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

by Richard Louv

Nature offers healing for a child living in a destructive family or neighborhood.

In nature, a child finds freedom, fantasy, and privacy: a place distant from the adult world, a separate peace.

“nature” in a general way I mean natural wildness: biodiversity, abundance—related loose parts in a backyard or a rugged mountain ridge. Most

The woods were my Ritalin. Nature calmed me, focused me, and yet excited my senses.

Parents, educators, other adults, institutions—the culture itself—may say one thing to children about nature's gifts, but so many of our actions and messages—especially the ones we cannot hear ourselves deliver—are different. And children hear very well.