Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder

by Louv, Richard

  Most encouraging to her is that her daughter, like many of her generation, is also being exposed, “in a way that I never dreamed possible,” to global society. “Young people are traveling far beyond this country’s boundaries, being exposed to not only different cultures, but also, they are learning how our lavish, throw-away lifestyles in the United States are wreaking havoc outside our borders. These firsthand experiences, at the height of their youthful idealism, will undoubtedly spark new leaders, who will not only do battle to save more of our natural world, but also take a stand for greater justice for all people.

  “While my personal social and environmental consciousness was fueled by experiences in the natural world and reading biographies of people who made a difference, I believe that a passion to save the Earth and its people will spring from these global experiences. Young people are connecting more and more with others across the globe. My daughter can already speak directly to a young person in Buenos Aires or Katmandu via the Internet—without intermediation. She can get the truth straight from the horse’s mouth in a matter of seconds. So, I’m hopeful.”

  I hope Janet is right, but I believe that her optimism will prove valid only with a far greater societal commitment to the bond between our young and the natural world—a commitment that goes beyond today’s environmentalism. While she fights mountaintop removal in West Virginia, strip miners of a different sort are at work in my backyard. Mammoth, rumbling graders slice away the natural curves of the land; this is, in effect, the strip-mining of San Diego. In larger building projects, several earthmovers typically remove ninety thousand cubic yards in a day. Stack this dirt, in cubic yards, and the result would be a tower reaching fifty-one miles into the air; all in a day’s work, all for one development. This stripping of the landscape is the first stage in the creation of a new kind of urban place in which everything is graded and riveted by human hands. Unless a different road is chosen, these are the neighborhoods in which generations of American children will grow up.

  Speaking with college students during the research for this book did give me hope. When the issue of nature’s role in health—physical, mental, and spiritual—was introduced into the conversation, the tone changed; what often began as a fatalistic, intellectual discussion about the hole in the ozone layer quickly turned personal. Some students approached me to say they had never thought about the fate of the environment in such a personalized, direct way. I sense that these young people, who belong to what could be considered the first de-natured generation, hunger for a greater purpose. Some of these students wrote me later to describe how the conversation with their classmates about children and nature had moved them. Even dormant, the seed of nature grows with just a little water.

  Perhaps, as the years go by, these young people will realize their sense of purpose in this cause, and dedicate their career skills to it. Not just as a matter of ideology, or even survival, but because they see the potential joy that they and their own children could share someday, as could many of us—if we act quickly.

  23. While It Lasts

  IT SEEMS LIKE just the other day . . .

  The boys are small. We’re staying in a three-room cabin beside the Owens River on the east slope of the Sierras. We can hear the October wind move down from the mountains. Jason and Matthew are in their beds, and I read to them from the 1955 juvenile novel Lion Hound, by Jim Kjelgaard. I have had this book since junior high. I read: “When Johnny Torrington awoke, the autumn dawn was still two hours away.

  “For five luxurious minutes he stretched in his warm bed, the covers pulled up to his chin while he listened to the wind blowing through the bedroom’s open window. Though the wind was no colder than it had been yesterday, it seemed to have a quality now that had been lacking then.” My younger son’s eyes, made larger by strong, round glasses, widen. The older boy, Jason, tucks his face under the blanket, where he can surely see the lion circling.

  The next evening, after Matthew goes into town with his mother, Jason and I walk a stretch of the Owens to fish with barbless flies. As we fish, we watch a great blue heron lift effortlessly, and I recall another heron rising above a pond in woods long ago, and I feel the awe that I felt then. I watch my son lift the fly line in a long loop above his head. Under the cottonwoods, he tells me with firmness that he wants to tie his own leader. And I understand that it is time for me to put some distance between us on the river.

  When it is too dark to see into the water, we walk toward home in the cold. We hear a noise in the bushes and look up to see seven mule deer watching us. Their heads and long ears are silhouetted against the dark lavender sky. We hear other sounds in the bushes. We reach the gravel road, and an Oldsmobile rolls up behind us and an old man cranks down his window and asks, “Do you need a ride or are you almost there?”

  “We’re almost there,” I say.

  We can see the light in our cabin. Matthew and his mother are waiting, and tonight I’ll read a few more pages of Lion Hound before they sleep.

