Alongside love, sleep and play, awe is precious for children. There are small, everyday ways to make it a part of their lives
When asked what a child needs to thrive, we could each come up with a long list, across which there would likely be a lot of commonalities. A loving home life. Nutritional nourishment. Good schools. Playtime. Lots of books – fact and fiction. Physical activity. Quality sleep. Many of us might also include aspects of mental and emotional health, such as having safe places to express excitement, anger and sadness. A burgeoning line of developmental research suggests there is another form of emotional experience that belongs in this list: the experience of awe.
Awe experiences typically involve the perception of something incredibly vast or powerful, something that transcends or challenges one’s understanding of the world. These are often, but not always, encounters with nature – such as seeing the Grand Canyon, gazing over mountains from an airplane, or standing at the foot of an enormous sequoia tree. Awe-inspiring moments can move a person deeply, pushing them into a mental space beyond the usual worries and thoughts of everyday life.
Historically, awe has featured in psychological accounts of important experiences, such as the euphoric moments that the psychologist Abraham Maslow called ‘peak experiences’. William James spoke extensively about various spiritual and mystical moments that intensely moved him and shaped his perspective. He felt strongly that these experiences were crucial to the deeper development of a person’s inner world.
Contemporary researchers theorise that awe may have helped our ancestors survive throughout history, and continues to impart positive effects today. Among adults, for example, several studies have shown that awe can be instrumental to the formation of social groups and can motivate helpful social behaviours. Research also suggests that awe contributes to positive affect, or good feelings. And good feelings in general have positive biological effects on our bodies. While a majority of the research on awe over the past two decades has focused on the experiences of adults, research has started to elucidate the effects of awe on children as well.
In our work at the Human Nature and Potentials Lab, a developmental psychology research centre at the University of Chicago, we have found that perceptions of awe start much earlier in life than was previously understood. Our research has shown that four- to nine-year-old children perceive and respond to awe-inspiring experiences and differentiate them from everyday experiences. The results from our studies also suggest that awe can influence children’s motivation to learn, and their perceptions of themselves. Over the course of our studies, we watched countless children share their excitement over awe-inspiring imagery, with oohs, ahhs and wide-eyed expressions of wonder.
Children were more likely to engage in helpful behaviour after watching awe-inspiring videos
When children viewed beautiful footage of sweeping natural scenes or even images of destructive natural disasters, they perceived themselves as smaller – a phenomenon known as the ‘small self’ – in comparison with how they felt after watching footage of everyday nature imagery (eg, backyard gardens). Previous research has shown that awe-inspiring experiences elicit this sense of ‘small self’ among adults, too, and the intensity with which the sensation is felt is a determining factor for other benefits of awe, such as an increased sense of belonging within one’s community and increased generosity. Children in our research further reported feeling more motivated to explore things that interested them and to understand things in the world that they hadn’t learned much about yet. We found similar results when children looked at imagery of objects at an unusual spatial or temporal scale (eg, moving in slow motion). Children also indicated that vast nature imagery, more than scenes of large crowds, led them to feel like they could make their life better and to see themselves as unique.
Alongside these studies, recent research points to positive effects awe might have on children slightly older (eight- to 13-year-olds) than those we worked with. In these studies, some children watched awe-inspiring video clips from the animated film Song of the Sea (2014), in which a human character transforms into a seal and flies above a city as she changes it for the better. Other children watched videos that were instead meant to evoke joy, or ones that were more neutral. The results suggest the children were more likely to engage in helpful behaviour after watching the awe-inspiring videos.
If you are a parent or a caregiver, there may be plenty of opportunities to introduce awe and its benefits into a child’s day-to-day life. Oftentimes, potential moments of awe get overlooked or breezed by in our busy, modern lives. With the pressure to achieve seeping into childhood earlier and earlier, it’s easy to understand why you might be more focused on getting a child to the next activity, competition or tutor. However, as you become more attuned to sources of awe and more knowledgeable about its importance during development, you’ll likely see how children benefit when we give awe experiences greater priority.
How to help children experience awe
Though in many cases awe is described as an experience of grandeur, awe experiences do not have to be sought out in exotic places or derived from expensive sources. There are many small, everyday ways to help children experience awe.
Pause to observe awe-inspiring scenes
Awe researchers find that imagery of vast natural landscapes reliably evokes feelings of awe in viewers. So, with your child, seek out images or videos featuring these kinds of scenes. Here are a few examples of places to look:
- The BBC’s Planet Earth series – the latest instalment is Planet Earth III (2023) – and related BBC programmes such as The Blue Planet (2001) offer a rich repository of this sort of imagery.
- You could check out the videography of Louie Schwartzberg, whose name you may recognise from his time-lapse work on the critically acclaimed film Fantastic Fungi (2019).
