How to Raise a Wild Child Quotes

“If children are to grow into healthy, well-adjusted adults, nature needs to be integral to their everyday lives, from place-based learning at school to unstructured, unsupervised, even risk-prone play around home. Nature isn’t just a bunch of far-off plants, animals, and landscapes to learn about and visit once or twice a year. It’s an environment to be immersed in daily, especially during our childhood years.”
― Scott D. Sampson, How to Raise a Wild Child: The Art and Science of Falling in Love with Nature

“Compared to kids confined indoors, children who regularly play in nature show heightened motor control—including balance, coordination, and agility. They tend to engage more in imaginative and creative play, which in turn fosters language, abstract reasoning, and problem-solving skills, together with a sense of wonder. Nature play is superior at engendering a sense of self and a sense of place, allowing children to recognize both their independence and interdependence. Play in outdoor settings also exceeds indoor alternatives in fostering cognitive, emotional, and moral development. And individuals who spend abundant time playing outdoors as children are more likely to grow up with a strong attachment to place and an environmental ethic.”
― Scott D. Sampson, How to Raise a Wild Child: The Art and Science of Falling in Love with Nature

“Children can now recognize greater than a thousand corporate logos, but fewer than ten plants native to their region. The”
― Scott D. Sampson, How to Raise a Wild Child: The Art and Science of Falling in Love with Nature

“One study found that the average American boy or girl spends four to seven minutes a day outdoors. Another placed the estimate at about thirty minutes of daily, unstructured, outdoor play.”
― Scott D. Sampson, How to Raise a Wild Child: The Art and Science of Falling in Love with Nature

“Children aren’t just defective adults,” she says, “primitive grown-ups gradually attaining our perfection and complexity. Instead, children and adults are different forms of Homo sapiens.” She compares humans to butterflies, with very different growth stages, each highly successful in its own right. In our case, however, it’s the youngsters who are the butterflies, flitting about from thing to thing, whereas we grown-ups fill the caterpillar role, steadfastly moving through our focused tasks.”
― Scott D. Sampson, How to Raise a Wild Child: The Art and Science of Falling in Love with Nature

“Simply being in the presence of natural landscapes tends to reduce stress and promote relaxation. Such experiences lower mental fatigue and boost mental clarity while enhancing both work performance and healing. One early study found that surgery patients recovered faster and required less pain medication if their hospital room had a window overlooking a natural setting. Another found similar effects in a prison population: prisoners with windows facing out toward rolling farmland and trees had 24 percent fewer sick call visits than their counterparts with views of an empty interior courtyard.”
― Scott D. Sampson, How to Raise a Wild Child: The Art and Science of Falling in Love with Nature

“All education is environmental education . . . By what is included or excluded, students are taught that they are part of, or apart from, the natural world.”
― Scott D. Sampson, How to Raise a Wild Child: The Art and Science of Falling in Love with Nature

“The day we visited, mothers were chatting comfortably on one of the benches while their children ran around happily exploring and playing games. The beauty of natural playgrounds is that they tap directly into children’s passions. In traditional playspaces constructed of metal and plastic, decisions about what to play are made by the designers. First you swing. Then you go down the slide. Too often, the result is competition, with kids arguing over who gets to do what, followed by frustration and tears. Conversely, in natural play areas, the child is boss. Imaginations are fired up as kids invent games with the available loose parts. Studies show that interactions tend to be more cooperative as well. Bullying is greatly decreased, and both vandalism and aggressive behavior also go down if there is a tree canopy. And with greater engagement comes longer play intervals, about three times longer compared with old-style play equipment.”
― Scott D. Sampson, How to Raise a Wild Child: The Art and Science of Falling in Love with Nature

“periodic exposure to nature in a diverse range of settings, from zoos to national parks, will likely be less effective in fostering bonds with nature than abundant time spent outdoors in a single, most likely local place.”
― Scott D. Sampson, How to Raise a Wild Child: The Art and Science of Falling in Love with Nature

