As America celebrates Earth Day this month, Natural Awakenings talks
with Richard Louv about his insightful book with the curious title:
Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit
Disorder. Louv argues that kids of the digital age have become
increasingly alienated from the natural world and are paying a price,
not only in their physical fitness, but also in their long-term mental
and spiritual health.
children and nature began in the 1980s. Interviewing more than 3,000
children, parents, teachers and community leaders, he was struck by
book, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit
Disorder, investigates the increasing degrees of separation between
children and the natural world. He explores the social, psychological
and spiritual implications of this phenomenon and the impending loss
of future stewards of the earth.
you hope to achieve?
A: As a boy, I had an intense sense that nature was important to
my well-being. I spent hours exploring woods and farmland on the
suburban edge of Kansas City. Later in life, while researching a book,
I found myself listening to parents describe their vague sense that
something profound was changing in the relationship between children
and nature. My continuing hope is that Last Child in the Woods will be
a catalyst for cultural change and lead people to take action. This is
already happening.
Q: Does scientific evidence support your premise that our children
for describing what I believe are the human costs of alienation from
nature. Among them are diminished use of the senses, attention
difficulties, and higher rates of physical and emotional illness. This
disorder damages children and shapes adults, families, whole
communities and the future of nature itself. Last Child in the Woods
is filled with empirical evidence highlighting the growing gap between
nature play and childhood.
more important than playing organized sports?
A: The greatest increase in child obesity in our history happened
during the same two decades as the greatest increase in organized
child sports. It happens that kids were eating a lot of fast food
during that period, some of it after sports practice. But loss of
nature play has been largely ignored as contributing to the current
plague of child obesity.
We know that nature play encourages more creative play. Children in
natural play areas are far more likely to invent their own games than
children playing on the typical flat asphalt or turf park. Research
shows that nature experiences build cognitive skills.
Q: How can children playing freely outdoors in unplanned landscapes
benefit the future of our world?
A: Studies repeatedly show that nearly everyone who cares deeply about
the future of the environment enjoyed transcendent experiences in
nature when they were a child. If nature experiences continue to fade
from current and future generations of our youth, where will caring
future stewards of the earth come from?
Q: What do you suggest parents do to get their children outside to
play?
A: Rediscover your own nature connection. If you missed out on nature
when you were a child, do it now. Certainly consider traditional
there. Encourage your child to explore and get to know an area at the
edge of a field, pond or pesticide-free garden. Look for edges between
habitats where the trees stop and grasses begin or where rocks and
earth meet water.
What you do is less important than your enthusiasm for doing it. A
vital gift to any young person is an innate infectious enthusiasm for
have disappeared.
Q: What keeps children indoorswhen they have opportunities to play
outdoors?
A: Parents cite a number of reasons why their children spend less time
in nature than they themselves did. Among these are disappearing
access to natural areas, competition from television and computers,
dangerous traffic, more homework and other time pressures. They also
mention that newer communities, through covenants and restrictions,
cite stranger-danger because of news coverage that leads them to
number of incidents has been falling.
A: Being in nature builds a sense of empathy and connection. Children
who do not venture outside and bond with nature will be ill prepared
to bond with community. Their lives will increasingly be about what
occurs inside their own homes or future workplaces, and about
themselves. Young people raised under virtual protective house arrest
are missing out on a larger world of possibilities and wonder.
Q: What impact do you believe news media have on our children and
consciousness. Media should be educating the public about beneficial
research, for example, that connecting child health and well-being to
increases in childhood obesity, attention difficulties and depression,
the countering benefits of direct childhood experience in nature
should at least be mentioned as part of the solution.
Q: You write that the Baby Boomer generation is the last one to feel a
deep connection with nature. How can this trendsetting generation
teach its grandchildren that such a connection is necessary to their
own well-being and that of the earth?
A: Baby Boomers, entering or in the grandparent stage, can play a
pivotal role in turning around the current situation. They remember a
time when it was normal for kids to play in nature. Boomers are a
cause-oriented generation. Teaching children about the importance of
their relationship to nature could be their greatest cause yet. If
21st Century
Kid Stats
A recent study shows that the typical eight-year-old can better
identify game characters from the Japanese Pokemon than local native
characters like otters, beetles and oak trees.
Children who spend lots of time outdoors have longer attention spans
than those who watch lots of television and play video games.
(Human-Environment Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign)
Last year less than one-third of our children participated in outdoor
programs, attended summer camp or participated in outdoor service
projects.
(Pacific Forest and Watershed Lands Stewardship Council)
In the past 20 years, the numbers of children ages 7 to 11 who swim,
fish, play touch football, canoe or water ski, or who ride their
bicycle at least six times a year, have all declined by about a third.
Little league is down, as are pick-up games, even playing catch.
(National Sporting Goods Association)
In the 1960s, 4 percent of U.S. kids were obese. Today that figure has
quadrupled, to 16 percent.
(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
Source:
by Linda Sechrist
|
|
![Favorite](javascript:myfavor('http://nzbot.com/article/alt.fan.utb.naughty-boy/1390', 'Saving Our Kids from Nature Deficit Disorder - "mfld-302.jpg" (0/1) 63.4 kBytes yEnc')){kind=link}