As a mother of three, I sometimes reflect and evaluate the results of my own childhood to try to raise my own children as best I can. I try to carry on the good habits and values that I myself was exposed to as a child and that I think have benefited me a lot. One such thing that I want to convey to my children is the love of nature. And time in nature. When I grew up in my home country Sweden, I was lucky enough to live in one of the most beautiful places on the country's west coast. Our house was only a few hundred meters from the sea and I grew up with an abundance of nature outside the door. With nature so close, you inevitably end up closely connected to everything that is happening around you. You grow up and learn about the seasons, the vegetation and the different species of animals and birds. In Scandinavia, we have a tradition of loving and appreciating outdoor life and our idea of luxury is to dive deep into nature in a way that goes back to basics. We have a saying that "there is never bad weather - only bad clothes" which pretty much sums up our attitude that there is no excuse for not going out into nature.
Förr i tiden var föräldrar inte så överbeskyddande. Kanske fanns det inte så många faror runt omkring eller så hade de helt enkelt en mer avslappnad inställning, och vi fick ströva runt och utforska världen så länge vi "kom hem för att äta middag". Även om vi ibland gjorde lite farliga saker så överlevde vi på något sätt och det lärde oss definitivt att vara självständiga. Skandinaviska skolor slutar tidigt de flesta dagar och förutom några aktiviteter efter skolan ägnade vi de flesta eftermiddagarna åt att göra som vi ville. Vi byggde hyddor av grenar och kvistar i skogen och spenderade åtskilliga timmar bara med att leka i trädgården, i skogen eller vid stranden. Vi hjälpte våra föräldrar att odla grönsaker och frukt och vi startade vår egen mycket entreprenöriella livsmedelsbutik där vi tränade addition och subtraktion samtidigt som vi sålde morötter och gurkor till grannarna.
Varje år fanns det olika räddningsprojekt att engagera sig i också - skadade djur som behövde matas och tas om hand. Svanar som skadade sina fötter när de landade på den karga isen på det frusna havet på vintrarna. Oljeutsläpp från fartyg som passerade vid horisonten och som hamnade på våra stränder behövde frivilliga för att städa upp det. Vi som bodde så nära havet och stränderna bevittnade från första parkett resultatet av föroreningar och dess direkta effekter under lågsäsongen, något som semesterbesökarna från aldrig riktigt gjorde på samma sätt under somrarna när stränderna städades upp och presenterades i perfekt skick till turister.
Om du inte tillbringar tid i naturen och ser dessa effekter är det mer sannolikt att du blundar för alla rapporter om skadorna av klimatförändringar och föroreningar. Du måste vara en del av naturen för att förstå den livscirkeln och inse att ditt sätt att leva direkt påverkar världens tillstånd. Att spendera så mycket tid utomhus som barn lärde mig respekt för jorden och lärde mig att vi inte kan överleva på denna planet utan att leva hållbart. Om du tar- du ger tillbaka. Du måste återställa balansen.
Back in the days parents were not quite so over protective. Perhaps there were not as many dangers around or they simply had a more laid back approach, and we were left to roam around and explore outside of the house as long as we ‘got home for dinner’. Although we sometimes ended up doing some slightly dangerous things we did somehow survive and it did for sure teach us independence. Scandinavian schools finish early most days and apart from a few after school activities we spent most our afternoons being free to do as we pleased. We built huts out of branches and twigs in the forest and spent hours and hours just using our imagination in the garden. We helped our parents grow vegetables and fruit and we set up our own very entrepreneurial grocery shop where we practised addition and subtraction whilst selling odd looking carrots and cucumbers to the neighbours.
Every year there were various rescue projects to get involved in too - injured animals that needed to be nursed and released. Swans that damaged their feet when landing on the rugged ice on the frozen sea in the winters. Oil spills from tanks passing by on the horizon that ended up on our shores needed volunteers to clean it up. We who lived so near the sea and the beaches witnessed first hand the result of pollution and its direct effects during the off seasons, something the holiday visitors from the city never quite did the same way during the summers as beaches were cleaned up and perfectly presented to tourists.
