The last child in the woods...

The Last Child In the Woods...

  "Nature Deficit Disorder", a term coined by Richard Louv in his 2005 book Last Child in the Woods, refers to the alleged trend that children are spending less time outdoors. When I was a child my fondest memories consist of playing outdoors using imaginary play, including using a large backyard rock as my play "house", catching worms and lizards at my grandmother's vacation home, making a fort behind my childhood beach house connecting to my best friend's back yard, days spent outdoors with my horse, and pretending I was a "mermaid" with a tail made out of sand on an imaginary island (or..a crowded beach). I am honored to assist my daughter's preschool in transforming their play area into a "natural playscape".  

What is a natural playground? Simply stated, a natural playground, natural playscape, green playground or natural play environment is an area where kids can play with natural elements such as sand, water, wood and living plants. Think about when you were a child. Did you have a favorite place to play in a natural environment? Chances are, you did, maybe in a nearby vacant lot, a field, wood lot, a park, or even your back yard. Today, many children simply lack the time to engage in this kind of play. Many families' calendars are filled with obligations; children spend most of their day in school, daycare, and organized after-school activities. Moreover, when children finally have some time to themselves they tend to flock to electronic games and television instead of going outside. In addition to much diminished exposure to the natural world, children lack the free, self-directed playtime needed to invent their own activities and games. Planned, adult-coordinated activities during and after school, as well as electronic games and television, limit a child's ability to engage in exploration and free expression. Research indicates that this ability, along with access to natural settings, is critical to children's development in every major way: intellectually, emotionally, socially, spiritually and physically. Benefits of increased free time and access to natural areas include improved concentration & impulse control, emotional coping & stress reduction, stimulation of creativity, reduced symptoms ADD and ADHD, and improved motor coordination. Luckily, an increasing number of schools, daycare facilities and municipal park departments are starting to understand the link between these benefits and built play environments.

Natural playgrounds look very different from conventional playgrounds. Most playgrounds we see today are comprised of pre-manufactured play equipment selected from catalogs, typically constructed of steel tubing and plastic elements and emphasizing active, or 'gross motor' play. In contrast, natural playgrounds focus on creating settings to enable the type of play most important to our youngest children: social play (pretending) and constructive play (building). Natural playgrounds encourage children to use their imaginations while simultaneously experiencing the smells, textures and wonders of the natural world. Natural playgrounds are typically very safe because they include few or no tall structures and no equipment with moving parts. In addition, natural playgrounds can be relatively inexpensive to build by using natural materials and avoiding often costly catalogue structures. 

Fairy Houses built from natural resources...just adorable. The Flo Gris did an amazing event last year creating the most artistic structures

Here is an excerpt from Louv's Book...Our society is teaching young people to avoid direct experience in nature. That lesson is delivered in schools, families, even organizations devoted to the outdoors, and codified into the legal and regulatory structures of many of our communities. Our institutions, urban/suburban design, and cultural attitudes unconsciously associate nature with doom—while disassociating the outdoors from joy and solitude. Wellmeaning public-school systems, media, and parents are effectively scaring children straight out of the woods and fields. In the patent-or-perish environment of higher education, we see the death of natural history as the more hands-on disciplines, such as zoology, give way to more theoretical and remunerative microbiology and genetic engineering. Rapidly advancing technologies are blurring the lines between humans, other animals, and machines. The postmodern notion that reality is only a construct—that we are what we program—suggests limitless human possibilities; but as the young spend less and less of their lives in natural surroundings, their senses narrow, physiologically and psychologically, and this reduces the richness of human experience.

An edible vegetable garden teaches cooking skills, responsibility, a sense of accomplishment, and team work. Try a "pizza herb garden" or scallion herbs to add to cream cheese for a yummy snack.

Yet, at the very moment that the bond is breaking between the young and the natural world, a growing body of research links our mental, physical, and spiritual health directly to our association with nature—in positive ways. Several of these studies suggest that thoughtful exposure of youngsters to nature can even be a powerful form of therapy for attention-deficit disorders and other maladies. As one scientist puts it, we can now assume that just as children need good nutrition and adequate sleep, they may very well need contact with nature.

Reducing that deficit—healing the broken bond between our young and nature—is in our self-interest, not only because aesthetics or justice demands it, but also because our mental, physical, and spiritual health depends upon it. The health of the earth is at stake as well. How the young respond to nature, and how they raise their own children, will shape the configurations and conditions of our cities, homes—our daily lives. The following pages explore an alternative path to the future, including some of the most innovative environment—based school programs; a reimagining and redesign of the urban environment-what one theorist calls the coming "zoopolis"; ways of addressing the challenges besetting environmental groups; and ways that faith-based organizations can help reclaim nature as part of the spiritual development of children. Parents, children, grandparents, teachers, scientists, religious leaders, environmentalists, and researchers from across the nation speak in these pages. They recognize the transformation that is occurring. Some of them paint another future, in which children and nature are reunited—and the natural world is more deeply valued and protected.

Vermicomposting teaches children the full cycle of life. How kitchen scraps turn into worm food, then the worms turn it into fertilizer which when then use on our gardens to nourish our food.

Exposing children to natural playscapes and implementing the "returning to nature" ideas into a learning  is undoubtably going to provide quality experiences that can only be delivered though this type of environment. 

If anyone has ideas, gardening experience and wants to help, and/or garden perennials/herb  to donate.. contact me!