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Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder |  | Author: Richard Louv
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy New: $9.49
as of 9/7/2010 02:32 CDT details
You Save: $5.46 (37%)
New (52) Used (33) from $8.88
Seller: BooKnackrh
Rating:  114 reviews
Sales Rank: 1056
Media: Paperback
Edition: Updated and Expanded
Pages: 390
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.9
ISBN: 156512605X
Dewey Decimal Number: 155.418
EAN: 9781565126053
ASIN: 156512605X
Publication Date: April 10, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Richard Louv was the first to identify a phenomenon we all knew existed but couldn't quite articulate: nature-deficit disorder. His book Last Child in the Woods created a national conversation about the disconnection between children and nature, and his message has galvanized an international movement. Now, three years after its initial publication, we have reached a tipping point, with Leave No Child Inside initiatives adopted in at least 30 regions within 21 states, and in Canada, Holland, Australia, and Great Britain.
This new edition reflects the enormous changes that have taken place since the book—and this grassroots movement— were launched. It includes:
• 101 Things you can do to create change in your community, school, and family.
• Discussion points to inspire people of all ages to talk about the importance of nature in their lives.
• A new afterword by the author about the growing Leave No Child Inside movement.
• New and updated research confirming that direct exposure to nature is essential for the physical and emotional health of children and adults.
This is a book that will change the way you think about your future and the future of your children.
Book Description
“I like to play indoors better ’cause that’s where all the electrical outlets are,” reports a fourth grader. But it’s not only computers, television, and video games that are keeping kids inside. It’s also their parents’ fears of traffic, strangers, Lyme disease, and West Nile virus; their schools’ emphasis on more and more homework; their structured schedules; and their lack of access to natural areas. Local governments, neighborhood associations, and even organizations devoted to the outdoors are placing legal and regulatory constraints on many wild spaces, sometimes making natural play a crime.
As children’s connections to nature diminish and the social, psychological, and spiritual implications become apparent, new research shows that nature can offer powerful therapy for such maladies as depression, obesity, and attentiondeficit disorder. Environment-based education dramatically improves standardized test scores and grade-point averages and develops skills in problem solving, critical thinking, and decision making. Anecdotal evidence strongly suggests that childhood experiences in nature stimulate creativity.
In Last Child in the Woods, Louv talks with parents, children, teachers, scientists, religious leaders, child-development researchers, and environmentalists who recognize the threat and offer solutions. Louv shows us an alternative future, one in which parents help their kids experience the natural world more deeply—and find the joy of family connectedness in the process.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 114
 Why kids need nature September 3, 2010
AC Paduch
"Last Child in the Woods" is a wake-up call for parents, educators and anyone who cares for the future of our children and the environment. In his book Richard Louv argues that "our children are the first generation to be raised without meaningful contact with the natural world". Instead of free play outdoors, they often sit in front of the computer and TV or are ferried off to organised activities. Louv studies the growing gap between nature and children, its causes and its effects on children and society. He argues that children need nature for their physical health (think: obesity) but also for their mental health as it makes them happier, more stable and more creative. On a broader level Louv warns that children who don't experience nature won't grow up to cherish and protect it. With so many environmental challenges facing us, we need to raise a new generation willing to take over.
While many developments Louv describes are depressing, he maintains an optimistic outlook and shows how we can turn the trend around. He targets parents for making individual changes in their family lives (and promises better health, less stress and more fun), but also addresses schools and urban planners to bring hands-on nature experiences back into the curriculum and design neighbourhoods where kids can safely play outdoors. The book brims with examples - most of them from America, but still relevant to other Western countries - and, while at times a bit scholarly, remains fascinating until the end. If you're time-poor, just read the introduction and the list of 100 actions at the end of the book. You'll be inspired. And now - let's go outdoors and play!
Saving Children from Our Best Intentions August 15, 2010
Fritz R. Ward (Crestline, CA United States)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
When I was growing up in Boise Idaho, I thought nothing of spending an afternoon away from my parents fishing ponds along the Boise River. As I graduated to fly fishing, I spent time on the river itself. Closer to home, the canal which ran below South Federal Way offered a miniature green belt where my friends and I built forts and rode bikes. Urban as Boise was, even then, this tiny greenbelt was still sufficiently wild that I would occasionally find a porcupine in our front yard. Our cats were fairly adept at finding quail (and bringing their still quivering bodies to us) and in general I found it easy to retreat to a relatively tame and yet exciting out of doors. Children today have no such privileges. Indeed, as Richard Louv points out, they are literally suffering from nature deficit disorder and its effects are far more pervasive than most of us would be willing to acknowledge. Increasing urbanization is part of the problem, but only a small part. A larger portion of the blame lies with the unintentional effects of our best intentions: legislation and regulations to protect and educate children.
