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Photo by Cindy Ross
New research connects the rapid increase in childhood depression and attention deficit disorders to the lack of outside time. |
Saving our kids from Nature Deficient Disorder
“Now I know the secret of making the best persons. It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.” — Walt Whitman
When my husband was growing up in the suburbs, he and his friends habitually paid visits to the latest construction site with their wagon. They would load it with long, ungainly pieces of scrap lumber and pull it for many blocks to the edge of the development, where their backyards ended and the woods began. There they built a fort. It taught them many things, about problem solving, working together and thinking creatively. More importantly, it got them outdoors and gave them a sense of wonder.
We did these kinds of things years ago without any thought — captured fireflies in a jar, turned over rocks in a creek and built dams. If we were not out in the wilds, we managed to find a corner, an edge, a space left open, to explore and discover. We gravitated to them.
Kids aren’t outside anymore. Drive nearly anywhere in the country and you’ll find yards and playgrounds vacant of children. There are many culprits — television, computers, video games, too much structured, organized time, a fear of the bogeyman just waiting to snatch our children away, and lack of green space. The radius around the home where children were allowed to roam alone has shrunk to a tiny fraction of what it was in 1970.
There is startling new evidence that spending time in nature is as important to children as good nutrition and adequate sleep.
“To take nature and natural play away from children may be tantamount to withholding oxygen,” said author Richard Louve, in his groundbreaking book, Last Child in the Woods — Saving Our Children From Nature Deficient Disorder. In it, he explains that in the course of a few decades children’s physical contact with nature has faded at an alarming rate. New research connects the rapid increase in childhood depression and attention deficit disorders to the lack of outside time, as well as for the increased rate at which doctors prescribe antidepressants to children, which has doubled in the last five years.
In nature, children make full use of their senses, are inspired to be creative, learn visualization and concentration, reduce stress, develop a deep sense of spirit and a sense of play, become more fit, and evolve into better stewards of the land.
And with the planet in the mess it is today, we can’t expect to grow environmentally conscious kids when they are not attached to the land nor made an intimate, personal connection with the natural world. We need to nurture the magic in our children’s lives and detach them from electronics long enough to have their imaginations kick in.
New findings from The Nielsen Company show kids spend half as much time outside as children did 20 years ago and average 44.5 hours a week in front of some type of electronic entertainment.
Time spent in the natural world will give your child so much more than any school book, computer program, television show (even the Nature Channel) or organized sports and better equip them to thrive in the world. Even very small doses of nature reap tremendous benefits.
Louve said, “When we deny children nature, we deny them beauty.” We need to teach our children to “see into the beating heart of the earth.” We need to instill in them a personal passion. Richard Louve believes this is the long distance fuel for the struggle to save what is left of the natural environment. For “passion is lifted from the earth itself by the muddy hands of the young; it travels along grass-stained sleeves to the heart.” — Cindy Ross
Get outside!
At a loss for ways to share the outdoors with your children? Take them fishing, hunting, wildlife watching, out for a hike. Camp out. Watch a meteorite shower. Build a campfire or skip rocks. Buy some identification books and learn the surrounding trees. Press flowers. Pull out a microscope and look at a drop of pond water. Turn over rocks in the stream and look for critters. Gather walnuts and bake something. Follow animal tracks in the snow. Plant a garden. Feed the birds. Contact your local conservation agency and sign up for camps so kids can learn outdoors with their peers. Investigate your local environmental education center and see what programs are available. Join the scouts or start your own troop and focus on the outdoors.
For more outdoor adventure ideas, check out Sharing Nature With Children by Joseph Bharat Cornell.