Reaction to the essay Leave No Child Inside: The growing movement to reconnect children and nature, and to battle “nature deficit disorder” by Richard Louv. As published in Orion magazine.
March/April 2007
“I like to play indoors better ‘cause that’s where all the electrical outlets are.”
It’s hard to accept that the above statement has become the common attitude among young children and teenagers. When I was a kid I used to spend the majority of my time outside biking, swimming, horseback riding, just bumming around with friends, but now it seems that television and video games have replaced the activities I, and most everyone over the age of about 23, remember as normal. And I didn’t grow up in a rural area. I grew up in a Minneapolis suburb.
The question must be asked as to why we have retreated into our homes, locked the doors and windows and nestled in front of the warming glow of the television screen when there is still a natural world out there. Or perhaps a big part of the problem is that there isn’t. Urban sprawl has dominated the natural world to such an extent that children nowadays are not nearly as apt to step out of the back door of their suburban home to find a small forest as I did; and do not anymore. Now it is a development of duplexes. And I used to play in those woods, and walk through them to the lake. Now it’s trespassing to get from my parents’ home to the water’s edge.
It seems that a bit of paranoia has spread through our society as well. Parents don’t feel that their kids will be safe if left to wander the great outdoors alone, or even with friends. We see stories of kidnappings and murders on the news everyday and it makes us feel threatened. Gone are the days when parents say ‘don’t talk to strangers’ and send their kids out to play. As Louv points out in his essay, the dangers are no greater, it is our perception of those dangers that has changed:
"Urban, suburban, and even rural parents cite a number of everyday reasons why their children spend less time in nature than they themselves did, including disappearing access to natural areas, competition from television and computers, dangerous traffic, more homework, and other pressures. Most of all, parents cite fear of stranger-danger. Conditioned by round-the-clock news coverage, they believe in an epidemic of abductions by strangers, despite evidence that the number of child-snatchings (about a hundred a year) has remained roughly the same for two decades, and that the rates of violent crimes against young people have fallen to well below 1975 levels".
So, the natural world is disappearing, people have grown frightened of the dangers the outside world holds, and somehow youth (and an alarming number of adults) has been persuaded into believing that blinking screens are more fun than being outside. The effect this shift away from outdoor play has on children is profound. The most obvious is the epidemic of child obesity. But it goes much deeper than that. Studies have shown that nature has a calming effect on children with attention deficit disorder, that spending more time outside significantly enhances a child’s intellectual and creative capacities:
"…children in outdoor-education settings show increases in self-esteem, problem solving, and motivation to learn. “Natural spaces and materials stimulate children’s limitless imaginations,” says Robin Moore, an international authority on the design of environments for children’s play, learning, and education, “and serve as the medium of inventiveness and creativity.” Studies of children in schoolyards with both green areas and manufactured play areas have found that children engaged in more creative forms of play in the green areas, and they also played more cooperatively. Recent research also shows a positive correlation between the length of children’s attention spans and direct experience in nature. Studies at the University of Illinois show that time in natural settings significantly reduces symptoms of attention-deficit (hyperactivity) disorder in children as young as age five. The research also shows the experience helps reduce negative stress and protects psychological well being, especially in children undergoing the most stressful life events."
It’s intuitive really that children who spend most of their time inside, in front of some sort of electronic device would be less creative than those who spend their time outside, making up games, playing or relaxing undisturbed. People turn on the TV for two reasons: entertainment, and to zone out and not have to think. We’ve all done it but it becomes a problem when that is all that a person, in particular one whose mind is still developing, does with his/her time. It would be good if schools would take the initiative to change as well. Hold class outside for instance. I had a few professors who would do just that every so often and there were definitely fewer naps taking place those days. Teachers could incorporate environmental studies into the curriculum, or assign homework that involves outdoor activity such as collecting and identifying leaves, or birds or insects (identify only for the latter two of course). Class field trips could be more outdoor-based, especially in areas where there are natural parks or nature trails around. Louv noted that some teachers were absolutely appalled by children’s lack of experience with nature, “In suburban Fort Collins, Colorado, teachers shake their heads in dismay when they describe the many students who have never been to the mountains visible year-round on the western horizon.” It’s hard to believe that there was never time to take these children to the mountains virtually in their backyards. It gets worse:
"In a typical week, only 6 percent of children ages nine to thirteen play outside on their own. Studies by the National Sporting Goods Association and by American Sports Data, a research firm, show a dramatic decline in the past decade in such outdoor activities as swimming and fishing. Even bike riding is down 31 percent since 1995. In San Diego, according to a survey by the nonprofit Aquatic Adventures, 90 percent of inner-city kids do not know how to swim; 34 percent have never been to the beach."
The advocates of the No Child Inside movement point out that the benefits of changing schools to be more nature-friendly will enhance the educational system as well, making it a more positive experience, “we will help students realize that school isn’t supposed to be a polite form of incarceration, but a portal to the wider world.”
As Harvard Professor E. O. Wilson believes, “human beings are innately attracted to nature: biologically, we are all still hunters and gatherers, and there is something in us, which we do not fully understand, that needs an occasional immersion in nature.” I happen to agree. And I think it’s time to reinstate the ‘go outside and play’ attitude that parents used to have. In fact I think it’s absolutely imperative for the healthy development of not only children, but society as well.
Richard Louv is a veteran columnist with the San Diego Union-Tribune and the author of seven books, including, most recently, Last Child in the Woods. He is chairman of the Children & Nature Network.
http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/240/