My daughter likes to hold wriggling worms in her bare hands. I writhe inside, struggling with my own biophobia, a term to describe a fear of the outdoors, the biological, the natural. Soil, bugs, spiders, all that. My daughter likes to hold wriggling worms in her bare hands. I writhe inside, struggling with my own biophobia, a term to describe a fear of the outdoors, the biological, the natural. Soil, bugs, spiders, all that.
When I do the weeding it is quite useful to have Rose on worm-patrol. For ages we neglected our front garden because we don’t have a gate on it, but she is so entranced by the earth that she has never once strayed. She is learning patience, watching for worms to crawl out of holes in the ground, until, unsuspecting, they are wrenched from their earthy home and played with. “Ooh, little baby worm,” Rose coos. “What’s it doing?” she asks as it heaves to and fro, as much as a baby worm can heave, in the grip of two toddler fingers. It might be trying to escape, I say, maybe it wants some earth, so she puts some earth in her hands too. The worm is released from her grasp. Next we see a slater. Now maybe we shouldn’t touch him, I hear myself saying, but we’ll pop him in the bowl. We now have a bowl for capturing small creatures and examining them. The first time we did this Rose wanted to bring the bowl inside so she could watch worms while eating her lunch. I had a hard time trying to explain why this wasn’t a good idea while at the same time trying to embrace her new-found love of worms. On holiday in Stroud, Rose rescued a worm stranded on the play equipment in the park. “She’s got a worm!” a horrified mother shrieked to me. Secretly proud, I said, “oh well done for being so careful”. “She plays with worms in our garden,” I tried to explain, realising how weird it sounded only when I said it out loud, even to the country folk of Stroud. Then, at a party later, I triumphantly told the story of Rose saving the worm and putting him on the grass to some impressed neighbours of my aunt. “We’re trying to encourage her not to be afraid of mud and bugs,” I explained. Then, to my horror, when we were all about to sit down to dinner outside on a beautiful summer’s evening, Rose refused to sit down at the table for fear of the spider webs under the table. Our earthy boasting had backfired all too quickly. On our decking at home, Rose always tries to wipe away the cobwebs from our deck chairs with the hose, which, six months after moving in, we still haven’t worked out how to connect to the tap. I once went round the deck cleaning off the cobwebs, after winter was finally over. Now she wants to get rid of all cobwebs. I am trying hard not to pass on my fear of spiders. When I was 10 my dad took me out to our spider-infested garage in rural Inverness-shire to try to cure my arachnophobia. He made me pull up my sleeve and put a spider in the crook of my elbow and let it crawl up to my wrist. It was a stomach churning moment and one that has scarred me for life. Sometimes parents’ plans to ‘cure’ us of our fears can backfire. Children grow up with a natural curiosity for the natural world but it is us as parents, and lack of contact with the outdoors, that can put the fear into them. Biophobia is a fear of the natural world and it is an increasing problem all over the world for children growing up in cities. In Hong Kong, it was reported that children are afraid of trees. A teacher took her class of Hackney Londoners on a school field trip and reported that the kids were afraid of cowpats. It may sound funny but biophobia is a deadly serious problem. If a generation of children grow up afraid of nature and ecological issues, the effects on the environment could be devastating and far reaching. “If they are not going to connect with the earth as children, they never will. The early years are the most important to learn about nature,” said Paul Melsom, a horticulturalist who runs a programme with children in Hong Kong. Positive experience with nature early on leads to responsible environmental behaviour in later life. Conservation ecologists at the University of Illinois in America have also documented a disturbing trend, what they called “a fundamental cultural shift away from nature” and a “prejudice against nature.” The BBC recently reported that Dr Sean Brady’s team at Rockefeller University in New York had ‘unearthed’ new antibiotics found in soil samples, and contact with earth has many advantages. Immersing your hands in soil without gloves produces serotonin in the brain. Biophobia in children presents itself as anxiety and fear of any natural element, from soil to wind. Psychologists have noted that kids suffering from biophobia also have higher rates of general anxiety disorder and depression. What can we as parents do to combat this fear? There are a number of things we can do. Encouraging close contact with animals; showing our children that we feel enjoyment and pleasure in nature by going there together as a family; building a mud kitchen in your garden; there are even Forest schools. It shouldn’t be too tricky to try these things with young children because they have an innate biological tendency to bond with the natural world, called biophilia. It is only the frequency of contact and adults’ cultural behaviour towards nature that are determining factors. Developing empathy towards the natural environment is the first step, including with animals. Studies on the dreams of children younger than six reveal that as many as 90 percent are about animals. Aldo Leopold the American conservationist advocated giving children daily ‘green exercise’. In the 1930s he took his whole family out to his shack by the Wisconsin River. He observed that they would always come home with a spring in their step and recent evidence supports this: ‘green exercise’ improves mental well-being, self-esteem, problem solving skills, cooperation, self-discipline and reduces aggression. A mud kitchen is the perfect outdoor play equipment to combat biophobia. My neighbour Emma has built her own from found materials and painted it. It is a thing of beauty; filled with mud, shells, real kitchen equipment, and bowls for making mud pies, wormcakes and wriggly cookies. “Mud kitchens are a great way for children to express their creativity, develop sensory and mathematical skills and provides so many opportunities to engage and learn new language. The world we live in today is very clean and sanitized which is contributing to an increase in childhood allergies. Exposing children to mud and dirt builds their immune system so it is actually good for them too,” commented Emma Grover, who is an early years practitioner. We are just embarking on our own mud kitchen because I realise that although Rose sometimes helps out in the front garden, Mummy is in charge of the planting and she needs her own muddy space to be creative and enjoy it to the full. I won’t mind the mess unless she tries to take her muddy cakes into my kitchen. We as parents must combat our own fears to give children the freedom to love and explore nature. It’s good for them and it will benefit the environment in the long term. Written by Claire Daly Comments are closed.
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AuthorsVarious, MADE magazine Archives
October 2024
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