April Flowers Bring May Showers

In addition, our world seems to be in a topsy-turvy twirl at the moment. Even the weather seems confused. For many years it was "April showers bring May flowers." This year it seems as though the April daffodils and tulips have brought the ongoing May showers. Gratefully through all of this, spring has prevailed and the world in New England is greening up. From day to day the grass grows greener and the trees leaf out. Just last week I could see my neighbor sitting in her yard enjoying the warmth of the morning sun. Yesterday she was hidden behind a screen of lilac blossoms and the fully leafed out apple tree between us.

Even though I know it's coming, it surprises me every year — the shock; the amazement; the incredible, unbelievable miracle of unseen growing; the unimaginable magnitude of the leaves, which appear in just a few days. A monumental amount of matter is lifted up onto the tree branches. Each spring I am curious about how much leaf matter bursts forth from the hard, dark skeleton of winter. This year my curiosity got the best of me; I went to Google. One maple tree 3' in diameter produces an estimated 100,000 leaves each year. One acre of mature, hardwood forest produces an estimated 2 tons of leaf matter — 4,000 pounds of leaves. Isn't the world a miraculous place to be!

Your child may also be curious and ask, "Where do all the leaves come from?" "Aha," you say to yourself, "here is my chance to teach my child." You may be tempted to explain that freezing and thawing cause the sap to rise, a cell forms and then divides and divides, grows bigger as it prepares itself for photosynthesis. This way of looking at the world can be abstract for the young child who lives in the world of imagination. It may prematurely call upon forces of thinking while they are still living in a dreamy world of pictures and stories.

Let's slow down and take a different approach. Isn't it the warmth of the sun, the spring rains, and the nutrients in the soil that make the leaves? You may say yes, but how do you explain this unseen process to your child? Every day your child sees you doing work and producing lunch, clean laundry, or a mowed lawn. Who then are the workers who produce the leaves?

As adults we can perhaps imagine that these unseen workers are forces, energies of warmth, and water, and physical matter, which work together. One picture that you can offer to your child is to give names to these forces and energies. For example, the energies that are at work in the soil can be called gnomes — beings who are busy tunneling in the soil, carrying the spring broth made by the water fairies to the roots. Then the sun fairies dance on the earth until the tree wakes up, the water fairies carry the broth to the top of the tree, and the leaves begin to grow.

These beings have been named and honored in many countries for centuries. Most children today readily live into the reality of these beings. The children delight in imagining a little fellow with a big head, a red pointed cap, and a pick to move the rocks away from the roots or a flower fairy with a paint brush putting just the right color of yellow on the daffodils. Just as you feel at home with the facts, most children feel at home with the understanding that it is "the Little People" that make it happen. Children see these workers being busy helping to grow our food and make the world beautiful; they have a picture of how things happen in nature. Later in middle school and high school they will learn a more scientific explanation for these phenomena, but underneath will be the richness of images that they drank in as young children.

Even if you lean towards the factual, the scientific, you may resonate with these ideas but then wonder, "How can I change the way I think and then respond to my child?"

How to Get on the Same Page as Your Child

• Take walks in parks and forests, and suspend the scientific facts you know. Both when you're with your child and when alone, try to imagine the forces, the beings that have worked together to make spring happen.
• Find some children's books such as The Tomten and the Fox, The Root Children, The Gnome's Rosette to share with your children.
• Gradually, as you live into this world of what can be called "the world of elemental beings" — of gnomes, faires, sylphs, and more — you can begin to make up your own stories as responses to your child’s questions. For example, "Who makes the thunder?" "The rain fairies want to let us know that they are on their way to water the carrot seeds we planted yesterday. So, they got out their big drums and are drumming away."
• Once you get started down this path, your child may fill in the details for you.
• Find a little spot to build a gnome house; then let your imagination be free — acorn caps for porridge bowls, tiny sticks for spoons, dandelion fluff for mattresses.
• If at any moment your child asks a question and you are not certain how to respond or don't want to give a scientific explanation, you can always say, "I wonder!" Not only does this get you off the hook at the moment, it offers the child the opportunity to think for him/herself about what is happening. This statement encourages creative thinking on the child's part.
• If perchance you have one of those children who demand a scientific or factual answer and is satisfied with nothing less, and "I wonder" doesn’t work, you can always explain and then say, "But Daddy believes that the gnomes are busy helping as well."
• During your walks you might even add, "Thank you, gnomes and fairies for the green umbrella overhead that gives us shade."

Have fun! Enjoy your springtime adventures!