by Cate Montana

Ask any Baby Boomer how they spent their childhood, and, unless they were raised in the inner city, most have fond recollections of endless hours of outdoor play. Riotous games of tag, meandering walks through the woods, polly-wog eggs scooped out of mucky pond edges, and just lying on the grass finding odd shapes in the clouds were pastimes we experienced in abundance. Rare was the child of the 50s or 60s who got home much before dark. Weekdays and weekends, we had to be dragged inside from our play, muddy and cold and utterly content.

Urban growth in the 70s cut out a lot of the woodsie play areas for kids. Increased traffic made many free-roaming bike routes unsafe, and escalating crime concerns further narrowed the playing field. And then there was television. Who wanted to be outside when The Waltons was on?

Fast forward to the Gen Y child and you get an even more down-sized scenario. Richard Louv, a journalist who has written Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder, says today the opportunity for kids to get out and play in nature has been grossly reduced. For example a 1991 study of three generations of nine-year-olds found that between 1970 and 1990, the boundary area children are allowed to roam had shrunk by almost 90%. And whereas 56% of parents today were allowed to bike to school alone by age ten, only 36% say they would permit their children to do the same.

Why is unstructured play for the modern child becoming a thing of the past? Development and traffic are partly responsible. But, as Louv writes, “My unscientific hunch, however, is that since the 1980s, fear of strangers – and beyond that a generalized unfocused fear – has come to outrank the fear of traffic. For all of these reasons, many children never get to know their neighborhoods or parks or the surviving natural areas at their fringes.”

In response to this trend, structured sports are at an all time high. If kids can’t romp around the neighborhood and schools are cutting back on athletic programs, parents have no alternative but to fill in the gap. Soccer, Little League, gymnastics, ballet, weight training, karate – never have so many children in the U.S. participated in such a wide variety of after school sports activities. And yet childhood obesity is at an all time high.

Face it. One or two soccer practices a week, sitting in the car for an hour in traffic getting there and back drinking Pepsi, with timeouts, bench time, and coaching periods just doesn’t burn the calories that days of non-stop hide and seek can. When it comes to cardio-vascular development and over all healthy body toning, bench-pressing just can’t compete with racing your dog through the fields, or pretending you’re a horse, galloping across the prairies, leaping over everything in your path.

And then there is the ever-consuming passion children have for all things electronic. Gameboys, computers, television, cell phones with games and cameras – all they take is a chair and electricity. For a lot of kids, the only thing that would make the great outdoors great would be a two-prong outlet and an extension cord.

Childhood obesity is only one potential problem stemming from this disconnect between kids and the natural world. In the early 1980s, Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson examined the human bond with nature and other species. He believed humans have a biological need to connect with other livings things because we come from the natural world – it’s wired into our genetics. He called this connection biophilia. Now there is some scientific evidence that human connection with nature has a primal and almost spiritually uplifting effect. For example, studies show that patients recover more quickly if they are exposed to nature - or even pictures of greenery. The long-standing practice of bringing people flowers in the hospital has a biological basis.

Louv has gone a step further and linked what he terms “nature deficit” to many childhood disorders, citing a growing body of scientific research that suggests children who experience continuous and prolonged activites outdoors thrive phsyically, emotionally and intellectually – more so than children who do not have such access. “Nature play” is even being touted as one possible therapy for attention-deficit disorder because it apparently reduces stress and promotes creative problem solving. And a simple walk in the woods does wonders for depression.

Liz Baird

As a result of Louv’s book, people are not only becoming more aware of the problem, they are taking action. Liz Baird, Director of School Programs at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh, NC, is developing a local awareness campaign called Take a Child Outside Week.She is hoping to developpartnerships with PTAs and school science centers, scheduling events that will encourage parents to get their kids outdoors. She even hopes to take the awareness campaign national.

“This is something we need to address,” says Baird. “I can't solve world hunger, and I can't solve world poverty. But boy, do I know how to take kids outside.”

The mother of a computer loving teenage son, Baird knows how hard it is to pry children’s fingers off the keyboard. But she makes sure the family schedules time to be in nature together, camping and taking walks regularly in the local parks. And she sends her son to summer camp every year where, she says, he has a blast. She also recognizes how much parental fears influence their children and affect their lives. Among other things, the Take a Child Outside Week campaign is designed to help mitigate parental concerns.

“We want to get people a little bit more comfortable taking their children outside, and make parents see that it's not hard,” says Baird. “And we also hope to raise awareness and help get rid of some of the misconceptions parents have that it's so dangerous out there … that your child is going to be abducted, or that they're going to be eaten by whatever. Richard's book actually documents that it's safer for children outside in some ways than it's ever been. It's just a matter of perceptions.”

For information about Nature-Deficit Disorder read Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder, by Richard Louv. For more information on the Take a Child Outside Week campaign, contact Liz Baird at liz.baird@ncmail.ne

One day the father of a very wealthy family took his son on a trip to the country with the firm purpose of showing his son how poor people live. They spent a couple of days and nights on the farm of what would be considered a very poor family.

On their return from their trip, the father asked his son, "How was the trip?"

"It was great, Dad."

"Did you see how poor people live?" the father asked.

"Oh yeah," said the son.

"So, tell me, what did you learn from the trip?" asked the father.

The son answered: "I saw that we have one dog and they had four. We have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden and they have a creek that has no end. We have imported lanterns in our garden and they have the stars at night. Our patio reaches to the front yard and they have the whole horizon.  We have a small piece of land to live on and they have fields that go beyond our sight. We have servants who serve us, but they serve others. We buy our food, but they grow theirs. We have walls around our property to protect us, they have friends to protect them."

The boy's father was speechless. Then his son added, "Thanks, Dad, for showing me how poor we are."

Anonymous