  JASON IS A MAN NOW, and on his own. Matthew is in college. I feel a sense of pride and relief that they have grown well, and a deep grief that my years as a parent of young children is over, except in memory. And I am thankful. The times I spent with my children in nature are among my most meaningful memories—and I hope theirs.

  We have such a brief opportunity to pass on to our children our love for this Earth, and to tell our stories. These are the moments when the world is made whole. In my children’s memories, the adventures we’ve had together in nature will always exist. These will be their turtle tales.

  NOTES

  1. Gifts of Nature

  8 We attach two meanings to the word nature Gary Snyder, The Practice of the Wild (Washington, D.C.: Shoemaker & Hoard, 2004), 8.

  2. The Third Frontier

  15 “The smallest boys can build . . . simple shelters” Daniel C. Beard, Shelters, Shacks and Shanties (Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press, 1992), xv.

  17 The passing, and importance, of the first frontier Frederick Jackson Turner, “The Problem of the West,” Atlantic Monthly, September 1896.

  18 the federal government dropped its long-standing annual survey of farm residents Barbara Vobejda, “Agriculture No Longer Counts,” Washington Post, October 9, 1993.

  20 “When Nick’s children were small” Richard Louv, The Web of Life: Weaving the Values That Sustain Us (York Beach, ME: Conari Press, 1996), 57.

  23 how some nonhuman animals compose music Patricia M. Gray, Bernie Krause, Jelle Atema, Roger Payne, Carol Krumhansl, and Luis Baptista, “The Music of Nature and the Nature of Music,” Science, January 5, 2001, p. 52.

  25 new dialectic between the “wild” and “urban” Mike Davis, The Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster (New York: Henry Holt, 1998), 202.

  25 “An important lesson from many of these European cities” Timothy Beatley, Green Urbanism: Learning from European Cities (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2000).

  3. The Criminalization of Natural Play

  30 Each year, 53,000 acres of land are developed in the Chesapeake Bay watershed Natural Resources Inventory Report, U.S. Department of Agriculture, 2002.

  33 first charted the shrinkage of natural play spaces Robin C. Moore, “The Need for Nature: A Childhood Right,” Social Justice 24, no. 3 (fall 1997): 203.

  33 In Israel, researchers revealed Rachel Sebba, “The Landscapes of Childhood: The Reflection of Childhood’s Environment in Adult Memories and in Children’s Attitudes,” E&E 23, no. 4 (July 1991): 395–422.

  33 Even accounting for romanticized memories L. Karsten. “It All Used to Be Better?: Different Generations on Continuity and Change in Urban Children’s Daily Use of Space,” Children’s Geographies 3, no. 3 (2005): 275–290.

  33 The Netherlands, often associated with J. Verboom, R. van Kralingen, and U. Meier, Teenagers and Biodiversity—Worlds Apart?: An essay on young people’s views on nature and the role it will play in their future (Wageningen, Netherland
s: Alterra, 2004).

  34 In the United States, children spend R. Clements, “An Investigation of the State of Outdoor Play,” Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood 5, no. 1 (2004): 68–80.

  34 according to a study by Sandra Hofferth S. L. Hofferth and J. F. Sandberg, “How American Children Spend Their Time,” Journal of Marriage and Family 63, no. 3 (2001): 295–308.

  35 The Daily Monitor, published in Addis Ababa Berthe Waregay, “Ethiopia: ‘No Child Left Inside,’” Daily Monitor, March 28, 2007.

  35 In the medical journal the Lancet J. Reilly, D. Jackson, C. Montgomery, L. Kelly, C. Slater, S. Grant, and J. Paton, “Total Energy Expenditure and Physical Activity in Young Scottish Children: Mixed Longitudinal Study,” Lancet 363, no. 9404: 211–212.

  4. Climbing the Tree of Health

  43 “biophilia,” the hypothesis of Harvard University scientist Edward O. Wilson, Biophilia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984).

  44 modern psychology has split the inner life from the outer life Theodore Roszak, Psychology Today (January/February, 1996).

  44 “Psychotherapists have exhaustively analyzed every form of dysfunctional family” Lisa Kocian, “Exploring the Link Between Mind, Nature,” Boston Globe, May 30, 2002.

