By Jérémie Lanche, FranceInfo – Radio France
Whether it rains, snows, winds (or all three), the children spend their days outside in these Swiss crèches in the forest. And everyone says it’s great.
Putting your child outside. All day long. All year round and in all weathers. It’s not child abuse, it’s just a new kind of childcare in Switzerland. For the past three years, in Geneva, young parents have been able to enrol their children in the eco-crèche ” Awakening in the forest “. Here, we play and learn outside. As the seasons go by. And with what nature provides.
You have to imagine a large meadow. A wooden agora where the children meet by the fire. Picnic tables. A large trailer where you can take a nap. And trees. Trees everywhere. Don’t look for plastic toys, here we prefer to climb hardwoods. This is the case of Alexis, who practices under the admiring gaze of the socio-educational assistant Anouk Pittet. “It’s great, Alexis is very good at climbing trees and he initiates the other children. It’s really a question of letting go and trusting. When you’re an adult and you see that the child is handling it well, you don’t add stress, you encourage them. It’s not recklessness, it’s trust!”
Living outdoors, to encourage development…
That doesn’t mean that children are left to their own devices. With an average of one caregiver for every three children, adults are omnipresent. More probably than in other structures. The eco-crèche is one of the public crèches in the city of Geneva. It is not reserved for the wealthiest parents. On average, it welcomes about thirty children each year. But never more than 12 at the same time. Switzerland is not known for having a particularly warm climate at this time of year, but it is not a problem for children playing with their scarves and hats. Each season has its own activities. In winter, snowball battles. Mushroom picking in autumn. In the summer, walking along the river and discovering the beehives on the edge of the woods.
In the forest, you can even do your homework. Charles de Planta is in charge of the crèche: “Last year a little girl, barely five years old, already had a maths exam, she was in tears because she hadn’t been able to study. We spent the morning giving each other pebbles from hand to hand, without even realizing she was adding and subtracting. The next day she had her exam and was very happy.”
“It’s up to us adults to see what we propose and how we propose it. We can work on anything in the forest.” The head of a Swiss forest crèche in franceinfo.
Educators assure it: in nature, children develop better and faster. An observation shared by Nathalie, the mother of little Anita. “My apprehension was to know how she was going to manage because she is a little clumsy, like her father! It wasn’t the cold or the bad weather that I feared, but rather that she would hurt herself. But in fact, very quickly, her way of moving has changed since she’s been at the eco-crèche. She opened up.”
The eco-crèche is a victim of its own success. With a waiting list as long as an arm. A second structure opened this summer in Geneva. A school in the forest should also open this year.
