Outdoor childhood editor
Saira Rao
Saira Rao ran a forest-school program for six years and now edits The Cradle Press's Outdoor Childhood section.
Beats
Published in The Cradle Press
Sleep
The First Night the Baby Monitor Came Off
The decision to stop monitoring a sleeping child is rarely discussed. Saira Rao on the parents who finally turned the screen off, and what it cost them and gave them.
Early Years
The First Daycare Drop-Off
On a Monday morning in early June, in a small daycare on Quinpool Road in Halifax, Theo Sutter-Rao was dropped off for the first time. He was fourteen months old. His mother cried in the car, two blocks away, for eleven minutes.
Books for Kids
The First Library Card at Six
A Saturday morning at the Halifax North Branch, where Aanya Banerjee got her first library card and the seven books she chose with it.
Outdoor Childhood
Mud as a Curriculum
At a small parent cooperative in Asheville, North Carolina, the only required outdoor element is a twelve-foot circle of unmown ground that is allowed to get muddy and stay that way.
Generations
Four Generations in One Room, Once a Year
Every Memorial Day weekend since 1994, the descendants of Theodore and Ruth Voss have gathered at a state park in central Pennsylvania for a Saturday lunch. In May 2025, four generations sat down to eat at the same long table for the eighth time on record.
Schools & Learning
A Multi-Age Forest School Morning Outside Asheville
On a leased twenty-six-acre parcel of mixed hardwood and pine on Bee Tree Road, fifteen children between four and nine years old meet four mornings a week to learn outside, in nearly all weather.
Early Years
The First Haircut at Thirteen Months
On a Thursday morning in May, in a small barber shop on Quinpool Road in Halifax, Aurelio Ferreira-Rao had his first haircut. He cried for the first ninety seconds and then fell asleep against his father's shoulder.
Food
Cooking With Children, in Real Time
Saira Rao spent three Saturdays in three Halifax kitchens, watching parents cook with children aged four, seven, and nine. She kept the stopwatch running.
Family Rituals
The Second Thanksgiving
A Halifax family invented their own November holiday a decade ago and have kept it through divorce, illness, and a child leaving home.
Outdoor Childhood
Nature Kindergarten in Central Norway
At the Bjørkelia naturbarnehage outside Trondheim, twenty-two children between three and six spend almost every day of the year outside, including the days when the temperature falls below minus fifteen.
Sleep
Co-Sleeping: One Family's Path
A Halifax family arrived at the family bed by accident, kept it by choice, and left it by mutual agreement. Saira Rao spent two evenings with them.
Outdoor Childhood
Free Play in a Brooklyn Park, One Summer
Across eleven weeks at the Vanderbilt Playground in Prospect Heights, a small group of children built a society out of sticks, water, and the long flat afternoons of June through August.