  45 significant decreases in blood pressure simply by watching fish Peter H. Kahn, Jr., The Human Relationship with Nature (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999), 15; citing Aaron Katcher, Erika Freidmann, Alan M. Beck, and James J. Lynch, “Looking, Talking, and Blood Pressure: The Physiological Consequences of Interaction with the Living Environment” in Aaron Katcher and A. Beck, eds., New Perspectives on Our Lives with Companion Animals (Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 1983).

  45 The mortality rate of heart-disease patients Peter H. Kahn, Jr., The Human Relationship with Nature (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999), 16; citing Alan M. Beck and Aaron Katcher, Between Pets and People: The Importance of Animal Companionship (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1996).

  46 ten-year study of gallbladder surgery patients Howard Frumkin, “Beyond Toxicity: Human Health and the Natural Environment,” American Journal of Preventive Medicine (April 2001): 234–240.

  46 people who watch images of natural landscape . . . calm markedly Roger S. Ulrich, “Human Experiences with Architecture,” Science, April 1984.

  46 our visual environment profoundly affects our physical and mental well-being Gordon Orians and Judith Heerwagen, “Evolved Responses to Landscapes,” in Jerome Barkow, Leda Cosmides, and John Tooby, eds., The Adapted Mind: Evolutionary Psychology and the Generation of Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), vol. 7, no. 1: 555–579.

  47 The childhood link between outdoor activity and physical health Frederick J. Zimmerman, Dimitri A. Christakis, and Andrew N. Meltzoff, “Television and DVD/Video Viewing in Children Younger Than 2 Years,” Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine 161, no. 5 (May 2007).

  47 Approximately 60 percent of obese children Paul Muntner, Jiang He, Jeffrey A. Cutler, Rachel P. Wildman, and Paul K. Whelton, “Trends in Blood Pressure among Children and Adolescents,” JAMA 291, no. 17 (May 2004): 2107–2113.

  47 While children in many parts “Obesity and Overweight,” World Health Organization, Fact Sheet No. 311, September 2006, http://www.who.int/mediacentre/

  factsheets/fs311/en/index.html.

  48 “Play in natural settings” H. L. Burdette and R. C. Whitaker, “Resurrecting Free Play in Young Children: Looking Beyond Fitness and Fatness to Attention, Affiliation and Affect,” Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine 159, no. 1 (2005): 46–50.

  48 “Play in natural settings” R. C. Klesges, L. H. Eck, C. L. Hanson, C. K. Haddock, L. M. Klesges, “Effects of Obesity, Social Interactions, and Physical Environment on Physical Activity in Preschoolers,” Health Psychology 9, no. 4 (1990): 435–449.

  48 “Play in natural settings” T. Baranowski, W. O. Thompson, R. H. DuRant, J. Baranowski, and J. Puhl, “Observations on Physical Activity in Physical Locations: Age, Gender, Ethnicity, and Month Effects,” Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport 64, no. 2 (1993): 127–133.

  48 “Play in natural settings” J. F. Sallis, P. R. Nader, S. L. Broyle, C. C. Berry, J. P. Elder, T. L. McKenzie, and J. A. Nelson, “Correlates of Physical Activity at Home in Mexican-American and Anglo-American Preschool Children,” Health Psychology 12, no. 5 (1993):390–398.

  48 Recent studies describe tantalizing evidence I. Fjortoft, “The Natural Environment as a Playground for Children,” Early Childhood Education Journal 29. no. 3 (2001): 111–117.

  48 Recent studies describe tantalizing evidence P. Grahn, F. Martensson, B. Lindblad, P. Nilsson, and A. Ekman, Ute pa Dagis. Stad & Land 145 (Hassleholm, Sweden: Nora Skane Offset, 1997).

  49 Adults, too, seem to benefit J. Pretty, J. Peacock, M. Sellens, and M. Griffin, “The Mental and Physical Health Outcomes of Green Exercise,” International Journal of Environmental Health Research 15, no. 5 (2005): 319–337.

  49 Adults, too, seem to benefit M. Bodin and T. Hartig, “Does the Outdoor Environment Matter for Psychological Restoration Gained through Running?” Psychology of Sport and Exercise 4, no. 2 (April 2003): 141–153.

