Article on when i saw some children plucking flowers
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“Mama look what I found!” my daughter exclaimed as she ran towards me. Her little hands were carefully cupped around something special. She came to a halting stop in front of me and gently opened her hands. My young child had picked a beautiful pink hyacinth from our garden. “Oh!” I blurted out, a mixture of surprise and disappointment whirling inside me. Together we had watched this flower sprout and slowly unfurl. Now the perfect bloom rested in her hands. I quickly tried to school my expression but it was too late. My young child knew that she had done something very wrong. She had picked a flower.
There’s this belief that children should never pick flowers. That all flowers are sacrosanct, too beautiful for children to touch, pick or handle. Yes, flowers are beautiful and we all want to enjoy them but we’ve forgotten one important fact: children connect with nature when they have the freedom to touch and interact with it. Children need to pick flowers, hold worms, squish mud, catch butterflies, break sticks and smash rocks to learn about how the natural world works. Children will never learn how to care for flowers without having the chance to pick and play with them.
It’s painful to see natural areas destroyed, but this destruction isn’t caused by flower picking children. This destruction is the result of adults, young and old, who have never learned how to care for nature. Banning children from picking flowers won’t prevent destruction of nature. In fact, preventing kids from picking flowers and interacting with nature may inadvertently cause children to have no interest in nature at all, or to fear nature, and these children will grow into adults that don’t care about nature. Nature is surprisingly resilient and can handle children picking a handful of flowers, where and when it’s appropriate.