Louv's hypothesis, in brief, is that we have entered a third frontier. Following the argument of America's first great historian, Frederick Jackson Turner, Louv suggests that America's frontier did indeed close in the 1890s, but it was replaced almost immediately by a second great frontier: life on farms, institutions such as scouting, and outdoor activities were, he argues, commonplace until the 1980s. But, just as Turner's thesis begins with the 1890 census, Louv finds the 1990 census an equally useful demarcation point, for beginning with this census, separate farm records are no longer kept, due to the decline in the rural population. A decline (and aging of) people involved in outdoor recreation also dates from about this time. And what of the new generation of children? Louv quotes from many of them, but the most revealing is a 5th grade boy who says he prefers to play indoors, because that is where the electrical outlets are....
Children simply do not spend the quality time they once did out of doors. And there are many consequences to this change. Citing several lines of research, Louv links his "nature-deficit disorder" to ADHD, depression, childhood obesity, gang problems, recovery from illness, and even underperformance in school. Taken individually, the research supporting any one of these claims seems fairly minimal: I suspect many researchers do not even recognize the problem. After all, it was years after Howard Gardner developed his multiple intelligence theory that it even occurred to him that there was a "naturalist" intelligence and many in academe are even more oblivious to considering research along these lines. However, taken as a whole Louv has presented a powerful case that the new world of gameboys, TV, cell phones, IPods and Internet has some unintended consequences that are not beneficial.
Instinctively, most parents know this. Many say they try to limit TV time and encourage children to play outside, but as Louv demonstrates, we as a society don't really mean what we say and our children are very aware of that. Outside activity is becoming increasingly restricted these days, and not just by development. "Environmental Activists," whom one might think would want promote outdoor activities are busy restricting it. Flying kites on the beach, after all, might scare snowy plovers (an endangered bird that nests on California beaches). Tree houses harm trees! So does climbing them. And God forbid you should build a fort, bicycle on a single track use trail, or any of a whole host of other activities. PETA activists, always on the cutting edge of extremism, have actively campaigned against hunting and fishing, especially among the young, and yet these are precisely the sort of activities that many first experience nature with. When I grew up, hunting was so common that all boys and girls had mandatory hunter safety in 7th grade PE. Today, we read stories about Audabon in our state approved readers blissfully unaware that the great naturalist often shot and ate the birds that he painted. As Louv points out, our children are so disconnected from nature that they do not even recognize that it is the source of the food they consume.
Environmental activists of course do not share all the blame. Our increasingly litigious society makes it difficult to promote recreation. School field trips, summer camps, and even playing in a "vacant" lot all involve substantial liability and the cost of liability insurance is going up. Louv notes that in California statuatory law does provide some protection for property owners who allow people access to their land for recreation. But the law is narrowly interpreted. A girl's parents sued when she fell off her bike while crossing a private bridge. Biking, the judge explained, was not recreation. {?} Damages from a single such suit can prevent further access.
Schools are also to blame, though in this instance the problem lies not so much with local school boards as it does with national legislation, specifically No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Louv recognizes that schools have dramatically cut field trips, recess, and even PE, but he does not explicitly tie this to NCLB. Teachers, however, will tell you that at this point, almost all attention is focused on math and language arts and schools face outright dissolution if they fail to meet the ever increasing demands of this legislation. I personally am fortunate enough to work at a school where the principal found enough value in the "Earth Club" to fund a field trip to our local mountains. But in an age of budget cuts, many other administrators will, understandably, cut such expenditures first. Under NCLB, "enrichment" of children does not enrich a school.
Ultimately then Louv suggests we face an increasely bleak future. As a society, we do not value what we cannot name and fewer and fewer children can identify even local animals and plants. But they are alienated, bored, and increasingly, heavily medicated so they can function in our urban society. To avoid the attendant ills which come with our brave new world of an electronic mall culture, we need to create areas of open space, but we also need to let go of these areas and our kids. Rather than stiffle youngsters with regulations and "protections" we need to give them the freedom many of us had as children. This means, ultimately, we must protect our children from our own best intentions.
Great and definitely a thought provoking book. July 19, 2010
Tracey
Excellent read. It really makes you think. I hope that this book is read by all parents.
Good book May 24, 2010
S. Fullmer
The author writes an interesting point of view on how children benefit from spending time in nature, how nature teaches, heals, stirs the childs curiosity and renews the mind. Computers are a good source of learning and a good tool for business, but they can't take the place of being outside in the fresh air and sunshine,the real dirt, smells, sounds,and colors of the woods or desert, the wholeness of our environment and how we fit into it. The author has hit on a legitament cause that parents and teachers need to address.
What are we doing to our children March 30, 2010
Brad Barton Nelson (MARIETTA, GA, US)
A delightful and informative read that explores how our society has removed children from nature. No longer do children spend hours of free play in the woods or along a creek. Studies are presented that link this loss of exploratory time in nature to a loss in creativity in our children. A "MUST READ" for conservationists and educators.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 114
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