Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder

I bet I can live to a hundred if only I can get outdoors again.~~Geraldine Page as Carrie Watts, in The Trip to Bountiful

A while back I had a post titled No Child Left Inside. In that article, I mentioned a book titled, Last Child in the Woods authored by Richard Louv.

I bought the book this past weekend and began reading it. I will post some of the highlights worthy of sharing as I go through the book. Even before hearing about this book and the "No Child Left Inside" initiative, I've always felt the benefits of spending time outside myself. It's therapeutic on many levels. And, as this book eludes....it is a requirement to live a healthy life.

Some excerpts from what I've read thus far:

Many years ago, I interviewed Jerry Hirshberg, founding director and president of Nissan Design International, the Japanese auto company's design center in America. This was one of several such centers established by Japan's car manufacturers up and down the California coast. When I asked Hirshberg why these centers existed, he explained that the Japanese know their strengths and ours: their specialty was tight, efficient manufacturing; ours was design. The Japanese, said Hirshberg, recognized that American creativity comes largely from our freedom, our space--our physical space and our mental space. He offered no academic studies to support his theory; nonetheless, his statement rang true, and it has stayed with me. Growing up, many of us were blessed with natural space and the imagination that filled it.
America's genius has been nurtured by nature--by space, both physical and mental. What happens to a nation's intrinsic creativity, and therefore the health of our economy, when future generations are so restricted that they no longer have room to stretch? One might argue that the Internet has replaced the woods, in terms of inventive space, but no electronic environment stimulates all of the senses. So far, Microsoft sells no match for nature's code.........................

Nature--the sublime, the harsh, and the beautiful--offers something that the street or a gated community or computer game cannot. Nature presents the young with something so much greater than they are; it offers an environment where they can easily contemplate infinity and eternity.

The first few chapters have covered how children are exposed very little to the outdoors anymore. From restrictive covenants in neighborhoods that don't allow them to build that fort in the yard or skateboard ramp in the street to schools that have all but cut out physical education and outdoor stimulation. It would be interesting to track how many hours (or minutes) per week that our children actually spend outside. I remember constantly being outside growing up.

The book also mentioned years ago children were allowed to roam from the house for a distance of over a mile yet today it's measured in feet because of the fear of danger in our communities. Is it really more dangerous today or is it that we just hear about it so much in the news? The news bombards us with negativity. I don't think we should encourage reckless behavior but at the same time, I think the parents (including myself ) today are too overly cautious at times. It makes me think of the Kelly Clarkson song, "Because of You." Part of the song's lyrics follow:

Because of you, I never stray too far from the sidewalk. Because of you I learned to play on the safe side so I don't get hurt. Because of you, I find it hard to trust not only me, but everyone around me. Because of you, I am afraid....

Yes, I was holding my breath as Rachel and Anna walked on the log at the park this past weekend...the log was around 7-9 feet above the stream below. Yes, I was hating myself for not catching the branch that flew back from my leg and smacked Anna in the face as we were hiking. And, yes, I gasped when Rachel showed me this awful bruise/scratch she had gotten when she slipped and fell off one of the logs she was walking across while playing unsupervised. The interesting part with that she didn't cry. She told me tonight as I bathed her and saw the awful bruise that was forming on her ribs that she didn't cry because she wanted to be brave. She's a tough cookie. I think I would've cried if it had happened to me. I was impressed that she had handled it so well. And, while trying to figure out how to get a splinter out of Anna's heal this evening, I wondered how in the heck she had walked around on that foot today without being utterly miserable....maybe that was why she was so crabby this morning. But, I'm just glad my girl's aren't afraid to get dirty. They aren't afraid of tackling that trail or that hill. And, they persevere even when they aren't the most comfortable.

I told Jeff I'm in the mood to build a tree house.