When they walk along our road, or round the park or through the woods – my children always find a stick to carry with them.
Depending on its length, and size and straightness, a stick can be many things…
It can be a spoon for stirring a witch’s brew or mud pie mixture simmering away in a tree stump cauldron.
It can be a skewer for toasting leaf ‘marshmallows’ round a campfire inside a willow wigwam den.
It can be a fairy wand for weaving a magic spell or a giant pencil for learning how to spell in the soil or the sand.
It can be a divining rod for showing us which path leads to adventure.
More often than not it is a mallet for tapping out a tune on railings, tree trunks and lamp-posts, but never, ever cars.
Knowing that little ears will be deaf to the word ‘don’t’, I am always careful to teach good stickmanship with positive instructions:
“Point it away from you.”
“Walk with the stick.”
“Put the stick down while you climb that tree.”
A stick may have become parted from its tree forever but in a child’s hand it lives again.
It’s never ‘time to go home’ but ‘time to find a good stick for the journey’.
Little Wild Tales 
Wonderful! Your little family make me smile. Great advice too for stick people!
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You’re too kind, Ashley! Glad they made you smile.
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This is one of the nices, intelligent posts I have read. In case you are tempted (but too polite) to ask who do you think you are to make such a judgment – I have been invited to Women of the Year a few times and later helped to raise the money for the blind, all on the strength of my writing ‘How to bring up children successfully’. The way you teach your children how and when to use a stick is a template of perfection. You have my admiration. Your two delightful children are very lucky indeed.
Joanna
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Thank you Joanna, your kind comments are overwhelming.
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What wise words! So much added fun to be had with a stick on a walk, however dreary the weather!
The stick collection in the garden must be growing – if not literally!
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Thank you Ruth, funnily enough the sticks mysteriously disappear once they get to our back garden.
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Loved that uplifting piece. Beautifully written, gorgeous photos (and no sign of either little one using their stick to give the other a friendly biff – so well behaved!).
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Thank you Eddie, I can’t truthfully say that they are always so well behaved!
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