Last Child in the Woods

Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv was suggested for my bookgroup last year, and the title intrigued me. I didn't make the time to read the whole thing then but I flipped through it and skimmed a few chapters. Even with just that cursory review, I felt like I wanted to take my kids camping EVERY WEEKEND for the rest of our lives.

I could go on and on and on about how this book made me think about a lot of different things - a sort of chapter-by-chapter summary and response like I did with the Nurtureshock book. But that would take as long to write as it did for me to read the book.

The contention of the book is that our society has created a "nature deficit disorder," particularly in children. Kids just don't go outside anymore. What they know of the environment is from books or online or National Geographic shows. That's all well and good, since they're learning about global issues. But if they can't tell you what kind of tree is in their backyard, what's the point of the global stuff? They're not going to be effective environmental stewards of the earth if they don't ever actually walk out the back door.

The hammer is that it's the adults' fault. Kids don't go outside because their parents are paranoid about safety and don't let them go outside. If they do go out, they can't climb trees or ride their bikes or anything else in their neighborhoods because they (and their parents) get yelled at by the HOA. Everything is landscaped to the extreme, leaving nothing to explore with nature. Heck, our local parks here don't even have GRASS. It's all plastic astroturf or the rubberized mat stuff. Whose idea was this, anyway? Did the current generation of moms and dads and grandparents forget so thoroughly what it was like to be a kid?

The main things in the book that were applicable to us as a homeschooling family were:

1. Studies are showing that being outside in nature has a calming effect, without medication or other intervention, on kids with hyperactive issues. We suspect that Sunny has something going on of that type, so we have begun to make sure that she gets outside time regularly. We can tell the difference in her energy level and attention span when she's been outside and when she hasn't. She also gets a lot more mouthy when she hasn't been outside.

2. "Science class" in schools (the book did not discuss homeschooling at all) is now typically done via books and videos, with very little - if any - actual hands-on experimenting and exploration. I'm as guilty as anyone else with that - books are easy and figuring out science activities for a 6-year-old (that a 2-year-old can do as well) is not so easy. But I need to get on it better. This book was a kick in the butt on that issue, especially since the hands-on stuff is what Sunny really likes.