If you don't spend time in nature and see those effects you are more likely to turn a blind eye to all the reports of the damages of climate change and pollution. You need to be part of nature to understand that circle of life and realise that your way of living directly impacts the state of the world. Spending so much time outdoors as a child taught me respect for earth and taught me that we cant survive on this planet without living sustainably. If you take- you give back. You need to restore balance.
My grandfather planted a whole forest during his life. Nothing that he would personally directly benefit from, but he did it with future generations in mind. There is a saying that goes "A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in." And he did exactly that. That kind of sustainable thinking is what we so badly need today. We cannot simply erode all the resources of the planet until there is nothing left. I think that now more than ever do we need to wake up and realise that time is running out. If nothing else I think the Corona pandemic delivered a loud and clear wake up call. We had been warned about the very real threat of pandemics yet no one cared to listen. It therefore caught us by surprise and we were not prepared. The next big threat that we have been warned about over and over again is climate change and we can no longer deny the urgency to do something to drastically reduce the risk of destroying life on this planet as we know it. So get your children out in nature. Let them understand that they are part of it.
Teach them to conserve it and become ambassadors and voices that fight for it. Leave the iPads and virtual worlds and explore real life on earth. I recently read somewhere that American children spend an average of around 7 minutes each day outdoors and around 7 hours on their screens. And more and more research shows that a large amount of children in the world just aren't adequately connected to nature. Some children do not even know where their food comes from. Research again reveals how many children shockingly lack even the most basic knowledge about food. Not knowing an egg comes from a chicken and some believing cucumbers grow on trees is a bit worrying to say the least.
Our souls and minds also so desperately need nature to thrive. With our stressful lives, pressure at school and at work, expectations higher than ever to meet, a constant flow of information and social media we all need to learn to disconnect. Pull out the plug and just be. Hear the sounds of waves and winds and smell the moss in the forest. Nature heals, nature balances, nature revives and restores. Modern days ‘nature deprivation” has been associated with both depression and obesity as we spend more and more time in front of screens. Nature not only makes us feel better emotionally, it also promotes our physical wellbeing by reducing weight, blood pressure and stress hormones. And for children nature is just one big endless playground. In Sweden where we live we have a ten minute walk to the sea and a forest behind the house where the children and their friends can disappear for hours. They play hide and seek, they build tree houses, they make up all sorts of games, one minute pretending they are pirates, and then chasing dinosaurs in Jurassic World the next. We also have a beautiful nature reserve around the corner where they follow a track along a stunning coastline whilst climbing every single massive big rock on the way ( equally fun as Bounce and Air Maniax but free of charge and full of fresh air! ). Nature provides countless opportunities for creativity, discovery, and problem-solving.
I feel so blessed to have our home in Sweden to return to when we need to get back to basics, recalibrate and reflect. It provides a stark contrast to the busy city life and I think we need that escape sometimes. I need the children to run wild and free, climb trees and get muddy and dirty. I also need them to get bored and use their imagination instead of being constantly fed with endless structured activities. Sometimes I get the impression that adults seem to think that the louder, the faster, the crazier: the more fun it is for a child. And the busier they are the more we fulfilled our duty as a parent to 'entertain' our little ones and deliver amazing experiences. I myself get overwhelmed when things just become ' too much' and I know my children sometimes do too. I am a firm believer that unstructured free play, especially in nature, is fundamental for a child's happiness and wellbeing. I even celebrate the occasional complaint about being bored as it is so rare these days to struggle to find something to do and it's a great opportunity for invention and creativity. As much as I want my children to have amazing experiences and a rich social life I also want them to learn to spend times with themselves. To slow down and get enough time to reflect and look inwards and tune into who they are. Due to the current pandemic, this was the first summer we spent in Dubai since the children were born so it has been more of a challenge to get into nature as temperatures soared towards 40 and beyond. But we have done our best to go to the beach and spent early mornings and late afternoons by the sea and we have done a couple of desert trips. Now that the weather gets cooler we are looking forward to exploring all the nature that the UAE has to offer outside of its cities. We can't wait to get out into the mountains, the calming deserts, mangroves and nature reserves. Until we can safely go back to Sweden and climb our trees again.
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