Growing Autonomy: How Educators Can Use Nature to nurture, foster and empower

I am thrilled to welcome Agata from @the_treasure_outdoors to this blog article! With her passion for children’s voices and practical experience in early childhood education, she’ll be sharing her nature insights to inspire you to foster real agency outdoors. 

Introduction

Agency is such a fancy term lately, isn’t it? So many use it when talking about children’s development, care or education. I often see social media posts empowering others to give children agency. There is something you need to know, though: children already have agency. We all do. It does not have to be given to someone or anyone. Agency simply means we as human beings are social actors, who influence the environment around us. We: educators, teachers or youth workers, gatekeepers of children’s rights, have an obligation to create opportunities for children to exercise their own agency. You will surely ask how? By promoting autonomy!

Autonomy

Autonomy has always played a central role in pedagogy. You can recognize it in most known theories and models, such as those of Piaget, Vygotsky, Erikson, etc. It plays an important role in holistic development really: identity development, confidence, self-esteem, motivation, self-image, critical thinking, power of mind over body, etc. (Brightwheel, 2025). Promoting autonomy is an absolute must in child-rights oriented pedagogical approach as it empowers children and youth. 

Task: Think about your own practice: How are you fostering autonomy of children in your care?

There are quite a lot of tips on fostering autonomy to be found online. We put together a few most important points to consider as basis:

-Letting children be independent, trust in their capabilities

-Creating opportunities in taking on tasks and responsibilities (even if it means slowing you down!)

-Offering choices-two is always better than one!

-Supporting emotional regulation in a wide sense- from talking about how independence and autonomy makes us feel to tackling feelings of disappointment and frustration.

It sounds completely reasonable, doesn't it? And yet we adults often put the autonomy brakes on in so many situations. We were reflecting on our own autonomy fail moments:

Marta said: “I struggle with letting my own children walk around without warm jackets in cold weather. I just see the chain of reaction: my child getting a cold easier and spreading the germs to all other family members resulting in a collective seasonal cold, bad mood and being stuck at home.” 

Task for you: What do you struggle with in fostering autonomy?

How outdoor exploration embodies autonomy?

Magda Gerber once said: “Let the child be the scriptwriter, the director and the actor in his own play.”

Being outdoors, especially in unstructured play allows children to be their own directors of their actions and learning, which leads us to a forest school concept.

The Forest School approach became highly popular in the UK over the recent years, whose aim is to allow children long term opportunities in a natural outdoor environment. Sessions should be child led and focused on hands-on, challenging activities that support children’s holistic development and the development of essential skills. 

The outdoor environment is less structured than indoor classrooms allowing children to determine their own learning goals and objectives. In Forest School a child should be able to choose what to create and how they would like to spend their designated forest school time. They could just watch a snail or climb a tree or create something of their choice from natural resources.

However many argue that adults are introducing too many rules and this instructed play becomes adult led focused on curriculum rather than unstructured play in which children are allowed to invent their own games and negotiate their own rules. 

For example, even simple ‘I spy’ lists that encourage children to find particular items are directed by adults. Instead we could let the children decide what to look for and what is ‘interesting’ to them with guidance of where to search, what is safe to pick to foster pure curiosity and independent observation. 

Task for you: How does your outdoor play look? Is it curriculum based? Are children allowed to make their own decisions and choices? 

How nature models independence and interdependence?

Nature environment offers free open ended materials like sticks, stones, leaves, acorns, pine cones, conkers, water, mud etc which are ideal for child led play. 

If there are no directions on how to use them, children often automatically know what to do with them. A stick often becomes a sword or a magic wand; a rock can become a food or treasure etc. Children choose what to do with these resources all based on their own curiosity and interests. This freedom of choice is the core of autonomy. 

A natural environment allows children to manage their risks and at the same time support children in building self confidence and competence. There are many opportunities that are provided by nature like climbing trees, using sticks, lifting logs, etc.

Here are few of our favourite activities that you can do now in your outdoor provision to allow children’s autonomy outdoors: 

• Create an obstacle course using natural resources like logs, branches; let the children decide how to set it up and and the challenge level 

• Build a den - let children use long sticks to create a den of their choice, let them select their best open ended materials 

• Mud Kitchen - set up a basic mud kitchen using a piece of plank or a log and used/second hand utensils like pots and pans, mixing tools, spatulas, cups and plates; encourage children to go on a nature hunt to use their finds as ingredients (talk about what is safe to pick and use in their cooking) 

Task for you: Can children freely decide how to use resources in your outdoor provision? Do you limit the length of the sticks they can use or the size of a log they can pick? 

Do you crave more concrete tips? For more about Nature Play and Mud Kitchen ideas visit us on Instagram @the_treasure_outdoors.

Want to understand whether your current practice truly empowers children’s autonomy and agency? I developed the Agency and Participation Quiz and a short Checklist to support you with that. You can see where you stand and get concrete next steps for supporting children’s agency. Follow this LINK and get yours today. 

Literature:

Brightwheel (2025) Understanding autonomy in child development, Retrieved from https://mybrightwheel.com/blog/autonomy-child-development 

Richard Louv ‘Last Child on the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder 

Tonje M Molyneux, Megan Zeni, Eva Oberle (2022) Choose Your Own Adventure: Promoting Social and Emotional Development Through Outdoor Learning,Retrieved from https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9579527/

Paul E Starling (2011) An Investigation of Unstructured Play in Nature and its Effect on Children' s Self-Efficacy, Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267303363_An_Investigation_of_Unstructured_Play_in_Nature_and_its_Effect_on_Children'_s_Self-Efficacy