There is a very quick way to make a child lose interest in something fascinating, and that is by turning it into a lesson.
Give them a worksheet, tell them there will be questions afterwards and watch the enthusiasm quietly leave the room.
Herbs are far too interesting for that.
They smell strange. Some are soft, some are scratchy, some look completely different once they have dried. Lemon balm smells far more lemony than many children expect. Calendula is brilliantly orange. Chamomile has tiny daisy-like flowers. Rose petals feel completely different once they are dried, and lavender is one of those plants children often recognise by smell before they have any idea what it is called.
There is an enormous amount children can learn from plants simply by being allowed to explore them, and that is where I would start.
You don't have to begin with what a herb is "for"
As adults, we are very good at wanting to know the purpose of everything.
What does chamomile do?
What is calendula good for?
Why would I use lemon balm?
Children generally have much better questions.
What does it smell like?
Can I touch it?
Why is this one fluffy?
Can I mix these two together?
Where does it grow?
Can we grow some?
That curiosity is worth protecting because it gives them a relationship with the plant before we start handing them a list of supposed benefits so let them look first.
Give them a few dried herbs in bowls and see what they notice. Compare colours and textures, crush a little lemon balm between their fingers and smell chamomile and lavender side by side.
You may get thoughtful observations but you may also be informed that one smells like Grandma's cupboard and another smells like feet!!
Use their senses
Plants give children something wonderfully real to investigate.
There is colour, scent, texture and shape, and those things change depending on whether the plant is fresh, dried, growing in a pot or floating about in a bowl of water.
Try giving them two or three herbs rather than an enormous selection and ask them:
Which one smells strongest?
Which feels softest?
Can you find the flower?
Which would you choose just because you like it?
There is no right or wrong answer and one of the things I like most about doing this with children is that they notice things adults stop noticing.
We tend to look at a jar and think chamomile but a child looks at it and wonders why there are tiny yellow balls in it. Personally I think that second way of looking is probably the more interesting one.
Tell them the old stories too
This is where herbs become much more than ingredients in a packet.
People have been growing, gathering and using plants for thousands of years. They have appeared in kitchens, gardens, bathing rituals, family remedies and folklore long before you could buy a bottle with a botanical illustration on the front.
Children love that...heck I LOVE that, even as a 45 year old woman!
Chamomile has been used for generations in teas, baths and bedtime traditions. Calendula has a long history in preparations for the skin and Lemon balm was grown in monastery and cottage gardens and became one of those familiar herbs people reached for again and again.
But then there are the stories.
Plants gathered at certain times of year. Herbs tucked into pillows. Flowers associated with protection, luck, sleep, love or courage. Some traditions were practical, some symbolic, some probably a mixture of both and I believe that is part of our relationship with plants too.
Modern research can help us understand their chemistry in ways our ancestors couldn't, but the old knowledge still tells us something valuable about how closely people once watched the natural world and how much everyday plant knowledge was simply passed from one generation to the next.
I think children deserve some of that inheritance.
Let them make something
This is usually where things get interesting.
Give a child some herbs and a wooden spoon and the chances of them politely observing the ingredients for forty-five minutes are fairly slim.
They want to make something.
That could be as simple as choosing petals and herbs for a bowl of warm water, filling a muslin bag, creating a sensory mixture or making a completely imaginary woodland potion that has no practical purpose whatsoever.
They can give their mixture a name, decide what a woodland fairy might use it for, draw a label or invent the world's most elaborate menu.
When children are allowed to make decisions rather than follow instructions exactly, the plants become materials for play as well as things to learn about and suddenly they have spent forty minutes discussing calendula without anybody announcing that today's educational objective is calendula.
Sneaky.
Grow something they recognise
One of the nicest things you can do after introducing dried herbs is show children where they actually come from.
A packet of dried lemon balm and a living lemon balm plant don't immediately look like the same thing, and to the young and innocent, that connection is fascinating.
If you have a garden, wonderful. If you don't, a windowsill pot will do perfectly well.
Lemon balm, calendula and chamomile can all become opportunities to notice how plants change through the seasons: the first seedling, new leaves, flowers arriving, insects visiting and eventually seeds appearing again.
