okay, you have a ball, there's a game, anything that there's rules and stipulations around.
But girls are really into rules.
Yeah, they are. Yeah, it's just how they're hardwired in a way. And so, and boys are very much so allowed to just kind of do whatever, but the downside of that is like the killed imagination.
Like, I will say, Laura and I, we had this great idea whenever we were at the last zoo we worked together at, we're like, we're gonna just let them go crazy and make this like Everglades or whatever it was, like this forest Everglades thing, and just like lay out all these craft supplies and they can just go crazy being as creative as they want to.
Like a nature place base.
They couldn't do it, like the kids could not do it.
Wait, how old were these kids?
Laura, like kindergarten, first grade? I think it was K through two. And so like it-
It was, I think that they were waiting for us to give them permission to do this.
It was permission and like they had to see the example of what Laura and I did to almost copy it because they're so used to the structure. The rules of just like, okay, I can't just do whatever and have this free imagination. And I mean, that's like what a lot of the book, Last Child in the Woods, talks about is just, and what's the author's name?
Richard Lou.
And it's just, if you haven't read it in your parent, you really should because it does dive into the psychology behind like why we need as humans, especially as children, that imagination. And in the unstructured play and the importance of unstructured play for your growth, for your development, because so much of problem solving later on in life is, is like imagination based. You have to be able to pull things out of nowhere and critical thinking to be able to really make those decisions down the road.
And so that's something that a lot of kids are just lacking. And that's why it's called Last Child in the Woods, because it just keeps going more and more downhill of just kids.
Yeah, they talk about nature deficit disorder. So not getting enough.
Which makes sense. Because like, again, like when you gender nature, which is upsetting, and then when you have accessibility issues and you can't get out there, or you're from the city and you've been told from the jump, like, oh, no, that's not for you. Or it's scary.
Although that was really funny when we moved here. So we didn't realize. So my husband grew up in upstate New York, and I grew up in Midcoast, Maine.
And so we've always seen stars. And I mean, his sister's an astronomy professor at Colby and studies. And her husband is too.
And so they run the astrology department. Sorry, they're going to kill me for that. Astronomy department.
Sorry. The astronomy department at Colby College. And so Ace has had access to this cool telescope and this observatory that they built.
But that was almost like a field trip for her. When we moved here, we're like, Ace, come outside and look at the stars. And there were so many.
Because we had two stars where we were. And it was only on bright nights. And you could see the moon, but you couldn't see anything else because of all the light pollution.
She went outside and she's like, I can't be out here right now. And she had to bring herself back in because she was so scared because she's never been in Midtown.
Yeah, that dark.
That kid had lived nine years under streetlights. And even her cheap AF curtains that we got her still let the light in a little bit. And our neighbor's floodlight was always in her room.
So she never had experienced dark. And now, so one of the first things my husband got her was a headlamp so she could go outside and start to see the stars. So hopefully this summer we'll start to help her get out there and be a little bit more comfortable with it.
But yeah, I mean, it was like an adjustment.
And we see it a lot at work. There are some schools that come to us that have the kids have never been out in the woods before. And woods, I mean, like next to the nature center, it's just a little hundred acre in the middle of Rockville, but it's enough for them and all they want to do, like they're like, are we going to see bears?
And some of them are really afraid. And I'm like, no. Some hairy guy comes out of the woods and goes, no, no bears, um, you know, biggest thing we're going to see out here is a deer or a fox.
And they're still a little bit freaked out about foxes. And then, but very quickly, as long as they're assured that they're going to be safe, then it's just, oh my gosh, like, can we please just run through the woods? And it's very hard to, like, have to teach them anything, which is fine.
Like if all we're letting them do is experience, great. They are stoked. They are lifting up logs.
Like once they're comfortable, then it is immediately, like, get in love with it.
Opens the floodgates for them.
That's so good.
It's so great to be able to see. And so that kind of leads us into one of our final questions, um, which is, you know, we've, we've all talked about how nature impacts, like definitely psychological well-being. And Melissa, you touched it on a little bit, some other types.
