A few years ago, I was walking home with my son who was three at the time when a concerned neighbor warned us of the dangers of the mushrooms in our basket. I politely nodded while she lectured me about the chicken of the woods that would become nuggets in my skillet within the hour. We had foraged from the same log the previous year and I was 100% certain of our fungi find. This sort of experience wasn’t new for me but I have learned to just let people like this talk… And explain to my kid later that, while their intentions might be good, we don't have to adhere to uniformed peoples’ ideas of safety.
I grew up with Plant People™️, most notably my maternal grandmother who we call Nahnah. Nahnah was my introduction to many things I still hold dear including gardening and native wildlife.
Yet, in my mostly-outside upbringing with my green-thumbed gnome of a grandmother, I was still taught not to touch any fungi and to avoid many plants because they were (or more often, might’ve been) poisonous. At the time the internet wasn’t what it is today but I still don’t recommend using a plant identification app to determine if a wild plant you’re unfamiliar with is safe to eat.
So, how do we talk to kids about plants’ potential toxicity? How can we teach them to think critically and stay safe? It’s a fine line between necessary caution and unnecessarily demonizing the beings we meet in nature. The fear-blanket approach of many of our caregivers isn’t sustainable if you want to raise confident, ethical foragers.
Lay some ground rules (literally)
Before we ever went outside we established this. We don’t touch what we don’t know. That is the foundational rule I have with my son who is five now at the time I am writing this article. If you’re in North America like we are, you’re in luck that there are no known fungi species that release a poison that can hurt us through touch alone. Still, this is a rule that we keep as it extends to plants. Poison oak and ivy are no picnic. Plus, kids tend to put their fingers in their mouths out of habit. The risk of having some residue getting into their system isn’t worth the risk in my opinion.
Checking in with me before he plucks anything he finds also invites him to slow down and act with intention. Sometimes he still forgets but when I need to remind him of this rule, we have to go home and wash our hands immediately. This is the natural consequence and precaution built in.
This is our main rule for this stage in his development. If your child is older, yours may be different. This allows my kiddo to feel free to pick dandelions and violets, abundant plants he knows well enough to be friendly with, and helps keep him safe. I try to model what I want to see from him. When I don’t know a plant we meet while foraging, we take time to talk about it. Then, I show him my process for looking it up to identify it properly.
Inform about look-alikes
There are many unfamiliar plants and mushrooms that look similar to the ones we know. This is inconvenient and dangerous for our little people so we must educate them well about any common look-alikes that may appear near our well-known friends.
Queen Anne’s lace aka wild carrot looks extremely similar to water hemlock to the untrained eye. So much so, last year when our local newspaper released an article with a pixelated image of what I am assuming was poison hemlock (no botanical names in the article, that would make sense and be informative) many neighbors destroyed the wild carrot plants along the fence lines.
Wild carrot plants have a small tutu under their flower cluster and water hemlock often has purple on the stems. To add to the confusion about these look-alikes, one might also confuse them with Angelica, cow parsnip, or giant hogweed in its early growing stages. To me, none of this looks the same because I know Queen Anne’s lace and angelica well and have seen these other plants in different contexts and side-by-side.
But this isn’t the case for people new to plant identification or who aren’t on the lookout for them. Kid or not, if you don’t know that a plant you know has poisonous look-alikes, you won’t be vigilant in checking for them. Let your kids know that look-alikes exist and show examples when you come across specific cases in the wild.
ID the most poisonous in your area
This may seem obvious but the more you know, the easier you can relay important information about local plants’ toxicity to the little humans in your life. Don’t stress and try to memorize every toxic plant you may encounter but keep up with your own research. Use a field guide for your areas and maybe pick 2–3 to learn. After making contact with some edible wild plants, show your kid(s) a no-no plant and make a game plan for if they spot them.
If we see this toxic plant what do we do? Do we try to destroy it? (this is a common impulse for some kids so don’t worry if yours expresses this) Nope. We walk away and let it be. Explain that it probably has a purpose that has nothing to do with us and that is ok. If we’ve touched it without thinking, we go wash our hands. This is a lesson you get to teach your kids over and over while engaging with the natural world. It usually isn’t revolving around us!
Introduce only what you are 100% certain about. If you’re brand new to foraging, this may mean you don’t introduce anything beyond clover and dandelion for a while. That is okay. What is so wonderful about herbalism is that there is always more to learn. Being new to this world and modeling patience and precaution with your kids is a beautiful way to show them how to be in right relationship. So much grief can be avoided by not getting in a rush to know everything or picking things out of scarcity. Practice the noble harvest and only take a small amount that you will take care to use in the kitchen or to study further at home.
Remember you can observe any and all plants you come across. If you aren’t in a rush, you can notice more of their characteristics and get more intimate for identification.
Keep communication open and consider your own misconceptions
In a perfect world, our kids wouldn’t break our rules and no one would ever die due to mistaking a plant’s identity. We’d all just grow up with this knowledge and it wouldn’t be such a chore to intentionally remember this stuff. It would be woven into our lives as it used to be (and still is in indigenous cultures around the world). Unfortunately, kids make mistakes just like the rest of us. I remind my kid that even grown adults choke, so we sit while we eat. With plants, I remind him that while we have rules for a reason but if he breaks them to let me know. And there is no punishment for breaking them. This may seem counter-intuitive but we want to avoid having our kids try to conceal eating a random plant or mushroom. This is the nightmare scenario we all want to avoid. So, on the off-chance my kid does break one of our rules, we can put the pieces together quickly and get to the hospital if needed.
This has never happened but this is my approach because I believe kids are wise. Much more than we give them credit for. When we educate them enough about plants and potential toxicity so they can understand why we have rules, they’re more likely to follow them.
No matter where you are on your own plant path, sharing it with your children is a wonderful gift that keeps us humble. We can’t know everything and plants never stop teaching us. Remember that you don’t need to know hundreds of plants and their scientific names to be qualified to introduce a couple of familiar allies to your little ones.
