Is my 5 yo doing something she shouldn't be?

[Polyputthekettleon]

My dd is 5. She loves picking leaves, sticks , pinecones etc. When we go to the park/for walks if there are blossoms she'd ask me to pick some for her and I would. If she can reach them she will pick them herself. If there are trees , shrubs within her reach she will pick a few leaves or twigs if she can. This is not from people's private property, but as I said, from trees on pavements and parks etc. I thought this was normal behaviour for children, but I am not sure anymore, so I am asking for your opinions. During spring/summer we see fresh flowers picked and just dropped all over the place so I am guessing my dd is not the only one who does this. Dd never does this with planted flowers in parks. It's only blossoms, leaves and twigs. Not planted flowers. Dh always tells dd off if he see dd doing this. He always says that we need to respect trees etc and tells her off and tells her not to do it again. Now spring is approaching, she is looking forward to picking blossoms, and I am not sure if I should allow/her pick blossoms , and other twigs and leaves 🤔

YABU - you shouldn't encourage this
YANBU - it's just normal 5 year old behaviour and my dh is just being weird

We encourage touching but we don’t allow picking, other than dandelion clocks and things like blackberries and sloes. We’ll sometimes pick a long dead stem of grass with a seed head as a tickler, or a blade of grass to make a whistle. But we don’t allow random bush stripping, we always make sure we leave plenty of berries for the birds (and explain this) and so on. We’ve always told DS that the plants need their leaves and flowers, so we can look and touch, but it’s not ok to pull them off the plant. Obviously fallen leaves and so on are fair game.

We want DS to explore nature and learn to love it, but also to respect it. We live in the country so there’s plenty of it around - we want him to have the benefits of that.

A kid picking a few blossoms and flowers won't destroy nature. Indeed it will help the plant to adapt to the environment.

They 'grow out of it' because their parents explain to them why they shouldn't be doing it...

The whole argument of " what if everyone does it" doesn't apply, as everyone doesn't, its something only little children do and soon grow out of.

Of course it applies - because there will always be little children around to do it.

The "what if everyone does it " argument can apply to almost everything ....what if everyone becomes a property developer, what if everyone starts getting about in their cars, what if everyone starts owning a private jet ad infinitum...

Picking stuff off trees is free and something anyone can do - whereas it's impossible for everyone to do the other things you've mentioned, therefore the argument doesn't apply.

But you know that, which is why you're not coming back

Can you imagine if she only did this in your garden - how much garden you would have left? can you imagine if all five year olds did this to public spaces whenever they went for a walk? It would be like locusts have been.
I think as a general rule if a child is doing something that will affect something for others than I would not allow her to do it. She needs to respect others and you are teaching her she can do what she likes. Maybe just give her a limit ie one blossom each walk rather than as many as she likes.

Yes, she’s doing something she shouldn’t. Nobody should be going round picking living things. The world is fucked up on many levels. One of the reasons being that people think rules and guidelines don’t apply to them and theirs. But you’ve already decided it’s fine so why did you ask?

YABU. This is not good behaviour to teach her. Pick up twigs leaves etc which have already fallen , and daises in the lawns/grass are probably alright but not blossom of flowers. Those should be left for everyone to enjoy. You wouldn’t let her rip up bluebells, would you?