The Best Things Are Free
Activities in which mentors and protégés can participate together are always floating around in my mind. Discovering Options provides a list of suggestions mentors can use as activities for their weekly meetings with their kids. We also provide a schedule of monthly group outings to which all mentors and protégés are invited. But at this time of year I can think of hundreds of activities all having to do with spring busting out all over. The vast majority of kids we serve have limited experience with nature and the out of doors. Our Family PREP kindergarten, first and second grade kids took a field trip to the Botanical Garden a week ago. None had ever been there before. They were mesmerized by the fountains, gazing pool, maze, flowers by nature and by Chihuly, and we didn’t even get to the fish under the Japanese garden bridge.
We were in Forest Park for a special outing with a group of kids and they explored it with unrestrained zest, after a bit of prompting. None had ever just run freely, rolled down grassy hills, stepped across rocks in the waterfall, or peeked into bird nests. Most of the kids do not roam their own neighborhoods looking for nature “treasures� or throwing rocks into pools of water because no one knows when or where the next gunshots will ring out. If the kids don’t live close to a park and don’t have transportation to get to one, the appreciation of those things all previous generations have enjoyed and grown up with doesn’t take hold. A huge part of childhood, in my opinion, is never lived. The peace and calm and sense of freedom green spaces offer up are not felt by kids who live indoors.
We feasted on a picnic of pb and j sandwiches and fruit sitting next to the waterfall and pond. It was a visual, audio, tactile, and spiritual treat for the kids as well as the adults.
I hope everyone makes time to take their protégé to lots of outside venues where they can just explore whatever is there to discover at their own pace. You validate the belief some of the best things in life truly are free.
