The motivation of our relationship with animals is love. Our inner child is drawn, excited, tactile, and joy-filled with the anticipation of holding a puppy or a kitten.
Depression is the single most incident of children who seek acceptance. It’s world epidemic.
We understand the connection between nature and self-confidence in a child whose personality is developing and the necessity to instill a sense of empathy with all of life.
A type of connection is involved at early stages of personality development – a connection which helps children to be able to accept success and failure as learning steps in life. A child who is taught they can find solace in nature, learns to act and make authentic choices that bring a vitality, uniqueness and spontaneous joy to life. It is through this endeavor – for lack of a better word – through the essential connection to something outside of self that a child learns to work with inner emotions and thought concepts – and ultimately, it is through these thoughts and emotions that we can help a child heal.
Until a child can feel acceptance, the world continues to need healing. It is time to demonstrate to children their value in our lives. We want them to feel their dreams are attainable. Isolation from loved ones, abandonment from those they should be able to depend on for nurturance and safety needs to stop. Fear and survival are not natural partners in life. Emotional health and satisfaction are. For far too long we have perpetuated the system of living our lies in judgment and ridicule.
It’s time to find another way to balance the consequences of what has been.
Nature began as an experience of “fantasy” when we were small, as our magical moment in life, the time when innocence danced freely, even as the outside world marched to a different drummer. Gang violence, terrorist attacks, racism and sexism, socializes children and keeps them from functioning full in every moment, rather than extending themselves to perpetuate “safe-space,” we accentuate the suvivalism that strips our kids of their ability to process change. For our children not to withdraw attention, participation, enthusiasm and love in order to be “safe in invisibility,” we must actively work and make use of all our energies and creative abilities to engage with them and help them engage with other facets of life.
A young friend of mine, in response to these thoughts, asked eagerly, “How do we do this”. We laugh, we explore, we tell stories, we engage, and nature provides the easiest portal available to facilitate this interactive healing.
So, what are you waiting for? Go on a walk with your kids. Talk about the things you see, and how the elements of nature make them feel inside. Teach them how to be in the natural world without fear, and this will reveal itself in the day to day task of navigating human chaos. Be there in your own inner child, and they will learn that they can come to you and talk with you when things are happening in life. Be aware and be there.