No Child Left Inside
My entire family is from Southwest Virginia and Southern West Virginia. My parents had moved to the suburbs of Washington, D.C. by the time that I was born but I remember well the many summers and holidays that I spent with my cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents in the pastures and woods that made up the family property. Out of the house just after dawn, visit great-grandmother for lunch, a dinner bell bringing us back for dinner, and back out until late at night trying to catch the last firefly. We’d be dirty, sweaty, covered in cobwebs from the barn, shoes muddy from the creek, and nursing an elbow scraped in the oak tree that we’d climbed trying to get to that squirrel’s nest.
My boyhood home outside of Washington was a real slice of suburbia. There weren’t any cows or chickens, no place to camp in the woods, but there were still a few mildly wild places nearby. My friends and I would jump on our bikes in the morning cool, head to the creek, throw stones at the old Ford that rusted at the end of the trail, and on occasion forget that we were still 5 minutes from the sound of mom’s voice.
I have a child now, and the thought of him being out on his own for 12 hours terrifies me. Like many boys his age, he’s train-obsessed and has everything on rails that I could buy at the local Toy-Mart. Thomas, Lionel, Geotracks; he’s got it. He’s been camping and fishing, he’s chased crabs at the beach, and he knows how to climb a tree. Trouble is, he and the trains have taken over the garage and he’s at the age where a video game controller is becoming more and more comfortable. Like most boys his age, he’s not perfect, and every once in a while I have to put a parental foot down. “Son, I’m not sure that I like your tone of voice. Put down the game and go outside and play.” Son recoils in horror. “NOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
There is a book that all of us with kids should read. It is Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv. He isn’t identifying a new disease or syndrome, but has coined a phrase that describes the physical and psychological costs of our disconnect from nature.
“Disconnect”. Perhaps that’s part of the problem? In 2009 the Oxford Junior Dictionary took out the words acorn, beech, dandelion, minnow, violet, and other nature-related words. They added apparatus, broadband, database, MP3, voicemail, and other pertinent words based on relevance and how often children used them.
I can understand how this came to be such a huge issue. Every day we read another horrifying story about an Amber Alert. Frivolous lawsuits have made tree-climbing an adventure in the legal system. FOI (not “Freedom of Information”, but “Fear of Insurance”) more often than not makes our parks and playgrounds off limits when it is most convenient for our kids.
Add to these ills the fact that “adventure” is more likely a cable channel than a pastime. Would you like to canoe a wild river? Saw it on TV. Need to see some wildlife? Saw it on Critter Channel. Ride your bike down a mountain trail? YouTube. Been there, saw that. We’ve spent a fortune on the latest gizmos and gadgets, a ransom in connectivity, and not a dime on dirt. What’s the latest version of The Sound of Fast Moving Water? Did you get the latest Leaves Changing Colors? Were you up all night trying to download Guess What: I Caught A Frog?
Does your brood have Nature-Deficit Disorder? Dave Wood is an 8th grade teacher at Sidwell Friends School in Washington. He came up with a survey that he gave to his students to see how far out of touch with nature they were. He made it kind of a class project and had the kids give the survey to their friends and families. Other studies have shown the power of interaction with nature, with links to problem solving, critical thinking, and according to the University of Illinois, a decrease in Attention-Deficit Disorder symptoms.
Ken Salazar, our current Secretary of the Interior, likes the idea of our young people getting out into our great outdoors. He envisions a program kind of like the Civilian Conservation Corp of the 30’s with initiatives engaging young people to hit nature head-on. His Youth in the Great Outdoors Initiative (YouthGO) will educate, put younger folks to work, and make them the stewards and future of our natural surroundings.
There is no need for you to wait for Ken and the guys in Washington to give you the go-ahead to get outdoors. You may not have cows. You may not have a wilderness at the end of your street. Perhaps it’s just a matter of exploring your neighborhood? The first step is simple: get your little one to put down the game controller. Then it’s just a matter of stepping outside, opening the gate, and start walking! Get your Nature-Deficit Disorder in a proper order!