When I was growing up, a garden was plants - and almost entirely food at that, other than the border of marigolds that were supposed to keep the rabbits out and the weeds we grudgingly picked. I've been watching my own daughters interact with our gardens this summer and have been amazed at their independent curiosity and creativity. In the process I've learned, right along with them, that a garden is much, much more than plants.

Our garden is a sanctuary. Birds visit our pond for refreshment during hot summer days. Butterflies visit our flowers to fulfill their biological destiny of spreading pollen. Bugs, slugs and worms work their own magic, whether it be good or evil. While my daughters love watching the plants - picking the flowers and food - they have spent countless hours scavenging for other life forms.

They look under rocks to find beetles and slugs.


They gleefully hold their prized (temporary) prisoners (in this case, slugs - one of which fell off my daughter’s hand and almost down the front of my shirt. Boy, did they get a laugh out of my shriek of fear.)



They’ve also taken a "dead zone” of our beds and turned it into a fairy village. I came up with the idea, but they've taken it far beyond what I imagined. It's been a space hidden in shade behind their play house, in poor soil that simply nothing wants to live in - no matter how hard we try. This year I threw up my hands and decided to incorporate natural material we’d gathered from hiking to create an inviting space for fairies. Even if the fairies don't show up, they've drawn faces on rocks to populate the village with little stone citizens.


It has become a very natural (and more imaginative) version of Legos. And, we keep adding to it with new twigs and bark and rocks and such that we find on our very regular nature hikes.


This new perspective of gardening beyond plants has been extraordinary - one of many moments in my children's lives that they have been my teachers. I feel like as we age we get these very clear, focused lenses on life, like looking through a microscope or binoculars. We get so used to seeing life in this way, we forget the grand landscape that exists outside our restricted view. But, life is diversity and every single moment and molecule is tied to so many others. We miss everything by focusing on a simple something.

I don't see our garden as simply plants anymore. Now, I see everything - the food, the flowers, the bugs, the slugs, the ant colonies, the dirt, the rocks, the intentional architecture, the natural chaos - an entire planetary microcosm.

You can read more from Janelle at Healthy Child Healthy World, follow her on Twitter at @greenandhealthy, and find her on Facebook.

My toddler has a wooden train set with many pieces - tracks, tunnels, magnetic trains. This morning, he dragged the little box down to the carpet and invited me to “play trains.” As we began to clip the piece together, I noticed myself thinking ahead. What is the best way to build the train so that we use all the tracks and it clips in a neat circle? Will we finish it before I need to leave for work in 30 minutes?

But he was only enjoying the experience of moving the tracks around. He took several minutes to consider where he wanted to place one set of tracks, not even thinking about how it would look when he was done. As I watched the train set evolve, I felt some worry about how it was going in two directions like long snake rather than a nice, even circle. How would the train drive around these tracks?

He yelled when I went to move some tracks, explaining to him that they would work better in another direction. “No, this way!” he insisted.

The train never came together before I left for work. It was a long, strangely shaped set of tracks, leading to nowhere. But, he didn’t care. He gleefully drove the trains over the tracks and crashed them into a pile when the track ended. “Bang!” he exclaimed.

As I was driving to work, I thought about the beauty of living this way. What if I just enjoyed myself in whatever I was doing without being so concerned about whether I was doing it “right” or if it would end up the way I intended?

For my son, the end result was playful and fun. He made a creative mess out of his trains and completely enjoyed the 20 minutes of building the tracks.

As adults, we live in a culture that demands that we think ahead, plan every moment and make sure we are meeting expectations (ours and those of everyone around us). And often we do need to focus and be productive. But as parents, we have these small little teachers to remind us to relax and enjoy the journey too. They certainly enjoy us more when we do.

What can you enjoy today without worrying about the outcome?

Does your young child enjoy making up elaborate tales about what did (or did not) happen? Do you ever find your toddler “reading” a book to himself, remembering words or making up his own? Do your kids want to hear the same family stories over and over and over?

Do you ever feel concerned that they are “living in a dreamland” or not learning to tell the “truth”?

The good news is: They are normal! Storytelling is a natural part of our human experience. Young children learn from connecting with us through storytelling, both from reading and verbally. And they don’t always know how to distinguish a “true” story from one that is “made up.”

When your children tell you stories, listen for the truth in their words, even when some of the story is not “true.” They are sharing with you their desires, experiences and interpretations. There is so much to learn from the way they playfully interact with the world!

As early human beings, it was our verbal abilities and storytelling (creating of culture) that distinguished us from other species. We told stories to create a sense of belonging, to define meaning and to preserve our shared values.

I recently read a lovely essay written by a mother who began reading to her daughter as a newborn. She was delighted to discover that this ritual of reading and re-reading stories gives her daughter the confidence to tell her own stories. "Her six-year-old voice transforms into a seasoned storyteller, intoning mystery, suspense, humor, even love, as she reads aloud," Leslie Constans wrote.

Who are the little storytellers in your home? Tell us about what you are doing to support them in learning this important skill.