WHEN DID KIDS AND NATURE
QUIT BEING FRIENDS?

One Man’s Perspective and
Mission to Change That Situation

By Jack Etzel

Richard Louv is the author of seven books about family, nature and community. His latest book titled Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder has created a national conversation about the disconnection between children and nature, its implications for human health, and the future of the environment. Among many organizations, he is Chairman of the Children & Nature Network (www.cnaturenet.org) and an advisor to the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child.

North Hills Monthly Magazine: What’s the difference about how children play today compared to 20 years ago?

Richard Louv: Members of my generation grew into adulthood taking nature’s childhood gifts for granted; we assumed (when we thought of it at all) that generations to come would also receive these blessings. But, now we know that something has changed.
Over the past 15 years, I have interviewed families across the country about the changes in their lives, including their relationships with nature. With few exceptions, even in rural areas, parents say the same thing: Most children aren’t playing outside anymore, not in the woods or the fields or the canyons.

Today, kids are well aware of the global threats to the environment, but their physical contact, their intimacy with nature on a day-to-day basis, is fading. A fifth-grader in a San Diego classroom put it succinctly: “I like to play indoors better ‘cause that’s where all the electrical outlets are.”

NHMM: You indicated that some barriers of our litigious society should be lowered. Why?

Louv: We need to begin to think in terms of comparative risk. Yes, there’s risk in nature, but there is also a huge risk to children's health- think of the relationship between child obesity and diabetes and heart disease - by raising future generations under virtual house arrest. The litigious society is part of the problem. You can see a “DON’T RUN” sign on a playground!

Medical Insurance reform is also essential, but reducing the number of tragedies in the first place remains the most important goal. In 2004, the nonprofit Institute for Healthcare Improvement launched the 100,000 Lives Campaign, a broad national effort to reduce lawsuits by improving medical services, identifying six basic measures that could save as many as 100,000 lives a year- if even 2,000 hospitals adopted them. That's a step in the right direction.
But, the hardest task will be to create a more predictable process, one that balances the individual case with the public need for acceptable risk that more clearly sets the parameters of acceptable risk, in the public mind.

NHMM: You make a link between outdoor activity and good mental and physical health, writing that nature can be what you called a “healing balm” in a child’s life.

Louv: The evidence that connects nature to well-being and restoration has focused on adults, but during the past decade, scientists have begun to study the impact of nearby nature on child development. Environmental psychologists reported in 2003 that that nature in or around the home, or simply a room with a view of a natural landscape, helped protect the psychological well-being of the children.

Researchers have found that children with disabilities gain enhanced body image and positive behavior changes through direct interaction with nature. Studies of outdoor-education programs geared toward troubled youth, especially those diagnosed with mental health problems, show a clear therapeutic value. Some of the most intriguing studies are being done by the Human-Environment Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois, where researchers have discovered that children as young as five showed a significant reduction in the symptoms of Attention-Deficit Disorder when they engaged with nature. Could nature therapy be a new option for ADD treatment?

Meanwhile, the California-based State Education and Environmental Roundtable, a national effort to study environment-based education, found that schools that use outdoor classrooms, among other techniques, produce student gains in social studies, science, language arts and math; improved standardized test scores and grade-point averages; and enhanced skills in problem-solving, critical thinking, and decision-making. In addition, anecdotal evidence suggests that time in natural surroundings stimulates children’s creativity.

NHMM: Your book is packed with well-researched critical thinking, but you remain optimistic, writing that, “Good works are taking root.”

Louv: Environmental educators, conservationists, and others have worked for decades to bring more children to nature- usually with inadequate support from policymakers. But, now a number of trends, including the recent unexpected national media attention to Last Child and “nature deficit disorder,” have gained a broader audience.

We do seem to have reached a tipping point. Stories about the children and nature movement have appeared recently in many national newspapers and magazines. State and regional campaigns have begun to form in many cities. A host of related initiatives, among them the simple-living, walkable cities, nature-education, and land-trust movements, have begun to find common cause and collective strength through this issue. It has attracted a wide assortment of people. Also, some of us have formed the Children & Nature Network (www.cnaturenet.org) to chronicle and encourage this movement.

Recently, I was asked to give testimony to a congressional subcommittee. After I finished, the six members of congress began to reminisce about their own childhood experiences in nature, and how they would never want that opportunity to end for future generations. In those moments, there were no Republicans in the room and there were no Democrats.