Why Children Don’t Live in “What’s Next”... And Why We Shouldn’t Ask Them To

Childhood moves at a different pace than adulthood. Not slower, not faster, simply truer. Children live in the immediacy of their senses, their bodies, their imagination. They’re not tracking the clock. They’re not thinking about what comes after lunch. They’re not mentally organizing their day.

They are here. Fully.

And when we understand this, everything about how we support them changes.

This is the heart of Together With Nature: returning to what children actually need, not what the system has taught us to expect of them.

Children Live in the Now (And We Keep Forgetting That)

Every day at In The Forest Learning, I see this truth in motion.

It’s 12:15 p.m. We’ve just returned from our forest walk. Leaves in hair, muddy hands, stories ready to spill out. The adults know the next step: lunch. It's what comes after the forest walk every single day.

But the children? They look up and ask:

“Is it snack time?”
“Is it home time?”

It’s not that they’re confused. It’s that they are fully anchored in the moment they’re in. Their awareness is with the tree they climbed, the friend they followed down the trail, the imaginary wolf they were protecting their group from.

They aren’t mentally scanning the “schedule.”
They’re not forecasting the next task.
They’re not living in the future.

Children, especially between the ages of 3–7, experience life as one continuous present.

It’s a beautiful way to exist. And it’s also a reminder:

Our expectations often belong to the adult world, not to theirs.

Why Over-Preparing Creates More Stress (Not Less)

Adults love preparation.
We rely on planners, reminders, frameworks, calendars, and cues.

But children? Their developing brains aren’t wired for conceptual, hypothetical, or time-based thinking. Not yet. The corpus callosum, the bridge between imaginative right-brain and analytical left-brain, is still knitting itself together.

This is why a “5-minute warning” means nothing to a 4-year-old.
It’s why explaining hypothetical situations “If the wind picks up, then we’ll go into the yurt” often spirals into confusion or worry.

You’ve probably heard:

“Is it windy now?”
“Is something wrong?”
“Are we going in? Why?”

From the child’s perspective, you’ve just introduced a possibility they cannot yet process. You’ve opened a loop they cannot close. Their nervous system doesn’t have the structure to hold future-thinking the way ours does.

So the preparation we think will help… actually disrupts their sense of safety and flow.

The Well of Imagination: Why Presence Matters

In Together With Nature, we often talk about the Well of Imagination, the deep reservoir young children dig through story, play, repetition, and relationship.

This well is their foundation:
before academics,
before abstraction,
before “time,”
before conceptual thinking.

When we insert too much future-oriented language, we pull them out of their well and into our adult mode of functioning. It’s like turning on a bright light when their eyes are still adjusting.

Their job is to stay immersed.
Our job is to protect that immersion.

Rhythm Helps. Over-Explaining Doesn’t.

Children don’t need detailed explanations.
They need predictable rhythms paired with a regulated adult.

Rhythm communicates safety without words:

• Outdoor play →

• Circle →

• Snack →

• Learning time →

• Lunch →

• Forest walk →

• Home.

Even if children can’t “track” the schedule, their bodies feel the flow. They don’t need us narrating each step. The rhythm does the teaching.

When we rely less on verbal cues, and more on grounded consistency, children can stay connected to what matters most: their experience.

So What Do Children Actually Need?

1. A Calm, Regulated Adult

Children don’t anchor to information. They anchor to us.
They feel our steadiness long before they understand our words.

2. A Simple, Grounded Orientation to the Present

Instead of offering hypotheticals, we offer what is:

• “Right now we’re eating.”

• “Right now we’re packing up.”

• “Right now it’s time to come inside.”

Clear. Simple. Contained.

3. Trust

When something changes, that is the moment you guide them.
Not 45 minutes beforehand.
Not with a big explanation.
Not with an adult version of preparation.

Children learn through experience in real time.

Letting Them Stay Children

When we stop narrating the future, something beautiful happens:

Children stay rooted in wonder.
Their nervous systems stay calmer.
Transitions become lighter.
Their imagination deepens.
Their trust in themselves grows.

We don’t pull them into our world, we step more consciously into theirs.

This is the work of Together With Nature: meeting children where they actually are,
not where the system expects them to be.

It is a quieter, slower, more relational way of being with them.
And it changes everything.

A Final Note for Parents & Educators

Before you offer the next cue, warning, or explanation, pause and ask:

• Is this supporting their development or satisfying my adult need for control?

• Am I honouring their present moment, or asking them to join mine?

• Does this help them, or simply help me feel prepared?

The more we align our expectations with the natural rhythms of childhood, the more ease we find in our days and the more spaciousness children find in their own unfolding.

Childhood isn’t meant to be managed.
It’s meant to be lived.

And when we honour that, we give children what the system so often takes from them:
a protected, vibrant, unhurried childhood.

Thanks for being here. If this resonated, I’d love to hear your reflections. Together, we’re building a more human, grounded, nature-rooted way of raising and teaching our children.

Stay connected to the now.

Together With Nature