Growing a plant also introduces something that a packet cannot - responsibility, patience and faith.
You water the soil before there is anything to see. You wait. You keep checking. You wonder if you have done it wrong. Then, one morning, there it is. A tiny green shoot where yesterday there was only compost and no matter how many times you have done it, the excitement when you see that first little shoot? Amazing!
There is something especially valuable in that for children of today as it teaches them that not everything gives an instant result. Some things need looking after before they give anything back and you have to keep turning up, even when nothing much seems to be happening yet.
Then the plant grows, changes, gets stronger, flowers and eventually becomes something they can recognise, pick or use. That whole process makes the herb feel completely different from something that simply arrived dried in a bag.
It becomes theirs in a small way. Something they helped bring on and their smile shows everything we ever need to know!
Teach respect for plants too
If we want children to love the natural world, part of that needs to be learning that nature isn't an unlimited craft cupboard and we don't need to pick every flower we see.
Wild plants may be feeding insects, producing seeds or growing somewhere they shouldn't be disturbed but that is a completely different education piece!
The point is that children are still able to learn about wild plants simply by observing them. Let them take photographs, or better still, draw them. Look them up together and notice where they grow and what visits them.
Sometimes leaving something exactly where it is forms part of the lesson and one I fiercely have taught my girls. Now they can see that, contrary to when they pick a flower and it wilts straight away, they can love it from a distance and get so much joy from counting all the different insects that visit to enjoy it too.
For botanical play, known plants from your own garden, herbs grown in pots or ingredients bought from a reputable supplier are a much easier starting point.
Let children decide what they like
One child will bury their nose in the lavender and another will recoil as though you have presented them with a small dead animal. We all experience scent and texture differently, and children should be allowed to have preferences without us persuading them that they ought to find something relaxing or lovely.
This is particularly important for children who are sensitive to smells, touch or particular textures.
They can use tongs instead of fingers, which is an excellent activity anyway for any small child. They can smell from a distance, they can work with one plant at a time, or they can simply look.
Being able to say, "I don't like that smell" is part of understanding your own body too and they should be allowed to listen to it.
What children are really learning
There is obviously botanical knowledge in all of this. They begin recognising plants, learn names, they understand that different parts of plants can look, feel and smell different but most importantly, they begin to connect the dried herb in front of them with the thing growing outside.
But there is something else happening too.
They are learning to notice...
How does this feel?
Do I like this smell?
Where did this come from?
Why did people use it?
What happens if I mix these together?
Those are small questions, but I think they're important ones because my hope for children isn't that they grow up knowing they need ten skincare products, I'd much rather they grew up understanding their skin, knowing a few plants by name, feeling curious about the natural world and being confident enough to ask whether they actually need something before somebody sells it to them.
This is the thinking behind Little Wild Spa
Little Wild Spa began because I wanted children to have the fun of a proper spa-style experience without simply handing them miniature versions of adult beauty routines.
The kit contains real botanicals including rose, lemon balm, calendula, chamomile and lavender, alongside oats, kaolin clay and Epsom salts, with illustrated botanical cards so children can begin learning what they are actually handling.
There are things they can make, of course, but the making is only part of it.
I want them smelling things, asking questions, recognising plants and discovering that skincare and wellbeing didn't begin with a brightly coloured bottle on a shop shelf.
People have always had relationships with plants.
Some of that knowledge came from observation. Some became family tradition and folklore. Some has since been investigated by modern science. Some remains exactly what it always was: an old story worth knowing without pretending it proves more than it does.
That's the bit I want children to inherit.
A little more curiosity about the earth beneath their feet, and a little less pressure to fix the face above them.
Where to go next
If your child would like to put some of that botanical curiosity into practice, you can read Kids Pamper Party Ideas: 15 Nature-Inspired Activities Children Will Love for things to make and do.
If they have enjoyed discovering the herbs themselves, Grow Your Own Apothecary takes that curiosity a step further. They can grow their own medicinal and skincare herbs from seed, learn how to care for them, and begin to understand how the plants we use actually make their way from soil to home apothecary.
And if you want the herbs, botanical cards and activities already gathered together, Little Wild Spa was created for children aged 5–12 to explore plants through supervised sensory and imaginative play.
