Mental illness has never been more common than it is today. One of the most alarming things about this is that it’s not just adults suffering from it, young people are too. Some psychiatrists are reluctant to prescribe medication designed to treat mental illness to children, complicating their recoveries. This post’s intention is to shed light on one of the most promising forms of treatment available to young people: Nature therapy. Nature therapy has been shown to help people recover from a variety of different mental afflictions and speed up wound recovery time. Keep reading to find out more about it.

Working Through Problems

If you are the parent of a child who’s experiencing mental illness, exposure to nature can help them to work through their problems. Accompanying them on trips to forests and parks can also give them an opportunity to talk to you. The experts from Trails Carolina have been advocating for nature-based therapies for some time and now mental health professionals and doctors are starting to back them up, their studies conclusively showing that nature can help children and teenagers with their problems. It is very important if you are the parent of a young person that you do not force them into nature therapy. It’s not a style of treatment that’s suitable for everybody. Some people do not like it. Forcing a child to spend time in nature will just make them hate it.

Learning New Things

Getting out into forests, woodland, and national parks can be a great way for young people to learn new things, particularly bushcraft. A lot of children today spend all of their time sitting in front of computers and television screens. Getting your kids outdoors could be the solution to their problems if they are addicted to their devices, as this could be the catalyst for their problems. Make sure that you enlist the help of a professional if you’ve no knowledge of bushcraft yourself. There are survival courses you can enrol your children in.

Shifting Their Focus

Your children outdoors can be an effective way to convince them to shift their focus away from technology and things that are causing them pain and negative emotions to more positive things. As mentioned in the previous section, you can introduce your children to bushcraft. Bushcraft is an effective way to get them away from their screens and devices and help to improve their mental health. Taking your children outdoors into woodland and forests can also be a great way to get them to forget about things that are going on in their personal lives, such as at school or in relationships with other children.

Making Some Friends

Nature has also been shown to help children make friends. This is especially true if you introduce your children to bushcraft and enrol them in a bushcraft course. On a bushcraft course, there will be a lot of other children there with them. These children can then become their friends. It is important to note that you should not force your child onto a bushcraft course if they do not want to go on one. Forcing your child to try bushcraft will irritate them and they’ll be disengaged and disinterested the entire time they are there, making the experience unpleasant for those they’re with.

Talking About Issues

When you are out in nature with your child, they might be more comfortable talking to you about their problems. It’s very important to make clear, though:  Under no circumstances should you force your child into talking about their problems with you. If you try to question them and they are not ready to talk, they’re likely to be evasive and uncooperative. Prod your child and ask gently, but do not force them to engage. If they shut down and do not want to talk, let it be.

Finding Safe Spaces

Finally, going out in nature can be a great way for your child to find safe spaces for themselves. Everybody needs somewhere in the world where they can escape to. If your child does not have any such place, nature therapy will help them to find places that they feel comfortable in and that they can escape to when they feel as though things are becoming difficult for them. Make sure that you take your child to lots of different places so that they can find a safe space.

Nature therapy can help children to move on from their problems and also deal with them more healthily. Make sure that you do not force your child into nature therapy. Either they take to it or they don’t. Give them the choice to opt in or opt out.