NATURE'S CHILDREN: Persistence

An AI generated image

On the playground, Susan is learning to jump rope. Day after day she spends recess hurling herself through space. She is a study in uncoordinated movement. With hair flying and arms windmilling wildly, she turns the rope and jumps, and jumps, and jumps. Her little legs seem to have a life of their own, unrelated to the rest of her body. Her knees and ankles bend at improbable angles. Her feet stir up small puffs of dust each time they hit the ground. The rope spins wildly, twisting in the air. It wraps around her knees and hits her in the face. She untangles herself and tries again. Her little girl voice sings out the count.

"One" (The rope flies out of her hand. She starts over.)

"One" (The rope hits her foot. She tries again.)

"One, two" (This time the rope wraps around her knees. She begins yet again.)

Other children jump a few times then run off to do something easier, but not Susan.

Some force in that five-year-old body compels her to jump, to overcome her awkwardness and subdue her unruly muscles. Susan's a fighter. Her two-count becomes five. Five becomes eight, and by the time recess is over she's made it all the way to ten. Tomorrow Susan will try for twenty.

In my backyard, a young Carolina Wren is learning to build a nest. She chooses a narrow ledge on the outside of the screened gazebo. She works diligently, hopping about in the yard to collect dried leaves and pinetags. But the ledge proves too narrow. Soon the nesting material is on the ground.

She seems puzzled, when she returns with a mouthfull of moss only to find the ledge empty. She abandons the gazebo and flies off to try again. Before long she's investigating the birdhouse on the fence. She stands on top and inspects the roof. She checks out the side and the back. Then she darts down and pops her head inside. It must meet with her approval because once again she begins gathering material. The first leaf she brings is too big. She pushes and prods but it wont fit through the hole. She abandons that leaf and dashes away to find another. This time she returns with shredded leaves from the mulch pile. Perfect! Next she brings a twig. It is thin enough and short enough, but she's holding it sideways. After several tries, she holds it by the end and drops it into the box. She makes many trips to gather nesting material. She is new at this nest building business and often drops the material before she can get it into the house. But the little bird dosen't stop. She works for almost a week. When her frantic activity has stopped I know the nest is complete so I sneak a peak inside the birdhouse. There's the nest, a bit messy, but with a bird-sized cup lined with tiny white feathers....waiting. A few days later when I look again, there are four speckled eggs.

Often children think that they should know how to do things perfectly the first time. This means that they are afraid to make mistakes. They give up when things get hard. Adults sometimes step in, rather than letting the child "learn by doing" (my mother's mantra). Susan and the wren didn't worry about mistakes. They were both driven by some internal voice that urged them to persist. They didn't need anyone to teach them how, they just did it. Persistence pays off. For Susan the goal was to jump rope like the big girls. For the wren it was to build a nest so she could lay her eggs. They both tried until they got it right.

That little wren built a nest even though she'd never done it before.

And Susan jumped to twenty.

Betsy Saunders

March 15, 2026