E22. Let Them Climb Trees!
Episode Description
Did you spend much of your childhood climbing trees? Did you know that 1 out of 4 Australian children have never climbed a tree and that this quintessential childhood experience is banned in most of our educational settings? In this episode talk about why sharing the view with birds from the branch of a tree is so beneficial for children!
In a 2011 study by Planet Ark on Childhood interaction with nature 1000 parents were surveyed. One of the disturbing findings was that only 20% of children today are engaged in tree climbing. It appears that children just don’t climb trees anymore. This is unsurprising as we have seen the dramatic changing face of our educational settings with things such as soft-fall and height restrictions severely impacting the ability for children to climb anything, let alone a tree.
👉 Discussion Points
Benefits of climbing trees:
Focus and concentration
Hand-eye coordination
Problem-solving skills
Self-esteem
Overcoming fears
Trust and team-building
Body confidence
Building physical strength
Setting and achieving goals
Respecting nature
How to support children when they are learning to climb:
Look for easy trees to climb with low hanging branches
Avoid the ‘be careful’ schtick. Offer more meaningful advice such as, ‘Do you feel safe right now?’ or share your observations, ‘That branch is not thicker than your arm, do you think it can support your weight?’
Remind them to check the surface of the ground beneath should they fall and to remove any rocks/sticks below their fall path
Teach them to always have three points of contact at all times
Try not to rescue them. Be their emotional coach instead
Check for dead branches before putting your weight on a branch
Barefoot climbing is safer than with shoes as they have better grip
But What About the Risk?
It feels like a risky thing to allow our children to do. A survey of over 1600 parents who let their children climb trees revealed that 2% had fallen from a tree and broken a bone, with even less receiving a concussion. The greatest injury was scrapes. Meanwhile 3.5 million American children received medical treatment for injuries sustained during organised sports.
There is risk in everything that our children do. Whilst there is a physical risk of injury, there is a physical risk of our children sitting inside and playing video games, heck there is a risk of children just tripping and falling on the pavement.
Climbing trees should continue to be a quintessential childhood experience. We can help children to risk assess and to problem solve by actively encouraging this outdoor activity.
👉 Free Downloadable
Our ‘What to say during risky play’ printable will help transform the language we use around risky activities so that we can encourage problem solving and risk assessment in lieu of saying unhelpful phrases like ‘be careful’. To grab our free printable head to wildlingsforestschool.com/free-downloadables.
👉 Guest Details
Vicci Oliver and Nicki Farrell are adventurous nature play makers, risk-takers, children’s rights advocates and the co-founders of Wildlings Forest School. We are the hosts of the ‘Raising Wildlings’ podcast and we put the dirt back in childhood.
Wildlings aims to get more children outdoors connecting with nature, creating the village parents are yearning for and inspiring change in the education system.
During any Wildlings Forest School program, you are likely to find Wildlings up trees, sliding down mud slides, whittling with pocket knives, lighting fires and building rafts. We let kids, be kids - because children can’t learn to protect nature if they’ve never had a childhood in it.