How else have you seen or, or do you know that nature impacts children in what other ways?
Well, I, I know it like going back to the whole idea of curiosity and just, I can say this for my N of one, my one child, that having access to nature and hearing content about nature and the natural world, either through the stories that I tell on my show or through like real like tangible stuff that you guys talk about, having access to that makes her a better citizen and conscious about environment. And, and now it seems like we're not just trying to tell her, hey, the environment matters. It's like, well, how do we do the cost benefit analysis of our purchasing decisions?
And she's nine. Like yesterday, we needed to get mulch for, for our garden, which we've never had a garden. And so like, so I had to do the math and figure out what to get.
And I was trying to get it by a truckload so we wouldn't have to get the plastic bags, but it was cost prohibitive. So I had, I went, it was so stupidly expensive. It was like almost three times as expensive and we have a big garden, right?
So I'm like, okay. So I took three trips to lose and our little SUV and like ace counted out the bags and, and we got our bags of mulch. And then just the whole time she's like, but it's so much plastic.
And I'm like, it is and it's unfortunate. And my hope kiddo is that like we can maybe, when we can, we can support things that will make this easier for us to be able to do in a more ethical way and we can make different choices for other things. And so like it was, it was a harder conversation to have with her because she's right.
Like that was a lot of plastic and that was, it was shitty, it was just awful. And I felt bad for her and for the environment because what am I going to do with all this plastic? But also at the same time, it was so hard to do it the way that we wanted to that it just wasn't going to work, especially up here in Maine.
Like our growing season is like a day because it's going to be winter by like, so yeah, so there is that. But like, but knowing she's thinking about it and she's looking at this like, okay, so what can I do? And I think that that's really important.
And, and she's really given as quiet as she can be around people. She's really loud about her convictions. And so like, if she sees somebody training a dog with a tool that might be hurting that dog, she will say something really loudly for like passive aggressive.
But also like the plastic thing, she's like, she's like, that's so much plastic mom, like in front of the guy who's helping me like load it in. I'm like, yeah, you're right.
Yeah, I was gonna say, I think one of the biggest mistakes that I made with Luke, a good mistake was explaining to him, like as much as we preach like individuals taking action, individuals taking action only goes so far. The real responsibility is it falls on the bigger companies and like they're the ones that have to start making conscious decisions. But it is individuals that are in charge of those companies.
And so just changing that mindset and so I, you know, explained, we ran into a similar situation where, you know, I explained to Luke about plastic and everything because he out of nowhere was like, where does it go when I throw something away? And so I'm like, well, you know, it's like nobody. And so I explained the whole thing to him.
And then I was like, well, that's why, you know, we don't like plastic because it doesn't, you know, degrade or styrofoam. Like it just takes forever. You just let's not use styrofoam.
And I explained like, yeah, we can do a lot, but it's really these companies. And he's like, I hate companies like, man, that's a broad statement.
You just have an environmental activist. You just like.
Yeah, it's just like a tiny seed. And so like over the weekend, oddly enough, I was out and we were looking for a new bathing suit for me. And I saw a Patagonia hat and it had a sticker on it said like the front of it, the base of it was made from recycled fishing nets.
And Luke was like, that is awesome. We need more things made out of recycled fishing nets. And so like it just gets like the wheels turning of like, yes, yes, he can make a conscious decision and change, but it's like he's seeking out the companies that are then making the change.
And for his six year old little brain to grasp that is like mind blowing to me. That's incredible. That's magical.
They get it.
It does break my heart that you get it pounded out of you later. But like I always, in my programs at the end, I always ask them, okay, what are three things that you can think you can do about whatever? Like let's say it was to save animal homes.
And I love hearing the suggestions that kids have, because they are crazy. One kid, they're the best.
One kid took it so far.