- Look up educational, artistic or time-lapse videos that depict the vast, mysterious expanse of outer space. You can also find fascinating celestial imagery in the NASA Image and Video Library.
- Collections of oceanic photography, such as this one from National Geographic, can give you and your child a glimpse of the seemingly boundless scope and depth of Earth’s oceans.
- You can observe with a child the awe-inspiring forces of nature at play in educational videos on tsunamis, volcanoes, avalanches or other such phenomena. Together, you can reflect on nature’s capacity to act in intensely powerful ways that shape our culture.
While out on a trail walk, look up at large trees together, or even climb a tree and look out at a field
You can also venture outside to find awe-inspiring scenes. How many times have you travelled along a familiar road that has a beautiful outlook, only to keep going because you’re in a hurry or you consider it blasé? These locations might not be so ordinary for your child.
If you can, consider setting aside some weekend time for an ‘awe field trip’. You might drive to a hiking trail or a scenic byway where you can take in a vista together. Or you could stand along the edge of a lake or ocean, if there is one within reach, and look out at the vast expanse of water. In the evening, a pre-bedtime adventure could involve a drive to an area with little to no light pollution, where you can gaze up at the starry night sky. You and your child can take turns picking out a favourite star or constellation while you talk about how it fits in with or stands out from all the others. While out on a trail walk, you can look up at large trees together, or maybe even climb a tree and look out at a field, valley or neighbourhood from that vantage point. Plan to do nothing except observe the scene while you are there together. Afterward, ask your child how they felt or what they noticed.
Aside from the varied evocators of awe that abound in the natural world, there are also many human-made structures and inventions that can similarly bring about this emotion for children. Imagery of huge buildings, like the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, and powerful structures, like the Three Gorges Dam in central China, can be awe-inspiring, with their immense force and architectural wonder. Large groups of people gathered for a common cause, such as watching an eclipse or cheering on a sports game, might also elicit awe among children, as they do among adults.
Check out imagery of objects at an unusual scale
People, and children in particular, don’t often see objects moving in slow motion or depicted at a microscopic scale. While this kind of unusual imagery doesn’t necessarily involve things that are literally vast or powerful, research suggests it can still evoke feelings of awe by opening up a whole new perspective on a part of the world that is rarely or never visible to the naked eye.
It can be powerful to see close up the numerous veins running through a tree leaf
Watch videos together of objects moving in slow motion – falling, breaking, growing – such as this video of droplets colliding in a bowl of water and milk at a rate 200 times slower than real time. This video, which was used in previous research on awe, reveals details of physical interaction that we are not able to perceive on our own. The distortion of time can give children a chance to notice these details or understand objects in more comprehensive ways, which may bring about an unexpected feeling of being awed by the object or depiction.
You can also grab a magnifying glass or a hobbyist microscope and use it to look at everyday objects, such as paper, bugs or various foods. Your child might be in awe of what they see. It can be powerful, for instance, to see close up the numerous veins running through a tree leaf. This unusual glimpse may catalyse curiosity in a child, leading them to want to explore more carefully. A child could feel moved by this observation and perhaps become more aware of the similarities between the tree and themselves (eg, both relying on an internal network of veins).
If you have a local children’s museum, it may have installations or activity stations that provide play-centred opportunities to tinker with unusual scales.
Watch tales of inspiration and transformation
Awe is not elicited only by vast scenes and physical objects. Some researchers suggest that awe evolved in response to particularly inspiring individuals within the broader group, and so people enjoy witnessing the awe-inspiring feats of talented individuals. Awe can also arise when people unite over a shared effort for the greater good.
So, curate a list of films to watch that involve themes and characters that spark awe for children. Incorporate these kinds of uplifting, inspiring stories into the mix of media that your child engages with regularly. These could include films that depict the meaningful transformation of a character, such as Song of the Sea (found to induce awe in previous research), Happy Feet (2006) or Brave (2012). Also consider documentaries about your child’s idols, such as those that feature a favourite athlete or musician, and focus on their extraordinary accomplishments or inspiring life. Examples might include Kobe Doin’ Work (2009), about the life and astonishing athleticism of Kobe Bryant, or Miss Americana (2020) about the musical development and life story of Taylor Swift.
Awe can become a part of everyday life
All of these examples of activities and outings can contribute to a subtle shift toward a lifestyle that is more receptive to awe. Over time, as your child takes note of the feelings that come forward during these experiences, they may start to find themselves feeling awe quite frequently – and so might you. This process doesn’t need to feel like work. Awe is not a skill that you or your child need to master. Rather, awe is something that you can, more simply, open yourself to. Together, you and your child might come to find that moments of awe are more available than you ever realised.
This Idea was made possible through the support of a grant to Aeon Media from the John Templeton Foundation. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Foundation. Funders to Aeon Media are not involved in editorial decision-making.
