Richard Louv
Richard Louv
Richard Louvis an American nonfiction author and journalist. He is best known for his seventh book, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder, which investigates the relationship of children and the natural world in current and historical contexts. Louv created the term “nature-deficit disorder” to describe possible negative consequences to individual health and the social fabric as children move indoors and away from physical contact with the natural world – particularly unstructured, solitary experience. Louv cites...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
CountryUnited States of America
Some kids don't want to be organized all the time. They want to let their imaginations run; they want to see where a stream of water takes them.
I do not trust technology. I mean, I don't think we're in any danger of kids, you know, doing without video games in the future, but I am saying that their lives are largely out of balance.
If war occurs, that positive adult contact in every shape is needed more than ever. It will be a matter of emotional life and death. There's not a handy one-minute way of talking to your kid about war.
It's easy to blame the nature-deficit disorder on the kids' or the parents' back, but they also need the help of urban planners, schools, libraries and other community agents to find nature that's accessible.
Our kids are actually doing what we told them to do when they sit in front of that TV all day or in front of that computer game all day. The society is telling kids unconsciously that nature's in the past. It really doesn't count anymore, that the future is in electronics, and besides, the bogeyman is in the woods.
There's a generation now that didn't grow up in nature. Some of these adults are parents and they know that nature is good for their kids but they don't know where to start.
What if more and more parents, grandparents and kids around the country band together to create outdoor adventure clubs, family nature networks, family outdoor clubs, or green gyms? What if this approach becomes the norm in every community?
How can our kids really understand the moral complexities of being alive if they are not allowed to engage in those complexities outdoors?
Kids and adults pay a price for too much tech, and it's not wholesale.
Kids are absolutely starved for positive adult contact.
Kids are plugged into some sort of electronic medium 44 hours per week.
We are telling our kids that nature is in the past and it probably doesn't count anymore, the future is in electronics, the boogeyman is in the woods, and playing outdoors is probably illicit and possibly illegal.
Stress reduction, greater physical health, a deeper sense of spirit, more creativity, a sense of play, even a safer life-these are the rewards that await a family then it invites more nature into children's lives.
To take nature and natural play away from children may be tantamount to withholding oxygen.