I was not ready. Usually it's like, don't cut down trees or don't ever. This kid told me this elaborate plan for basically he was going to set up booby traps for if somebody did try and come and cut down a tree, like that they would get taken out.
Yeah.
And he comes with like a PowerPoint presentation.
He was like, okay, so I'm going to, there'll be this, there'll be this arm that comes down. Like he had a whole plan about how he was going to stop logging.
Luke is still at the age where he's going to call the cops, like because the cops solve everything. And so like, yeah. And so whenever they were like clear cutting for like a new development, he's like, I need to call the cops.
I'm like, well, buddy, they're doing it like legally, like there's nothing illegal about here. Then he's like, well, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to call the Lorax. And so it's like, he's like, he's little enough that he's like, he knows he wants to do something about it.
So like, who can I call? Well, cops, because like they're the protectors. Yeah.
But then it's like, okay, we can't call the cops, buddy, because they're not doing anything illegal. Well, I'm calling the Lorax then. Like, like, so he's still like tiny enough that it's those those leaps.
But like Laura said, I mean, I think it's just like parents then being intentional about feeding this information to the kids so that they just because you don't need to be like a tree hugging hippie. You know what I mean? To just make conscious decisions because this, whether you like it or not, I mean, climate change has become so freaking political and it and it and it shouldn't be because this one.
I mean, because we all live here, like it doesn't matter, like we're all here because people are so short sighted and like generations before us have been so short sighted that they don't realize like, OK, you know, I'm a millennial and now it's going to be my kid that's going to they're going to be suffering detrimentally because they're even saying like in Texas here and by 2050, if we don't start making wiser decisions, we're just going to dry it up. And we're seeing that right now with like the Colorado River of people just before us not making wise decisions and yeah.
In California, like it's either in drought or on fire. Like nine months of the year, it's pretty awful. And then up here in the Northeast, it's flooding.
So like you're getting these feast or famine situations where it's too much or too little, which you know, that was called decades ago. So I think that the generations before us were like, there's no problem, there's no problem. And then there's us going, there's a problem and we're trying.
And then the problems are actually still going to be on our kids. And that's the shit part.
And I think the generation behind millennials, whatever that group is called, they're at the college age-ish right now. And they are very vocal. They are like very gung ho.
And so because I think too many people that are older still think millennials are like these little kids. No, we're like at the age where we're having kids, we're boring at this point. Like we're grown adults, like we didn't live by eight.
Dude, I'm 41.
Yeah, so you're an elder millennial.
Yeah, I believe the term you're looking for is geriatric millennial.
Yeah, they called it geriatric millennial.
So my husband is Gen X, which is even funnier because like they were like boomers and millennials. And my husband's like, it's so Gen X to just forget that Gen X is even there.
Like, he's just like, well, all right.
And then, yeah, so like I was like the Oregon Trail millennial is the other way that they call it. So like we were the last ones to have that in our classroom. We were the first ones to have it, a computer in our classroom.
And I just think like the generation right behind us, they are very vocal about it. They do see that need for change. And I just hope like we can like as millennials, because we were kind of the first ones to be like, listen, something's really wrong here.
There's a problem.
Hopefully we can now that we're all the ones having kids, just keep that mentality moving and going and being intentional with our kids to be like, listen, we got to change something because like we're humans, like there is a balance of natural resources. We've talked about this so many times. Like we as humans, like we have to use to live like use, but there is a balance, there's a give and take.
And it's just finding that that perfect balance. And unfortunately, like leaving it up to our kids, but I mean, they're the next ones that will be voting, and they're the next ones that will be policy makers and things like that, that we got to teach them now so that they can help down the road.
Yeah. Yeah, and teaching them to vote like for the environment and that that is important. And voting is the biggest thing that they can do if they really want to change.
Every time my ex-husband and I, whenever we voted, we've taken Luke with us to show him it is important. Regardless of which way you do end up voting, it's still important to do this. You are making actual decisions.
