50 Inspirational Quotes About Children and Nature

I love quotes about children and nature, don’t you?

They make me feel good, they inspire me to be a better mother, they help me think deeply about my values. Do you know what I love most about quotes though?

I’ll tell you shortly.

First, feel energised and motivated about getting your kids back in nature by checking out the list of gorgeous nature quotes below.

Children and nature quotes for parents

“Encourage your child to have muddy, grassy or sandy feet by the end of each day, that’s the childhood they deserve.”
~Penny Whitehouse

“Children more than ever, need opportunities to be in their bodies in the world – jumping rope, bicycling, stream hopping and fort building. It’s this engagement between limbs of the body and bones of the earth where true balance and centeredness emerge.” ~ David Sobel

“To raise a nature-bonded child is to raise a rebel, a dreamer, an innovator… someone who will walk their own verdant, winding path.” ~Nicolette Sowder

 

“Restore balance. Most kids have technology, school and extracurricular activities covered. It’s time to add a pinch of adventure, a sprinkle of sunshine and a big handful of  outdoor play.” ~ Penny Whitehouse

“Let the children be free; encourage them;
let them run outside when it is raining;
let them remove their shoes when they find a puddle of water;
and when the grass of the meadows is wet with dew,
let them run on it and trample it with their bare feet;
let them rest peacefully when a tree invites them to sleep beneath its shade;
let them shout and laugh when the sun wakes them in the morning.”
~ Maria Montessori

“Playing together in nature is as much about us as it is about the child. Children get to celebrate and be themselves, while we are reminded of our inner child – the essence of who we are.” Nicolette Sowder

“Our challenge isn’t so much to teach children about the natural world, but to find ways to sustain the instinctive connections they already carry.” ~ Terry Krautwurst

 

 

We must teach our children to smell the earth, to taste the rain, to touch the wind, to see things grow, to hear the sun rise and night fall – to care. ~ John Cleal

 

 

“Don’t wait until your child’s school understands how important green time is for their growing minds.  Today, leave the homework untouched, in favour of outdoor play and real-world learning.”
~Penny Whitehouse

“Children grow up hearing how broken the environment is, how broken beyond repair.  Plant strawberries together, make wild medicines, paint the sunrise. Show them proof that for every act of destruction, they can sow a seed, however small, of beauty.” ~Nicolette Sowder

 

“It’s time to return to childhood, to simplicity, to running and climbing and laughing in the sunshine, to experiencing happiness instead of being trained for a lifetime of happiness. It’s time to let children be children again. .” ~ LR KNOST

“If we want children to flourish, to become truly empowered, then let us allow them to love the earth before we ask them to save it. Perhaps this is what Thoreau had in mind when he said, “the more slowly trees grow at first, the sounder they are at the core, and I think the same is true of human beings.” ~David Sobel

“When children play in natural spaces, they’re far more likely to invent their own games than in more structured settings – a key factor in becoming self-directed and inventive adults later in life” ~Richard Louv

 

 

“Encourage your kids to look for
nature everywhere you go.
It’s the weed breaking through the pavement,
It’s the leaves forming small
clumps along the side of the road.
It’s the sky at any given time
of the day or night.
It’s the wind doing what it
Likes to your hair.
Look around, it won’t take long to find it.”
~Penny Whitehouse

“Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair. ~Kahli Gran

“The ultimate gift we can give the world is to grow our tiny humans into adult humans who are independent thinkers, compassionate doers, conscious questioners, radical innovators, and passionate peacemakers. Our world doesn’t need more adults who blindly serve the powerful because they’ve been trained to obey authority without question. Our world needs more adults who question and challenge and hold the powerful accountable.”
~ L.R. Knost

“Every child needs a parent, grandparent or friend who will say let’s go it’s time for an adventure.” ~Penny Whitehouse

“What do parents owe their young that is more important than a warm and trusting connection to the Earth…?” ~ Theodore Roszak

Sad child?
Nature.
Cranky child?
Nature.
Bored child?
Nature.
You’re welcome
~Penny Whitehouse

“As a child, one has that magical capacity to move among the many eras of the earth; to see the land as an animal does; to experience the sky from the perspective of a flower or a bee; to feel the earth quiver and breathe beneath us; to know a hundred different smells of mud and listen unselfconsciously to the soughing of the trees.”  ~Valerie Andrews

“The Mud will wash off but the memories will last a lifetime” ~Author unknown

Our children are safer than ever, yet so many parents struggle with fear today. Fear of injury, strangers, kidnappers, lawsuits, nature. Fear that all our children will fall behind if they don’t have as many enriching activities as the next kid. But if we want our children to become confident, capable and resilient adults, we need to give them space and time to play and explore freely outside. We need to let go of the fear and realize that it’s still possible to give them a childhood akin to our own.” ~Linda Akeson McGurk

