5 Ways to Get Parent Buy-In
Ideally, every parent or guardian would be thrilled to have their child spend time in the great outdoors. Most parents do strongly support outdoor education and connection to nature, but it’s possible you will encounter a few resistant folks who need more persuading than others. Here’s how to convince the holdouts to get on board.
1) Invite them to join you
Some things just have to be seen to be believed. I have yet to meet a parent who has watched their child run, climb, laugh, build, and create in nature and then said, “This is a bad idea, you should stop doing this.”
The parents themselves may have fears, discomforts, or negative associations with nature/hiking/camping/dirt, so giving them a new set of positive experiences to associate with the great outdoors can go a long way towards changing their perceptions and beliefs.
2) Share pictures and videos
Even if parents can’t make it to the actual forest with you, you can make them feel like they are there by sharing images and videos from your outings. The smiles on the kid’s faces will tell them everything they need to know, and seeing what actually goes on during an outdoor education lesson will help assuage any concerns they might have about what they assume is happening. A simple Google Photos account shared with all the families will get the job done, or, if you’re feeling extra fancy, you could send out email blasts or publish blog posts.
3) Show them you have a plan
When parents see that your time in nature is purposeful and thoughtful, they’re more likely to see it as a continuation of your core academic program rather than a distraction or something that is taking away from class time. If you’re using a lesson plan or following some sort of scope and sequence, consider sharing these documents with parents so they get another glimpse into your thought process and see the tremendously rich and robust learning that is happening in the forest.
4) Integrate traditional academics into your outdoor time
A common misconception is that nature time is a completely separate entity from “academic time,” and the two are mutually exclusive. I am here to tell you that this is most definitely not the case! Nature time is academic time. When children play outdoors, they are applying and synthesizing the facts and skills they learn in the classroom during studies of traditional subjects like math, reading, and social studies.
Take fort building, for example: to successfully build a fort, children have to collect, sort, and measure sticks (math), determine how to make their structure stable (physics), collaborate with others (social skills), and use design thinking to iterate and solve problems (STEM). Nature play is a time for children to experiment with newly acquired information and to expand and build upon it so their understanding becomes richer and deeper than it ever could by just sitting at a desk.
If this argument is not compelling enough, though, you can always get more explicit and teach a math lesson or writing lesson outdoors. My ebook, Teaching Outside [LINK], has 20 standards-aligned activities you can start using right away.
5) Share the research
If all other attempts to appeal to parents’ hearts and minds have failed, try presenting them with some cold, hard facts. It’s hard to argue with peer-reviewed research and scientific studies [LINK] concluding that children who spend time in nature are happier, more confident, more resilient, and more caring, kind, and compassionate young people. Here are a few good places to start:
– National Environmental Education Foundation: The Benefits of Environmental Education