Grounding with Kids: Simple Ways to Connect with Nature & Recharge Together
Not that kind of grounding — no punishments here! This grounding (also called earthing) is a beautiful, calming practice that helps kids feel centered, supported, and connected to nature.
Whether it’s bare feet on the grass, hugging a tree, or floating in a lake, grounding promotes emotional regulation, boosts health, and gives your child a natural way to recharge from stress and sensory overload.
What Is Grounding?
As a child, I spent my days warm or cold in the PNW in the woods behind my house. I waded through the creek, caught frogs, and built forts with horsetails and mud. I was no stranger to stinging nettle, the smell of blackberries in August, and to only touch the Queen Anne’s lace with hairy stems. The sights, smells, and feel of nature were ingrained in my daily life, barefoot with my sister.
The first time I heard of grounding, besides what strict parents (not mine) did to their kids when they were in trouble, was as a teenager when I moved to Santa Cruz, California. There, kids grew up on the beach, without fear of the ocean, enjoying the smell of eucalyptus trees. Barefoot like me, yes, but a little less free-range (as we call it today).
The culture was different in California. “Grounding” was intentional. Something practiced on purpose by their parents, not just kids running around in the woods soaking in nature because it’s what surrounded them.
Modern Earthing
Today, kids are inundated with screens, over-parented, and have responsibilities that kids of my generation didn’t have. Between high academic expectations and social pressure to hover over our children and their achievements, the long barefoot days exploring the forest and wading through creeks for today’s kids seem few and far between.
While nature deficit disorder isn’t a medical condition, it’s a widespread societal shift that is thought to contribute to childhood anxiety, too much screen time, and health issues. The best antidote is spending time in nature, and grounding or earthing is a great way to reap the benefits of the outdoors.
Grounding connects you with nature through all five senses and is a wonderful way to self-regulate. The sensory approach of reconnecting to the earth and drawing energy from it can help recharge your battery when feeling depleted and enhance overall health. Showing our kids this connection to the Earth’s energy and restoring their own is a life tool they can use throughout their lives.
The Benefits of Earthing for Kids
Since grounding is a sensory experience, it is good for childhood brain development. When they touch the bark of a tree, feel the breeze through their hair, and the chill of the running creek water over their feet, pathways in their brain are built. These brain pathways support memory, language, and motor skills.
Spending time in nature and practicing grounding or earthing are known to help reduce anxiety and promote an improved mood in general for adults and kids. It promotes a decrease in stress and gives a vitamin D boost. It’s been shown that kids who spend time in nature become happier adults, so start your kids earthing now!
Emerging research suggests that grounding can reduce cortisol levels, support better sleep, and even reduce markers of inflammation. One 2012 study in the Journal of Environmental and Public Health found that direct contact with the Earth can normalize diurnal cortisol rhythms and improve sleep patterns. (source)
Grounding can reduce stress and help with emotional regulation. Daily exposure to the outdoors has a way of recharging and relaxing the body. It can also help reset your child’s circadian rhythm, which can majorly improve sleep.
Perspective is at work here too, because nature is vast and mystical. As you consider the ocean and how its strength and beauty is unmatched… and how it just keeps going whether you’re there to breathe in the salt air or not.
Nature is bigger than us, and really we are just a blip in time and the sand in our toes is the same sand that has calmed many sensory systems and put many problems into perspective.
Earthing can help you feel centered. It improves sleep and reduces inflammation as a result of all of the benefits listed here. It’s also been shown to improve heart rates, help decrease pain, and speed wound healing. Vitamin N is the key to our health and happiness!
Grounding Techniques for Kids
When we let Mother Earth support our body systems and work with her, our lives are positively impacted. Practicing earthing or grounding with your kids sets healthy lifestyle habits that will serve them well no matter what their lives bring. The mind and body are intricately connected, and Mother Earth is part of that!
#1: Go Barefoot
Going without shoes on a nature walk, in the yard, or in the sand is one of the easiest ways to get recharged from the earth. The bottoms of feet have tons of nerve endings and are great for transferring energy from the earth.
Going barefoot outside is an easy way to get sensory input and earth energy into your kiddo’s life. Playing outside barefoot also helps a child develop balance, proprioception, and physical coordination.
#2: Have a Picnic
Having a picnic in your garden, yard, or a park is a perfect way to practice grounding with younger children. Bring snacks, books, and maybe even plan a nature scavenger hunt! They can lay on the grass, roll down a hill, and have some barefoot time too.
#3: Hug Those Trees
Tree hugging might seem like a hippy cliche, but it truly has grounding benefits and is easy for kids to do. I love to hug evergreens, as they have large barky trunks. But, any tree your kiddo can squeeze without damaging it will do!
The feel of the bark on their hands is wonderful sensory input, and so is the pressure of squeezing the tree trunk. The smell of the tree, and the energy transferred will help calm anxieties and balance your child’s mood.
