Why Do Kids Need Awe? Practical Everyday Ways Wonder Supports Learning And Resilience
Last Tuesday, my 7-year-old Lila and I were walking to the grocery store after school. The rain had just stopped, and the sun was cutting through the gray clouds in thin, bright streaks. My scuffed rain boots were still squelchy from the morning dog walk, my grocery list was crumpled in my jacket pocket, and I had a work email I needed to answer as soon as we got home. I was herding Lila along, thinking about what to make for dinner, when she stopped dead on the sidewalk and yanked her hand out of mine. I opened my mouth to say we didn’t have time for whatever this was, when I remembered the podcast I’d listened to the night before, about why kids need awe. So I shut my mouth and stopped next to her.
She pointed at the splintered wooden fence running along the sidewalk, where a snail had crawled a few feet up, leaving a shiny silver trail. The sun hit it just right, and there were tiny, shifting rainbows stretched along the slime. I stood there with her for three minutes, looking. I’d lived on this street for five years and never noticed that snail trails do that.
The podcast brought together a child development researcher and a children’s media creator, talking through how wonder shapes how kids handle hard days, learn new things, and treat the people around them. The thing that stuck with me most was their point that awe isn’t just for big, expensive trips to the Grand Canyon or fancy science museums. It’s any moment that stops you in your tracks, that makes you feel connected to something bigger than your own daily to-do list. I’d always thought of resilience as something kids build by working through hard stuff, like learning to tie their shoes or losing a soccer game. The researcher explained that regular small awe moments do something different: they train kids’ brains to put small setbacks in context. If you just spent three minutes staring at rainbows on a snail trail, a wrong answer on your math sheet doesn’t feel quite so much like the end of the world. It also makes kids more curious when they learn new things – when they’re used to stopping to wonder, they’re more likely to ask questions and stick with a hard problem instead of giving up right away.
I work part time with 4- and 5-year-olds at our neighborhood preschool, so I got to test this idea out a few weeks back. We’d had a rough month: one of our most beloved students moved across the country, and the whole class was on edge. We had fights over blocks and crayons multiple times an hour, and everyone seemed ready to cry at the smallest thing. I’d planned a 30-minute circle time about kindness and sharing, the kind I’d done a hundred times that usually just leaves everyone antsy. Instead, after listening to the podcast, I herded everyone outside and told them we just needed to stand quiet for 10 minutes and look at whatever felt big or cool to them. Most ended up staring up at the big old oak at the edge of the playground, watching squirrels chase each other through leaves that were just starting to turn red. When we went back inside, no one fought for the rest of the morning.
The creator on the podcast talked about that shift too: when kids feel that small hit of wonder, they stop fixating on their own little wants and frustrations. That makes them more likely to help each other out, without being told. It’s not that they’re being intentionally good, it’s that their perspective has shifted just enough to let other people in.
I’ve made small, low-effort changes since I listened, nothing that requires extra time or money. I set our morning alarm for school two minutes earlier now, so if Lila or her little brother want to stop to stare at a spiderweb or a weird shaped cloud, we don’t have to rush. In the preschool classroom, I added a cardboard box by the door that we call our “wow box” – kids put anything they found outside that surprised them, from a bumpy acorn to a piece of clear ice with a leaf trapped inside. We spend 5 minutes on Friday afternoons passing them around and talking about what’s cool about each one. When a kid is upset about a messed-up art project or a lost board game, I don’t jump in to fix it or cheer them up right away anymore. I just ask if they want to step to the window and look at the clouds for a minute before we start over. It’s a tiny shift, but it works more often than not.
It’s not a magic fix. Last week, Lila had a full meltdown when she dropped her ice cream cone on the sidewalk, even after we stopped to look at a dew-covered spiderweb strung between two posts. Some days, the preschool class still fights over the purple crayon, no matter how many big oak trees we stare at. But I’ve noticed small changes that add up. Lila will now stop what she’s doing to point out a weird cloud to her brother when he’s upset about something. The preschool kids pick up another kid’s fallen block tower without being asked more often than they did a month ago. The best thing I took away from that podcast was that I don’t have to plan fancy, educational experiences to give kids the benefits of wonder. It’s already there, on the sidewalk, in the playground, through the kitchen window. I just have to stop rushing long enough to let them see it.
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