the kids aren’t cooked, you just need to hang out with them in the woods.
I mean you meet these young people trapped in their classrooms or nuclear families in paved over neighborhoods, you are going to see them at the lowest points of forced routine, atomization, gutted autonomy, academic stress, you are going to see them at their worst. you’re going to see addictive behavior. bad social skills. lashing out. uncreativity. laziness and distraction. they do look totally cooked.
you need to take them into the woods
I do outdoor education work, and within minutes of any elementary to middle schooler getting free permission to mess around with their friends in a clearing, they’re curious and driven again. they’re asking each other questions and yeeting pinecones at trees (science) and using their bodies. sometimes for evil. as is developmentally right. they want to know the names of birds! they want to teach someone pokemon! they want to build stuff and kick stuff and tackle each other and you into the snow!
they’re basically fucking institutionalized for 90% of their lives but their spirits are alive. you need to take them into the woods you need to treat them like animals with powerful inner lives and they’ll show you they are.
and you, if you feel like you’re relating too much, remember that you can also take YOURSELF to the woods
