Last Child In The Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder

Readers of my other blog, Zandrea, might recall my anecdote on taking our girlscout troop "camping" last summer and my amazment, along with my other troop leaders, that the girls did not run off into the camp wilderness during freetime. They all stayed close to the lodge and for the most part did crafts that could just as easily been done inside (which, due to rain, at times they were). We attributed it to their being "city kids".

About a month ago, I was watching one of those Sunday morning shows* and a statistic along the lines of our grandparents knew and traveled 5 miles around their house, while our parents knew about a 2 mile radius and today's children are many times limited to their very house, if not their front and back yards. The book this came from is called Last Child In the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv. I immediately added it to my library queue. I had wondered if I was just having a "kids today!" moment so thought this book might validate some of my observations.

Mr. Louv discusses various repercussions of "nature-deficit" among this generation of children: higher incidences of ADHD, not being able to identify local species of birds, insects, trees (thereby decreasing the liklihood of preserving them), childhood to adulthood obesity. Mr. Louv sites many reasons for this, and kids watching tv and playing video games is just one small reason. Liability/litigation have made exploring neighborhoods off limits, fear of "stranger-danger" has lead parents to keep kids within eye and earshot, organized sports and school have lead to less free time and schools have cut out recess and physical education if favor of more academic time to pass required tests. But Mr. Louv presents adults and kids working to buck the trend-- progressive school programs which feature nature learning, trips to the Alaskan wilderness for inner city kids. I thought about my experience in nature as a kid-- not a lot in Kansas, but summer vacations were often in Colorado or New Mexico and when we did visit New England, hours were spent at the beach, creating makeshift aquariums. Freshman year of high school I had an assignment to make an insect collection. I balked because what 14 year old girl wants to collect bugs? But I did it and was amazed enough to still recall it 16 years later.
Mr. Louv sometimes comes across as the dorky dad-- he makes us all feel good but also like maybe we shouldn't swear so much and drink more milk and less alcohol. But at the end of it all, he presents a compelling argument to set an example for kids and get back out in nature**. This reads like a college sociology book (although I liked my college sociology class), so it's getting only 4/5 netflix stars.

*note to self: get off your duff and get outside!
**inspired, I'm going to go outside and watch the total lunar eclipse. Or at least watch from the window with a movie on in the background.