Nature Connection
Children don’t need to know the name of every bird, tree or plant to have a relationship with the natural world.
They need time in it.
Time to get muddy, climb things, turn over rocks, watch the tide come in, notice the same bird returning to the fence and discover that strawberries take an offensively long time to turn red when you’re waiting to eat them.
Because before children can care deeply about something, they need the chance to know it.
And somewhere in all that noticing, playing and wondering, something else begins to grow too - belonging.
Before children can protect nature, they need to know it
It’s hard to care deeply about something we’ve never had a relationship with.
So before children are asked to understand climate change, disappearing species and everything that needs protecting, let them know the world we’re asking them to care about.
Let them know which birds wake them in the morning. Let them swim in the river until their lips turn blue and we practically have to drag them out. Let them grow something, collect treasures, watch tadpoles change, notice the first daffodils and have a favourite climbing tree.
Let them have places they know well enough to notice when something changes.
Eventually, “the environment” stops being this enormous thing somewhere out there.
It becomes our river, our beach, the tūī that visits our tree, the track we always walk, the place we know.
Connection comes before care.
Whenua
There’s a beautiful idea in te ao Māori that gives us another way of thinking about the land beneath our feet.
Whenua means land.
It also means placenta.
The same word.
One nourishes us before we are born, while the other continues to nourish us long afterwards through water, soil, food, air and everything the natural world provides.
That connection changes the idea of land from something we simply own or travel across into something we are in relationship with.
We arrive here with nothing and we’ll leave with nothing. The rivers we swim in, trees we climb, beaches we spend summers on and birds outside our windows will hopefully still be here long after we’re gone.
There’s something pretty grounding about that.
And something worth protecting.
The rock goes back
There’s a particular kind of childhood magic in turning over a rock and discovering an entire little world underneath it.
Tiny crabs scuttling sideways. Bugs we’ve never seen before.
Worms disappearing back into the dirt. Something small and slightly terrifying that absolutely has to be shown to everyone.
So we look.
We wonder.
And then the rock goes back.
Not because there’s a sign telling us to put it back, but because once we’ve seen what lives underneath it, we understand that putting it back matters.
That’s a pretty powerful thing for a child to learn.
We can be curious about the world without leaving it worse because we were there.
Try this
Next time you’re outside with a child, resist the urge to turn it into a lesson.
Ask one question:
What do you notice?
Then follow whatever catches their attention.
A feather, a strange bug, a cloud, a shell, a bird call or something growing through a crack in the concrete.
You don’t need to know what everything is. Look it up together. Wonder about it. Come back another day and see if it’s still there.
That’s where kaitiakitanga can begin - not with knowing everything about nature, but with knowing enough of it to care what happens to it.
Learning to read the world around us
For generations, people have watched the natural world closely enough to notice patterns in the moon, tides, weather, plants, birds, fish and seasons.
Maramataka, the Māori lunar calendar, grows from that kind of observation. It can differ between iwi and rohe because the natural world itself differs from place to place.
There’s something pretty incredible in that — knowing somewhere well enough to notice what it’s telling you.
For children, it can begin in much smaller ways.
When does the kōwhai flower?
Where is the moon tonight?
Why is the tide much further out than yesterday?
Which birds disappear for part of the year and suddenly turn up again?
When do the evenings start getting lighter?
You don’t have to teach a whole system.
You can start by helping children notice patterns in the place they already live.
Matariki
Each winter, Matariki returns to our morning sky and marks the Māori New Year.
Across Aotearoa it has become a time to remember those who came before us, appreciate what we have now, gather together and look towards what is ahead.
There is generations of knowledge held within Matariki too. The whetū (stars) connect with the whenua, water, weather, food and the year ahead, showing how closely people have watched and understood the world around them.
For children growing up here, there’s something special about being able to look into the same skies people have watched for generations and know that those stars carry stories, knowledge and connection to this place.
Each whetū in Matariki has its own name and connection to the world around us - from rain, wind and food crops to the ocean, freshwater and our hopes for the year ahead.
Explore the stars of Matariki, what each one represents and the meaning they carry in the free Matariki resource.
Explore Matariki
Before we called it grounding
There was a time when many of the things we now intentionally use to help children slow down were just part of being outside.
Bare feet on grass, hands in dirt, climbing trees, building huts, walking beside water, looking for crabs under rocks, lying on the ground staring at clouds and having absolutely nowhere else to be.
Children weren’t thinking, I’m regulating my nervous system.
They were playing.
Maybe we don’t need to turn every one of those moments into a strategy either. Sometimes the value is in giving children enough time and space for their bodies to find what feels good.
Nature gives them somewhere to move, notice, breathe, get messy, be quiet and come back to themselves.
Free Grounding Guide
Practical ideas for using nature to help children slow down, reconnect and settle when life feels like a lot.
The language children are growing up with
Growing up in Aotearoa, our children will hear kupu Māori (Māori words) at school, in waiata (songs), books, assemblies, celebrations and everyday conversation.
Sometimes they’ll come home using a word that leaves us thinking, hang on… what does that actually mean?
Some kupu don’t translate neatly into one English word. There can be ideas about relationships, ancestry, responsibility, place and belonging sitting inside them.
Whanaungatanga (fa-naung-a-tanga)
Relationships, connection and belonging.
What it can look like: inviting the new child into the game.
Manaakitanga (ma-naa-key-tanga)
Care, generosity and showing respect for the mana - the dignity, worth and standing -of other people.
What it can look like: helping someone sitting alone feel welcome.
Kaitiakitanga (kai-tee-ah-key-tanga)
Care and responsibility for the natural world.
What it can look like: picking up rubbish, leaving shells where you found them, putting the rock back.
Whenua (feh-noo-ah)
Land - and also placenta. A word that carries a powerful connection between people and the place that nourishes them.
Mauri (mow-ree)
The life force or vitality present in people, places and living things.
Our turn
We’re not the first people to stand in these places, and we won’t be the last.
Someone cared for this whenua before we arrived. One day, children we’ll never meet will walk these beaches, swim in these rivers and sit beneath trees that are still small today.
Planting a tree we may never sit beneath, picking up rubbish that isn’t ours, leaving the shells where we found them and putting the rock back are all small ways of recognising that for this little stretch of time, it’s our turn.
To know these places, enjoy them and care for them.
And maybe one of the greatest things we can give children is the chance to grow up knowing their little part of the world really well - the birds, the trees, the seasons, the skies and the places where their childhood happened.
Because one day, those ordinary things become the things that tell them:
this is home.
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