“Another easy yet impactful activity is to go for nighttime walks, preferably in a natural place like a park or beach. For a bounty of ideas, check out books like Joseph Cornell’s Sharing Nature With Children, Jennifer Ward’s I Love Dirt!, and Susan Sachs Lipman’s Fed Up with Frenzy. Another easy and engaging way to connect kids with nature is to visit your local nature center.”
― Scott D. Sampson, How to Raise a Wild Child: The Art and Science of Falling in Love with Nature

“Cities were constructed on the notion that civilization’s progress can be measured in terms of our separation from, and dominion over, nature. The unspoken message is that nature is something to be controlled and subdued.”
― Scott D. Sampson, How to Raise a Wild Child: The Art and Science of Falling in Love with Nature

“recent research indicates that unstructured play in natural settings is essential for children’s healthy growth. As any parent or early childhood educator will attest, play is an innate drive. It is also the primary vehicle for youngsters to experience and explore their surroundings. Compared to kids confined indoors, children who regularly play in nature show heightened motor control—including balance, coordination, and agility. They tend to engage more in imaginative and creative play, which in turn fosters language, abstract reasoning, and problem-solving skills, together with a sense of wonder. Nature play is superior at engendering a sense of self and a sense of place, allowing children to recognize both their independence and interdependence. Play in outdoor settings also exceeds indoor alternatives in fostering cognitive, emotional, and moral development. And individuals who spend abundant time playing outdoors as children are more likely to grow up with a strong attachment to place and an environmental ethic. When asked to identify the most significant environment of their childhoods, 96.5 percent of a large sample of adults named an outdoor environment. In”
― Scott D. Sampson, How to Raise a Wild Child: The Art and Science of Falling in Love with Nature

“Being an effective mentor means becoming a coconspirator, a fellow explorer, a chaser of clues.”
― Scott D. Sampson, How to Raise a Wild Child: The Art and Science of Falling in Love with Nature

“and rear children communally.”
― Scott D. Sampson, How to Raise a Wild Child: The Art and Science of Falling in Love with Nature

“The major problems in the world are the result of the difference between how nature works and the way people think. —GREGORY BATESON”
― Scott D. Sampson, How to Raise a Wild Child: The Art and Science of Falling in Love with Nature

“abundant time in nature is a critical wellspring of human health, with a deep and formative influence on children in particular. Nature’s impacts extend far beyond physical fitness, encompassing intellectual and emotional health, self-identity, and basic values and morals. Health benefits of exposure to nature include enhanced healing, stress reduction, creativity, and self-esteem. Nature also has an unparalleled capacity to stir our emotions, fostering raw and powerful feelings of wonder, awe, mystery, joy—and, yes, fear. Smelling a wildflower in an alpine meadow, sprinting into the ocean surf, and sharing a face-to-face encounter with a coyote are all experiences that differ mightily from virtual alternatives.”
― Scott D. Sampson, How to Raise a Wild Child: The Art and Science of Falling in Love with Nature

“So what happened? Well, the digital revolution for one thing. Perhaps even more so than adults, children are highly susceptible to the hypnotic siren call of computers and handheld gadgets. Yet blaming technology is far too simplistic; many other factors have been involved. The fear factor, for example. Thanks to the media frenzy that now surrounds child abductions, parents are afraid to let their children play outdoors unattended. This is in spite of the fact that friends and relatives, rather than strangers, commit the great bulk of these crimes, and that the odds of your child being snatched are no greater than they were in 1950 or 1960. Another fear—this one of litigation—has driven many property owners”
― Scott D. Sampson, How to Raise a Wild Child: The Art and Science of Falling in Love with Nature

“In wildness is the preservation of the world. —HENRY DAVID THOREAU”
― Scott D. Sampson, How to Raise a Wild Child: The Art and Science of Falling in Love with Nature

“Most of the external tools needed to set humanity on a new, sustainable path—knowledge, technologies, and wealth—are already available. Yet our response remains glacial relative to the urgent need for action. The most crucial unresolved sustainability issue, then, is a matter of mind and education rather than science and technology.”
― Scott D. Sampson, How to Raise a Wild Child: The Art and Science of Falling in Love with Nature