  49 the rate at which American children are prescribed antidepressants Thomas Delate, Alan J. Gelenberg, Valarie A. Simmons, and Brenda R. Motheral, “Trends in the Use of Anitidepressants in a National Sample of Commercially Insured Pediatric Patients, 1998 to 2002,” Psychiatric Services 55 (April 2004): 387–391.

  50 spending on such drugs . . . surpassed spending on antibiotics Linda A. Johnson, “Behavior Drugs Top Kids’ Prescriptions,” Associated Press, May 17, 2004.

  50 one of the main benefits of spending time in nature is stress reduction Peter H. Kahn, Jr., The Human Relationship with Nature (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999), 13; citing R. S. Ulrich, “Biophilia, Biophobia, and Natural Landscapes,” in S. R. Kellert and E. O. Wilson, eds., The Biophilia Hypothesis (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1993), 73–137.

  50 a room with a view of nature can help protect children against stress Nancy Wells and Gary Evans, “Nearby Nature: A Buffer of Life Stress among Rural Children,” Environment and Behavior 35 (2003): 311–330.

  51 children and parents who live in places that allow for outdoor access M. Huttenmoser, “Children and Their Living Surroundings: Empirical Investigations into the Significance of Living Surrounds for the Everyday Life and Development of Children,” Children’s Environments Quarterly 12 (1995): 403–413.

  51 Nature also offers nurturing solitude K. Korpela, “Adolescents’ Favorite Places and Environmental Self-regulation,” Journal of Environmental Psychology 12 (1992): 249–258.

  53 “We have a small hill, a mound” From an interview in the online professional journal The Massachusetts Psychologist, http://www.masspsy.com (1999).

  5. A Life of the Senses

  58 “Superficially, the world has become small and known” Tony Hillerman, ed., The Spell of New Mexico (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 1976), 29–30; citing Phoenix: The Posthumous Papers of D. H. Lawrence, ed. Edward D. McDonald (New York: Viking, 1978).

  61 Such design emphasis now permeates malls John Beardsley, “Kiss Nature Goodbye,” Harvard Design Magazine 10 (winter/spring 2000).

  62 “countless possibilities for moving ads out of the virtual world” Matt Richtel, “Nature, Brought to You by . . .,” New York Times, August 11, 2002.

  66 “Children live through their senses” Robin C. Moore, “The Need for Nature: A Childhood Right,” Social Justice 24, no. 3 (fall 1997): 203.

  66 Little is known about the impact of new technologies Robert Kraut, Vicki Lundmark, Michael Patterson, Sara Kiesler, Tridas Mukopadhyay, and William Scherlis, “Internet Paradox: A Social Technology That Reduces Social Involvement and Psychological Well-Being?” American Psychologist 53, no. 9 (September 1998): 1017–1031.

  6. The “Eighth Intelligence”

  71 Ben Franklin lived a block from Boston Harbor H. W. Brands, The Fi
rst American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin (New York: Doubleday, 2000), 17.

  72 “The core of the naturalist intelligence” Ronnie Durie, “An Interview with Howard Gardner, Mindshift Connection (Saint Paul, MN: Zephyr Press, 1996).

  73 “Were I granted another lifetime or two” Howard Gardner, “Multiple Intelligences after Twenty Years” (paper presented at the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, Illinois, April 2003). © Howard Gardner: Harvard Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, MA.

  77 “Noses seem to make perfectly good perches” Robert Michael Pyle, The Thunder Tree: Lessons from an Urban Wildland (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1993), 147.

  84 Ben and his friends liked to hunt small fish Brands, The First American, 18.

  7. The Genius of Childhood

  86 “the natural genius of childhood and the ‘spirit of place’” Bernard Berenson, Sketch for a Self-Portrait (Toronto: Pantheon Books, 1949), 18.

  87 “Natural spaces and materials stimulate children’s limitless imaginations” Robin C. Moore and Herb H. Wong, Natural Learning: Creating Environments for Rediscovering Nature’s Way of Teaching (Berkeley, CA: MIG Communications, 1997).

  87 Early theorectical work in this field was done by . . . Simon Nicholson Simon Nicholson, “The Theory of Loose Parts,” Landscape Architecture 62, no. 1 (1971): 30–34.