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

by Richard Louv

Much of our learning comes from doing, from making, from feeling with our hands; and though many would like to believe otherwise, the world is not entirely available from a keyboard.

natural settings are essential for healthy child development because they stimulate all the senses and integrate informal play with formal learning.

She concluded that inventiveness and imagination of nearly all of the creative people she studied was rooted

in their early experiences in nature.

let me say something about the pressures that parents endure. Simply put, many of us must overcome the belief that something isn’t worth doing with our kids unless we do it right. If getting our kids out into nature is a search for perfection, or is one more chore, then the belief in perfection and the chore defeats the joy. It’s a good thing to learn more about nature in order to share this knowledge with children; it’s even better if the adult and child learn about nature together. And it’s a lot more fun.

His advice to parents: take your children on easier, shorter hikes, close to urban areas, because small children tend to get bored long before they grow weary.

The main thing is to find or rediscover our own sense of joy, excitement, and mystery.

One goal in the fourth frontier should be a nationwide review of laws governing private land and recreation, especially involving children.