#4: Enjoy Gardening
Gardening is just as beneficial for kids as it is for adults. The feel of the cool soil between the fingers, being on the earth’s ground, and breathing in the fresh air brings a type of peace to our minds and souls.
Soil has beneficial microbes that help boost the immune system, and the same microbes also help combat depression as they activate the neurons that produce serotonin. It’s science and earth magic that truly benefits the body and mind.
#5: Rest Outside
Laying down for an outdoor rest with shorts and a tank top and short sleeves is an easy way for kids to soak in Mother Earth’s energy on a warm day. This task is calming, and is easily accessible.
It works on grass, soil, or a large rock. All you have to do is make sure you have skin exposed to the earth, and lay down to breathe in the day’s fresh air. Explain to your kiddos how the earth is there to support them. This is a great time to incorporate a guided relaxation.
#6: Try Water Earthing
Grounding with water is something that most kids are naturally drawn to do. Kids always seem to want to wade through creeks, put their feet in the ocean, or swim in a lake or pond. Swimming releases oxytocin, which is the hormone that makes emotional connections and a feeling of happiness.
Water is extremely soothing to some people, and is a great way to soak in nature. The smell of the ocean, the feel of a chilly creek babbling over their feet, or the floating sensation of submerging in a lake are all ways to let go of stress and allow the earth’s energy to restore yours.
Technology and appliances can build up positive ions in our bodies, disrupting mood and well-being. The ocean air is loaded with negative ions from the pounding surf as the air particles break apart from sunlight, moving air, and water.
#7: Sit with Bare Feet on Earth
Just the simple act of sitting somewhere peaceful and letting your bare feet have contact with the ground can help you draw energy from Mother Earth. If your kiddo needs some chill time, read them a book or walk them through a guided figure 8 breathing meditation or a body scan.
For kids who are old enough and able, this is a great time to try a mindful grounding technique called the 5-4-3-2-1 rule to bring their attention to the present moment by finding:
- 5 things they can see
- 4 things they can touch
- 3 things they can hear
- 2 things they can smell
- 1 thing they can taste
These methods can help a ton with childhood and teen anxiety. It’s a great combo!
#8: Stretch it Out with Outdoor Yoga
Yoga is a great opportunity for kids to ground themselves. Barefoot yoga in your yard or a park setting is so peaceful and gives a lot of opportunity for earth connection with several yoga poses.
Yoga itself is calming and balancing, and adding the sensory and earthing component to it makes for a full recharging experience. For young kids, keep yoga simple with easy poses that will give them contact with the earth. Older kids and teens can usually handle a more serious yoga practice.
#9: Take a Nature Poetry Walk
Taking a nature poetry walk is a lovely way to keep your kids busy on a barefoot walk. It’s a good way to have them interact with nature and the calmness that earthing provides.
The goal is to encourage children to use their 5 senses to soak in their surrounding environment in nature. Ask them to slow down and notice what they see, how the ground feels, what they hear, smell, and taste. At the end of the walk, find a good natural place to sit and write poetry. Or talk about the experience and how it felt.
#10: Play in The Mud
There is nothing more earthy feeling than mud! Kids love playing in the mud, and as it turns out, it’s quite a beneficial way to practice earthing.
Making mud pies, digging for worms, or splashing in puddles is a super fun way to benefit from earthing. Playing in mud also boosts your child’s vitamin D and builds their microbiome, the same way that gardening does.
Consider Weather and Hazards
Getting outside and grounding can be a daily practice all year round. While playing in the rain is generally an easy one, a frozen winter or long heat wave can be more challenging.
The answer is to do what works for you. Bundle them up on a snowy day but take their gloves off to hug a tree. Or a 10-minute barefoot sprinkler run during a hot day would work, too.
We always want to keep our kids safe. If the weather is hazardous and grounding needs to be short while your kids are bundled up, that’s ok! Any amount of contact with the earth will benefit.
Survey the area first for any debris or objects that could hurt bare feet. If there’s any concern of your kiddo hurting themselves or being exposed to harsh weather conditions, alter your plan.
Find a clearing in the woods that is a safe area to take a barefoot break. Then, have them wear their shoes for the rest of the hike. Or cross the creek yourself first to be sure it’s safe for your loved one’s feet.
Lastly, the grounding techniques and when you do them will change as your kids grow. So have fun, explore, and soak in the earth with your kids!
Other Fun Nature Projects with Kids
Here are more ways to help your child enjoy the great outdoors:
DIY Organic Bird Feeder
Outdoor Mindful Art Projects
Make Sun Print Art
Owling with Kids
Stargazing with Kids
Backyard Bug Count Activity
Create a Wildlife Garden
Fairy Garden Ideas for a Magical Backyard