Most adults of a certain age have childhood memories of carefree days spent playing outdoors -- climbing, digging, collecting, building, and exploring the natural world around them, at their own pace, in their own way.
Those children of a generation ago are the parents of today, and you might expect such outdoor play to be part of their families' lifestyle. But today's overscheduled kids are increasingly "plugged in" to electronic devices and media and unplugged from the fundamental and formative experience of nature in their own neighborhood. Their senses -- including, most sadly, their sense of wonder -- are bombarded, overwhelmed, and ultimately diminished.
Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods, refers to this nature-child disconnect as "nature deficit disorder." One of the primary symptoms is the replacement of the green space by the screen space as the occupier of children's free time. Indeed, a Kaiser Family Foundation study found that the average American child spends 44 hours per week (more than 6 hours a day!) staring at some kind of electronic screen. Studies have linked excessive television viewing to obesity, violence, and even lower intelligence in kids. Now, a growing wave of research indicates that children who spend time outdoors are healthier, overall, than their indoor counterparts.
Children who regularly spend unstructured time outside:
- Play more creatively
- Have lower stress levels
- Have more active imaginations
- Become fitter and leaner
- Develop stronger immune systems
- Experience fewer symptoms of ADD and ADHD
- Have greater respect for themselves, for others, and for the environment
In future posts to this page, I will share a bunch of great nature activities, crafts, etc. that I have done with my own kids over the years. The first one is:
This is a good project to incorporate with a hike, a trip to the park, or even a walk around your backyard. Gather leaves, flowers, feathers, pieces of dried grass, etc. When you get home, arrange the things you found in different ways until you make a picture you like. Paste your picture down on a piece of cardboard or posterboard, piece by piece with little dabs of paste or glue. Parents - have a glue gun ready to help out the kids with items that don't paste easily, like acorns or rocks. If you use bulky items like these, it will be a little tougher to frame, so you might have to fiddle with the frame to make it work. Or leave your artwork unframed. The main point is to get your kids outdoors, and have some fun in the sun!
For more information about the World Wildlife Federation's "Green Hour" campaign, visit http://www.greenhour.org/.
