Teaching Children the Craft: Weather Witchery & the Environment

In this ongoing series, I share insights and make proposals regarding teaching children the Craft. My hope is that you, the readers, will join me by using the comments section. Please make comments, ask questions, and engage in dialogue with me and each other. My hope is that fruitful communication will benefit us all in the form of a Craft curriculum for kids of Witches everywhere.

Rowan is now profoundly aware of the weather around him and now has names for some of the more common things relating to weather: sun, clouds, wind, rain, fog, hot, cold, and wet, among others.

Given that he loves water and the cold (just watch the boy jump in the ocean, over and over regardless that his lip is quivering and his legs are icicles!), I am wagering that winter will be a fun time around here, playing in the newly discovered snow (he has never seen it in person before).

First pumpkin carving

As I teach Rowan about the natural world, I am also sharing with him the ways that humans and Witches can change the natural world (for good or ill). Litter is a bad thing, but picking it up changes the destruction someone else did. As a conscientious human and Witchlet, I am teaching him to leave the environment better than he left it. He is already super eager to help. And that is the precise attitude a budding Witch should have!

Water baby

But Witches also can have some control over things like weather. And while it is tempting to change it to suit our whims- we should only do so when it won't be a greater hardship. For example, in Oakland where I used to live, we were subject to droughts. To my mind, changing rain to sun in a climate like that would not be beneficial, so I never did it.

Now I live in Appalachia and there is plenty of rain, so much that the river often floods and destroys homes. I have been playing with cloudbusting and moving weather patterns since my arrival. This past weekend, I worked to move a storm that had an 80% chance of bumming us out on a neighborhood scouting trip to Columbus (our future home). Mission accomplished! And I plan on teaching my son this skill (and corresponding responsibility) as well.

What lessons are you teaching your kids about the environment and their control over it?