This sounds a bit like a philosophical debate about which a book could be written!
I know very little about children but:
One thing we all learn, being involved with hedgehogs, is that we have to trust that most people will not purposely do the hogs harm. It is something we have no choice about if hedgehogs are to be wild and free as they must be.
Very sadly there may always be a minority of people who are cruel to animals. Children do not hold any sort of monopoly there. But are they more or less likely to be cruel to animals if they are taught to respect them when they are children? If we treat children as if they are all going to behave like that, are we being fair to those that wouldn’t?
Can we expect children to respect and be interested in wildlife if they know little or nothing about it?
Who are we trying to save hedgehogs for? Ourselves or for the future?
It is the children who will have to take up the struggle to help hedgehogs survive, when we are no longer here. Do our attitudes towards children now make it more or less likely that that will happen?
If the children are going to be told what to do if they find a hedgehog, are they more likely to treat it well if they have some background knowledge? The fact is that the hedgehogs are there anyway, so the children might come across them.
Will they have more ‘investment’ in trying to keep the place litter free, etc., if they have a good reason for it? Are they more likely to want to help the hogs if they know something about them?
I don’t know the answers. Just putting the questions out there.
Maybe it’s the teachers who are best placed to know whether it’s a good idea and how much or otherwise to share with the children. Hence my original suggestion to try to get a teacher involved. I imagine it would be fairly difficult anyway without the help of a teacher.
A Hedgehog Club doesn’t need to be about anything hands on. It could be about information. But would, perhaps, make it more likely there was an interest in protecting any hedgehogs that were come across, keeping the place litter free, etc., in to the future.
