It had been going on for a month or so with the kids at school and their obsessive desire to run into the woods right after the bell rang at the end of the day. The parents knew vaguely what was happening in there. There were two teams, apparently, and they were building forts but then destroying each other's, in a tag-you're-it sort of exchange. It was a game, but of course, there were tears and fights. Although a few parents got involved briefly, it had already become abundantly clear that what was happening in those woods simply didn't involve grown-ups.
Then, finally, one weekend three of the children came and built for hours. When the opposing team saw what they had built, they knew. Intrinsically, they just knew. This was something good, something not to destroy. Something to keep, to care for, to love.
And the two teams joined forces and collaborated on making the world they had created in the woods even better. They assigned jobs. They strengthened the structure. They started doing water runs to the creek to make clay pots out of the red Georgia soil. They designated a spot for celebrations and decorated a Christmas tree. The shouting stopped. The tears stopped. The running at each other with sticks stopped. And their own little Kid Nation emerged.
Nothing prepared me for the beauty of the structure, which I saw for the first time last Friday. These kids hadn't been part of the reality TV show, Kid Nation (which, by the way, I absolutely adored). They hadn't read Richard Louv's book, Last Child in the Woods, about the fact that this generation spends little time in nature and suffers in many ways as a result, or seen the site for the Children and Nature Network, a non-profit organization working to reconnect kids and the outdoors. They had given no thought to the need for a daily Green Hour, as advocated by the National Wildlife Federation. They had been simply given time. Free time. Without parents hovering. And this is what happened.
My daughter was not part of this effort. She saw this secret world for the first time with me. As we stepped over tree roots and walked down a trail to leave the woods, she pulled me aside and whispered, "Ask how people can join, Mom."
I thought for sure the kids would say that it was a closed club, that they had built it and it was just for them. But no. When I asked, open, kind faces replied, "Anyone can join, as long as they don't knock down what we've built."
Don't knock it down. When you see something good, my friends, just don't knock it down.
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4 comments:
You mean that they didn't have soccer practice, ballet, lessons, or the list goes on to get to? I am so glad to hear that kids went outside to play, discover and create.
I just want to say awesome, completely awesome. I remember building forts in the woods with my friends and enemies. I am almost 20 but you really don't see that make kids just playing outside anymore.
Lovely, Pattie. This is how my boys grew up but between then and now something has changed for the worse. Maybe it will all turn around again, if we just give them time. We in Australia have been watching Kid Nation too and Alex (21) hasn't missed a moment. That, in itself, is interesting.
By the way, it is four years later now and my younger daughter still talks about some of the things that she saw that first time at the fort--the fact that the kids made pots out of clay to carry water from the stream still blows her away.
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