Yeah, and in every election, not just the big ones, the little ones, we just did it on Tuesday. It does matter. And we always bring Ace home a sticker now that she's too big to come with us on Tuesday mornings.
But she has to go to school, but we always talk about it. And she's always like, so the signs are always around the thing, like vote this way, no vote this way. And like, they go back and forth.
And like, she sees the signs and she's like, what does that mean? And she's always asking. So like, when we voted, she's like, how did you vote?
And then the next day, like, who won? Like, she's really interested in it. And like, we keep that conversation going.
And that's the important thing with kids is that if they're asking questions, whether it's about voting or nature or their body or whatever, if they're asking questions, don't brush that aside because every time you do, you're telling them your question doesn't matter. Making sure that they keep their curiosity. I mean, I say at the end of every show, I'm like, go get curious.
Just before I say the credits, I'm like, have a good week and go get curious. Every week, I'm telling that to children and adults. It's so important to just hold on to that curiosity and to foster it.
And yes, I mean, there's more times than I can count where I'm just like, I'm busy. I can't answer why right now I'm making dinner.
Mom, come outside and play with me.
I can't, like, I just put my hands in the orzo. Like, I can't. But when I can, I can.
And I want to encourage her to go. It is hard when you're a parent to be able to do right, but all we can do is try.
And I think that's the biggest thing. Like I said before, like, you don't have to be, you know, the stereotypical tree-hugging hippie that everyone thinks that we are because we like the environment. No, it's just making good decisions for kids down the road and just being intentional with them.
Doesn't take much.
Yeah, all the time.
Foster curiosity, really.
It all just comes from fostering curiosity.
Yeah.
And I think that the other thing that nature really does for kids, and of course, mine's not old enough to experience yet, but from my experience, from watching and from the scientific literature, you know, nature is proven to help with health. Like it helps with blood pressure. It helps with childhood obesity, like by getting kids out and moving.
And it helps with dangerous-
It does, it really does.
I feel like one of the biggest barriers these days, and you know, a lot of our listeners out there are probably like, okay, that's great. I'd love to get my kid outside, but it's not safe. But it can be safe.
You just have to do it-
Well, it's not safe if you're walking into a bear. Like, it's not like-
All right, go play with the baby bear.
I mean, I think that, and again, when you're watching these clips of people like, oh, I'm gonna go like pat that animal or get close and try to feed. Like, there's a line where it's like, okay, leave nature alone, but still appreciate it back to Laura's point earlier, what your mom was saying. Like, go out and explore, but don't be stupid about it.
Be respectful.
That is something that every kid needs to learn. In general, if you climb a tree too high, you might fall and you might get hurt. As long as, as parents, we need to make sure that there aren't dire consequences, but we also need to allow them to-
There are, we know where the ER is.
But we also have to allow them to take risks so that they can figure out, if they never learn how to assess danger-
I remember whenever I was a kid, again, going back to whenever we were clearing the property and building and everything like that, is there was a tree that had naturally fallen down, but it was maybe like 10 feet higher or so, and then it cracked. And there was a vine that was nearby hanging. And so I remember like climbing up, shimmying up that tree that had cracked down, grabbing that vine and being like tugging on it and being like, hmm.
And being like, is this a good idea or not?
And I don't eat it, I don't eat it.
And because of situations like that, I'm just like, nowadays I'd be like, hmm, but it is important. And again, it goes back to like that critical thinking and just being like analyzing as a kid, because my parents were nowhere, like at that point, my parents were nowhere. Like they were within streaming distance.
Yeah, they were outside.
Mine was in another county.
We had, so like I tried to like, I tried out for cheerleading because I was loud.
I was not coordinated, but I was loud. And I tried out and somehow made a team. And so like, I'm like, oh, I might actually be one of the cool kids.
Listener, I was not one of the cool kids. So like they had, so like one of the other cheerleaders came over to like show me something. I'm like, cool, let's go play in the woods.
And she's like, okay. And so like we showed her our special formula of playing hide and seek. You basically stand here and then we all just scatter into the woods.
