Creating Moments of Wonder and Awe with Your Child by Anita Evans

A dad enjoys seeing the awe and wonder of his daughter during a wildflower hike in the San Juan Mountains.

​If you close your eyes and think back on your childhood, what moments stand out the most?
My most treasured childhood memories were made in the woods at the end of the block where I lived. I wandered there all summer long—sometimes by myself, sometimes with a friend or two. I marveled whenever I found a red-bellied salamander beneath a rotting log. Wild grapevines twisted around the tree trunks, inviting us to swing from vine to vine until our arms were too tired to hold on.

One summer, my best friend and I discovered half of an old wooden barrel. We rolled it nearly half a mile back to my house, where it first became our backyard amusement park as we tumbled downhill inside it. Later, we transformed it into an algae-filled mini pond that became a nursery for the tadpoles we had caught. Every day we watched in amazement as tiny legs appeared, tails slowly disappeared, and each tadpole transformed into a beautiful green frog. It never ceased to fill us with wonder.

I'm sure your childhood was filled with moments like these, too.

Although we live in a different world today, our need to experience wonder hasn't changed. Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods and, more recently, Children and Nature: Making Connections, reminds us that children have an innate need to connect with the natural world. His work explores practical ways to help young people experience the awe and curiosity that are increasingly being crowded out by our dependence on screens and digital devices.

If you're not comfortable letting your child wander the neighborhood as many of us once did, there are still endless opportunities—often right in your own backyard. Hand your child a shovel and let them discover what's beneath the soil. Help them build miniature irrigation canals and see whether the water reaches the other end. Build a fort from sticks, plant a flower garden, search for worms after a summer rain, or simply run through the sprinkler together. Wonder doesn't require a national park—it simply requires curiosity.

Another author worth exploring is Dacher Keltner, whose book Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life examines awe as one of our most powerful—and often overlooked—human emotions. He describes eight sources of awe, including nature, music, art, spirituality, moral beauty, shared experiences, life and death, and moments of sudden insight that change the way we see the world. Nature often becomes the perfect place where many of these experiences come together.

Here on Colorado's Western Slope, opportunities for wonder surround us. Wander through our soul-filling red rock canyons. Sit quietly beneath a ponderosa pine, smell its fragrant bark, and let its needles slip through your fingers. Discover treasures along the trail—a feather, a snail shell, an oddly shaped rock, or the perfectly round holes left by a woodpecker in a dead tree.

Ask questions together.
What bird left this feather behind? How did a snail shell end up in the middle of a forest trail? What stories could this old tree snag tell? Who made those holes in its bark? Why is that beetle lying in the driveway? Does moss really grow only on the north side of trees? How do tadpoles know when it's time to grow legs?

Children don't need us to have all the answers. They simply need adults who are willing to wonder alongside them.

Before school begins again, I challenge you to spend just one day outside with your child searching for moments of wonder and awe. Those simple experiences may seem ordinary today, but years from now they may become the memories your children treasure most—just as my afternoons in the woods have become some of the greatest gifts of my own childhood.
Go outside. Slow down. Ask questions. Wonder together.

​Those moments may last only an afternoon, but the memories—and the love of nature they inspire—can last a lifetime.