Literary Toolbox: Last Child in the Woods
Originally posted in April 2011, this post is brief review of Richard Louv’s wonderful book, Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder. I’m offering you this recycled post for the same reason I revisit Louv’s book each spring. Now is the time when we are most inspired to get back outside, and now is a great time to recommit to our nature-loving habits. In the spirit of World Water Day (coming up on Thursday) and Earth Day (just a few weeks off), enjoy.
Quick outdoor activity: weave some bright yarn through a mesh fruit sack and hang it nearby. The birds will put your yarn to good use and in the fall you will find nests full of your gifts. Many a nest made it to show and tell with my preschooler last fall!
Last week I posted about the importance of A Sense of Place, referring briefly to Richard Louv’s book Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder.
This week, spring is truly upon us. While our tomatoes and peppers are taking seed in doors, in the backyard daffodils are peeking up from the receding snowline, irises and tulips are growing taller by the hour, and my two little girls race each other for the sandbox between every meal.
Possibly because of last week’s post or possibly because we have recaptured daily tea parties featuring leaf-cakes and sand-stick popsicles, I’ve been compelled to pick up Louv’s book once again. For all of you who, like me, are basking in the spring sun and daydreaming of summer adventures even as I browse the community summer camp offerings, this book is a worthy companion to that deck chair.
Nature-Deficit Disorder is a term the author reluctantly uses to describe the human costs of alienation from nature. It affects our health, our weight, our spiritual satisfaction, our creativity, and our attention spans, not to mention the health of our earth as we neglect it in favor of the overflowing piles of things we feel we need.
In this pithy book, Louv celebrates nature as an antidote to so many drags on our lives, personal as well as societal. This weekend, I was as gleeful as my children to reclaim the back yard, reveling in all of the things soggy leaves and sticks could become, following me from flower bed to flower bed to marvel over the living things that, like us, refuse to wait another minute to see the sun, we could feel this antidote at work on us.
Most of us recognize that getting in touch with nature is beneficial for us and our kids, but one of Louv’s lines really sung to me.
Many of us must overcome the belief that something isn’t worth doing with our kids unless we do it right. If getting our kids out in nature is a search for perfection, or is one more chore, then the belief in perfection and the chore defeats the joy. It’s a good thing to learn more about nature in order to share this knowledge with children; it’s even better if the adult and child learn about nature together. And it’s a lot more fun.
I must admit, I have added books on birding, tree identification, wild edible plants, star gazing, and print tracking to my reading list in my own effort to be the perfect outdoor guide for my kids. Louv’s book is a good reminder that my expertise won’t help them love and ultimately protect nature nearly as much as my enthusiasm. Here’s another quote I intend to live my summer by:
“If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder,” wrote Rachel Carson, he or she “Needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement, and mystery of the world we live in.”
Especially now, this wonder is easy to tap into, even for us jaded adults. Today we marveled together, both girls and I, over the magic of a seed sprouting into a plant. We poked at a new sprout under a microscope, the seed still mostly in tact except for a small white root shooting out from one end and the beginnings of a stem forcing its way through the other…. for all three of us, it was a wonder.
Louv offers so many suggestions for reforming local schools, city planning, and the essential way we all live, but his tips for bringing nature home may help us all most as we approach the warm season with a renewed love of the outdoors:
- Find outdoor spaces nearby that inspire wonder and joy in you and your kids.
- Don’t rush them. Let the kids lead the way on walks through the park. Encourage them to drop leaves into the creek and see how far they travel, or drag sticks through puddles in the sand to help the water reach the lake.
- Offer some structure. Prevent boredom by getting them started. So many good books and websites offer outdoor activities and experiments for young kids. Start with Louv’s Nature Activities for Kids and Families and go from there.
- Turn off the television. We hear it often, but it is more difficult than it sounds.
- Find a balance between adult direction and child boredom. Some boredom is constructive and will lead children down their own path of exploration. Too much boredom can cause problems. At three and five, my daughters seem to need a little direction every hour or so when we’re in the backyard. They play happily for a long time, and then suddenly devolve into fights or whining. I keep a book handy called Nature in a Nutshell, that is full of natural science experiments that take about five minutes to complete. We either pick one, or are inspired to invent our own. Either way, with a simple activity to redirect them, the girls often move on to find their own fun or do their own experiments soon enough.
Tags: Books & Resources, Healing the Earth
April 7th, 2011 at 5:00 am
My preschooler has been sandbox-obsessed lately, too, with the change to the nice weather. And I was just looking at Nature in a Nutshell on Amazon — nice to hear you’ve had good experience.
April 10th, 2011 at 9:07 pm
Yes, some of the Nature in a Nutshell exercises can be a bit over the head of my 3 year old, but my five year old has been enjoying them a lot. We’re doing a birds next experiment right now that’s really cool! Let me know if you like it!