We forgot to tell her about the rusty barbed wire. And so she ended up like finding us, but she ran into a rusty barbed wire fence. And I'm like, why didn't you just step over it?
Like, how did you not know that was there?
Like, and so she left and that was the last time I hung out with her.
I was like, why doesn't she want to come over again? Well, because she had to go get a tetanus shot because she hung out. But like for us, like we knew where all the barbed wire was because that was our house.
Like, so I guess like, yeah, it was like a hundred year old farmhouse when we moved in. So like we had already done the exploring and she ran right into it. But yeah, I mean, there was always danger.
And again, it was the 80s. So like, there was just a lot of like, well, you shouldn't have stepped up on fire.
Well, and I think that too, like I think as parents these days too, I think that there's a lot of talk and especially here in Maryland, you cannot let your kids play outside unsupervised in certain areas or that you'll get the cops called on you. But there's also this perception of the outdoors is unsafe, not just because of actual nature, but even playing under your own backyard, you might get snatched by somebody, things like that. And I think that it takes us as parents to also realize that there's always been that danger.
It's always been like that forever.
It's just talked about more now. And just to put that out there, it's talked about a lot more in the sensationalization of how crime actually works. But my dad, being a CEO, I told him, oh yeah, Ace went down to the park to go see her friend Maddie.
It was a couple blocks away, and she was eight. So I'm like, yeah, you can go by yourself. You know how to get there to stop and look both ways?
And the first couple of times, I tailed her. And then after that, I'm like, cool. And her friend's mom lived across the street from this little urban park.
So I'm like, yeah, Jess is just watching out the window. Everything's fine. So I sent her and my dad's like, why didn't you follow her?
Somebody could take her. I'm like, dad, you're in law enforcement. You know better than anyone.
The highest risk of somebody taking a kid is a family member or someone they know. Like I have a family member whose kid was taken by an estranged partner, ex-partner. It's like, you know more than anyone and yet the whole concept of stranger danger, I think is, and the funny thing is, my kid doesn't like strangers, but we've never said the word stranger danger to her.
I'm like, go talk to strangers. We're trying to do the opposite.
But for her, trusting her, she's going to grow up and not gonna be there always. And she has to be able to do this on her own and weighing what makes sense for this particular kid with giving her the flexibility to go outside and explore, even though it's a city. She can do this.
It's one street she has to cross, and it's a one way street that two cars go down every day. It's fine. And never letting her experience that and keeping her so sheltered that she's never going to thrive.
So you are constantly weighing that cost benefit analysis, but you have to take the kid that's in front of you to do that.
Yeah, I think that's true.
I remember, yeah. I also remember my dad just going, why doesn't she just go outside more? I'm like, have you seen the outside?
There's a four-lane thruway right in front, our front door, and an interstate 200 feet away. There's what outside? You can't just go.
We had multiple people hit and killed like right in front of our house, like the same route that we would have to take to school. It was really scary. So when people today are like, well, kids never go outside, it's like, what outside?
So when we wanted her to explore, we actually got Pokemon Go. And that got her outside and walking and looking for things and checking things out. And in the interim, she'd like pull up her iNatural app that I think you guys turned around to.
And then she'd like look at nature and then she'd go back and like catch pokey things. And she's gonna hate me for not knowing any of this, but like, the pokey things. And so like she, those games, as much as they were looked down on is, well, it's a video game.
Shouldn't they just enjoy nature?
That was such a good way to get people outside.
For kids, yeah, for these kids that don't have nature.
I saw way more people outside than I ever did before.
I was teaching a class. We had outside dog classes and we were in this park.
It's a public park. And we had like 10 dogs in each of three classes in this big field. So like we have a couple instructors and like 10 dogs in these rings.
And these guys were like just like looking down on their phone, like when Pokemon came out. And they're walking down this hill and they cross over the bike path. It was almost like I could have been playing Benny Hill.