‘We don’t inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.”
~Unknown

I sincerely believe that for the child, and for the parent seeking to guide him, it is not half so important to know as to feel when introducing a young child to the natural world. If facts are the seeds that later produce knowledge and wisdom, then the emotions and the impressions of the senses are the fertile soil in which the seeds must grow. The years of early childhood are the time to prepare the soil.” ~Rachel Carson

“Nature is a tool to get children to experience not just the wider world, but themselves.” ~ Stephen Moss

 

“Without continuous hands-on experience, it is impossible for children to acquire a deep intuitive understanding of the natural world that is the foundation of sustainable development. ….A critical aspect of the present-day crisis in education is that children are becoming separated from daily experience of the natural world, especially in larger cities.” ~ Robin C. Moore and Herb H. Wong

“They’re not just playing in nature, they are: Learning, creating, sensing, believing, relaxing, exploring, observing, wondering, connecting, discovering, appreciating, understanding, experimenting…”~ Penny Whitehouse

“Teaching children about the natural world should be treated as one of the most important events in their lives.” ~Thomas Berry

“Children are born with a sense of wonder and an affinity for nature. Properly cultivated, these values can mature into ecological literacy, and eventually into sustainable patterns of living.” ~Zenobia Barlow

“Teach children to be kind to everything that lives.” ~Unknown

“Let Nature be your teacher.” ~ William Wordsworth

“When little people are scared of something in nature, it’s our job to hold their hand and show them its beauty and purpose.” ~Penny Whitehouse

 

“It’s a wondrous thing how the wild calms a child.”  Unknown

“If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder … he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement, and mystery of the world we live in.” ~ Rachel Carson

“Let children walk with Nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life.” ~ John Muir

“Don’t just tell your children about the world, show them.” ~Penny Whitehouse

Quotes about children, nature and education

“The best education does not happen at a desk, but rather engaged in everyday living – hands on, exploring, in active relationship with life.” ~ Vince Gowman

“Anything you teach in an indoor classroom can be taught outdoors, often in ways that are more enjoyable for children.” ~ Cathy James

“Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books.” ~John Lubbock

“It is vital that when educating our children’s brains we do not neglect to educate their hearts by nurturing their compassionate nature.” ~  Dalai Lama

“Looking back, I realize that nurturing curiosity and the instinct to seek solutions are perhaps the most important contributions education can make.” ~Paul Berg

“An environmental-based education movement—at all levels of education—will help students realize that school isn’t supposed to be a polite form of incarceration but a portal to the wider world.” ~ Richard Louv

“Teaching is not about answering questions but about raising questions – opening doors for them in places they could not imagine.” ~Yawar Baig

Other lovely quotes about children and nature

“When life gives you rain jump in muddy puddles.”~ Unknwown

“Children the world over have a right to a childhood filled with beauty, joy, adventure, and companionship. They will grow toward ecological literacy if the soil they are nurtured in is rich with experience, love, and good examples.”~Alan Dyer

“As children observe, reflect, record, and share nature’s patterns and rhythms, they are participating in a process that promotes scientific and ecological awareness, problem solving, and creativity.” ~Deb Matthews Hensley

“Let children walk with Nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life. ~John Muir

“Passion is lifted from the earth itself by the muddy hands of the young; it travels along grass-stained sleeves to the heart. If we are going to save environmentalism and the environment, we must also save an endangered indicator species: the child in nature.”~ Richard Louv

“If we want our children to move mountains, we first have to let them get out of their chairs.” ~Nicolette Sowder

“Close observation of children at play suggests that they find out about the world in the same way as scientists find out about new phenonoma and test new ideas…during this exploration, all the senses are used to observe and draw conclusions about objects and events through simple, scientific investigations.” ~ Judith Roden

There is a way that nature speaks, that land speaks. Most of the time we are simply not patient enough, quiet enough, to pay attention to the story. ~Linda Hogan

“Children have a natural affinity towards nature. Dirt, water, plants, and small animals attract and hold children’s attention for hours, days, even a lifetime.”~Robin C. Moore and Herb H Wong

“Nature is a tool to get children to experience not just the wider world, but themselves.” ~ Stephen Moss

“A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful, is dimmed and even lost  before we reach adulthood.” ~Rachel Carson

“Children are born naturalists. They explore the world with all of their senses, experiment in the environment, and communicate their discoveries to those around them.” ~The Audubon Nature Preschool

Why are quotes so great?

Why do I regularly seek out nature quotes, or write my own when I can’t find any that relate specifically to me as a busy mother?

Because, they keep me accountable and they help me get outside with my children.

Words are meaningful and can help as act. Reading quotes about children and nature is one simple prompt that encourages me to give my children the childhood they deserve.

Have I missed an important quote about children and nature?  Add it in the comments below.