# What a toddler knows about living well

> A mother watching her son stop for a bird and a shadow finds the health advice she was missing.
- Title: What a toddler knows about living well · Newsweek | Shortify
- Summary: A mother watching her son stop for a bird and a shadow finds the health advice she was missing. Wonder is not a reward for finishing your self-improvement…
- Keywords: wonder, parenting, awe, wellbeing, nature, toddler, knows, living, well, Newsweek
- Source: Newsweek — https://newsweek.com/wonder-innocence-teach-adults-healthy-living-good-life-12432325
- Published: 2026-09-13T14:00:00+00:00
- Read time: 1 min
- Topics: wonder, parenting, awe, wellbeing, nature
## A bird nobody planned for
A pin-tailed whydah, rare in Los Angeles, sat high in a sycamore while a mother and her toddler stood watching. Neither of them had planned the moment. He came home calling it crazy.

> Mama, that bird was crazy.
## We look in the wrong direction
Self-improvement sells the idea that a better life sits just past your reach. The question underneath this piece is whether wellness comes from doing less and paying more attention.

> The underlying promise is that a better life lies just beyond our reach.
## Hardness is not strength
A line from Tarkovsky's Stalker stuck with the writer: a growing tree is soft and pliable, and a dry hard one is already dead. She thinks the same applies to people.

> Hardness and strength are death's companions.
## Wonder has terrible timing
Her son pointed out his own shadow on a sidewalk and said wow. Sunlight crossing millions of miles to be interrupted by a small boy really is a little miraculous.

> It tends to find us when we're busy doing something else.
## Children absorb it unconsciously
Susan Magsamen of Johns Hopkins says kids' neural pathways are still forming, so they take in creativity, nature and music without filtering it. That is why play and curiosity need protecting.

> They are absorbing this information and these experiences and responding to them in an unconscious and natural way
## Adults can reopen the circuit
The wiring for art does not disappear with age. Magsamen's prescription is practical: draw, dance, sing along, pick up a paintbrush, sit with a poem, walk into nature and see what reawakens.

> Reengage the neural circuitry that we know is there for the arts
## Awe calms the body
Dr. Victoria Maizes hiked glaciers and kayaked near seals in Iceland and came back struck by the humility of being outside. Vastness measurably lowers stress by activating the vagus nerve.

> Experiences of the vastness of nature have been shown to reduce our stress.
## Key takeaway

Wonder is not a reward for finishing your self-improvement list. It is available right now, if you slow down enough to notice it.