Like you see a soccer ball go by and they just miss it. And like a bike go by and they don't notice because they're looking down. And they kind of wander into one of like in the middle, like the two of the dog people like opened up and left the channel because we're watching this.
And they just kind of walk into the middle of the class.
I'm like, oh, hey guys, are you guys playing Pokemon Go? They're like, yeah. I'm like, cool.
Well, you're in the middle of a dog training class and they look up and they're surrounded by dogs. I'm like, you don't want to get near that one. He's a little snappy.
I wouldn't keep walking though. That's a swap.
Just be aware of your surroundings.
Just be mindful.
I take it, yes, like technology can get you out.
Enjoy. But you also get to lift your head up from time to time and look at where you are because you might end up like next to like a humping doodle.
Well, I hate to cut us off, guys, but I think it's about time. Is there any last tips that you have as professional nature parents? Do you have any tips for other parents out there that would like to get their kids outside more?
Man.
Mind the tics and just do it.
I mean, I know Ace is gonna listen, so I'm not gonna say what I would normally just say. But truthfully, just do it. You don't have to, it can be really, just get your shoes on and just go.
Just go, check some things out, take a couple of, even if you just say, this is gonna be an Instagram shot.
Just take a couple of photos and go home.
That's fine, but you don't have to make it a big thing. In fact, if you do, it's gonna be prohibitively hard.
Don't make it like you're planning for a whole day when you're packing lunch. Don't make it a huge, big ordeal because one, as a parent, that just gets exhausting. And in your own mind, if you make it a big deal, you're like, oh my gosh, I don't feel like doing this this weekend because you're tired from a work week.
Like don't make it a big deal. And that would be my thing. It's just like small little intentional time that it doesn't take.
It doesn't take much, but it's- Take a half hour. But it definitely has to be intentional.
Like I said, like it's so much accessibility and just time on parents nowadays that both parents are busy working or like me, like I co-parent and that's, you know, goes great. But, you know, I only get 50% of my kid's time now, which I'm very, very intentional with that 50%. And part of that is them being like, okay, I gotta get this kid outside.
Like we gotta do something. And thankfully he craves it.
Well, plus I think it's important to remember, it's good for you too.
It is, 100%.
Remember parents, it's good for you.
Oh, right.
We're also people. I keep forgetting parents are people too.
I don't feel like a person recently with so little sleep.
I'd say that gets better, but.
Everyone says, they're like, you know, you're really not sleeping at your house.
Yeah, no, never again.
Never again. You might not remember anything again either. Like that was something that somebody told me when I was pregnant.
And I was like, haha, real funny.
It never comes back.
Well, thanks so much for joining us, Melissa. We've been talking back and forth on Twitter and everything. And we've been really excited to meet you.
And. I'm so excited to meet you guys too.
And on Acie's behalf, who when I said, I'm gonna talk to them, she goes, but I don't really know them in person. So you don't have to tell them hi. I'm still gonna tell you hi from Acie.
We're big Acie fans. And she needs to know that too. We're big Acie fans.
And she loves you guys to pieces. So keep up the good work. I'm so glad that you guys exist and that you guys are fostering curiosity for kids and their adults.
One of the reasons I started BewilderBeasts was to have a show that could be played in a car that wasn't gonna drive parents. Bad chip bananas. Like it was, my kid can listen to it.
I don't swear on it. But my kid can listen to it. And adults can listen to it.
And I'm glad that shows like yours are in that space and that it just fosters curiosity and is instructional and fun and quirky. And I'm so glad you guys are here. Cause you guys are actually like my kids, like little audio aunties.
And I'm so glad you're here.
And everyone who's listening, definitely check out the WilderBeasts podcast as well. Melissa's got some great stuff.
Yeah, we'll include links in the bio to this episode as well. So you guys can find it easily. Yeah.
Cool.
Yeah. Well, thanks again. And be sure to tune in next week.
Listeners, we've got what? Two episodes left of the season. So, all right.
Talk to you all next week.
Bye.