Last Child in the Woods

[quantumleap]

The full title is "Last Child in the Woods: Preventing Nature Deficit Disorder" (Michael Louv). Has anyone read it? What did you think? Did it inspire you to make any changes in how you parent or how you make nature accessible to your children?

I'm a little over halfway through (sloooooow going with the books these days!), and I'm starting to feel a little desperate. Nothing in there is "new" to me. Intuitively, I think we all know and agree with the information the author (Louv) is sharing. People, especially kids, do best with unstructured, unlimited access to wild patches of Earth.

We, recently, moved to a new city. We, purposefully, moved into an apartment right downtown. DP walks literally 3 minutes to work. The library, market, swimming pool, elementary school, shops, etc are all minutes walk from our house. We can leave the car parked for days. BUT, there are no parks. No greenspace. The view from our window is of a once spectacular river, now completely disabled by a causeway and polluted by an oil refinery across the bay. Our backyard is small, and made smaller by the fact that it is 1/3 covered with a deck! We have a grand total of three (3!) plants in our house. The closest "green" space is a small, historical loyalist graveyard with brick paths and huge "Don't Feed the Birds" signs. The school playground is some equipment on asphalt. Our neighbourhood is also considered "unsafe". We feel safe enough here, but I certainly won't be pushing five year old dd out the door to play with the neighbours (a chronically drunk and disheveled man who stagers down the street, the guy with the rabid looking dog, etc, etc) by herself.

In short, I'm feeling like, while living where we do makes a lot of sense in many ways, we've made a huge mistake nature-wise. Some of my own most vivid memories are of playing on the prairie and the small creek that ran through it around the corner from my house. We had a huge, huge backyard and garden, but almost always chose to play in the small wild space that filled the "median" of our small cul-de-sac. I want my own children to, at the very least, have access to those small things! Living where we do, I'm a little at a loss as to how to provide those opportunities.

We do have, nearby, a provincial park, a lovely city park with small lakes, skating rink, walking paths, places to ski and snowshoe, etc. We have to drive to all of those places though. We make a point of getting out in the woods at least once a week - the dog runs wild, DD rides in the hiking pack, we putter along and try to notice birds and different things. We also like to paddle and camp, but haven't been brave enough to do the camping thing in colder than about 0C, which cuts out a good 1/2 - 2/3 of the year here!

Can we do some brainstorming to come up with ways to nurture our children's connection with nature in an urban environment on a day to day basis? "Last Child in the Woods" even discusses the idea that the "greener" the view from the window, the better an individual does (concentration, mental/emotional health, etc). Any ideas on how to "green" up views from windows, in backyards, or even in the room itself? Cheap ideas are even better!! Any other thoughts about the book itself?

[mammastar2]

I read this recently. It was a bit repetitive, and I did find his concept of appropriate time in nature rather restrictive. So much Huck Finn and so many tree houses! However, the book did really make me think, and make me more aware of unstructured time and exploratory time in nature.

One thing I thought about is the time I spent in nature as a kid. My mom would not have thought of me as an outdoorsey kid at all, and I was no Huck Finn. But I remember things like turning a bush behind our apartment building (which was on a busy city street) into a hide out. And my daughter still points out the particular tree on the school playground that she liked to play around and store secret messages in a couple of years ago. I think that even in a somewhat restrictive city environment, just having a bit of time to muck about is valuable. In our case, I'm happy that there's lots of recess at her school and that the playground is big, not entirely paved, and doesn't have a ton of plastic equipment - sounds like you're a bit out of luck there. I have been thinking of joining a club locally that goes on walks (families welcome) and learns about local flora and fauna - not something I would have thought about had I not read the book.

In your case, if you're getting out in the woods once a week, that's amazing! Perhaps take a picnic to the graveyard. I remember loving hanging out in one in my neighbourhood as a kid. Also, puddle splashing in the rain, or finding some good mud, can be wonderful.

[lach]

I read it a few years ago and thought it was really interesting.

I wouldn't totally despair. Knowing is half the battle, right? I think that you can raise nature-wise children even from the city. The fact that you're going once a week to a nice park sounds great! I don't think it matters if you walk or drive there. The fact is that very few people live within walking distance of that sort of thing.

Start with your yard. It sounds like a challenge, but all the better. Start thinking about local foliage, especially that will grow in the area. Pot plants. Just enable your child to get some dirt under her fingernails, kwim? And even if you don't live in a safe neighborhood, your backyard (no matter how small) can be a respite. Google around for information on urban gardening, small space gardening, container gardening, shade gardening. I think that quality can be even more important than quantity when it comes to this sort of thing. He even talks in the book a lot about how kids know far more about the Rainforest than they do about their own local ecosystems.

You might also be feeling a bit down because of the winter. It's so awful out. I hate going out. It's cold and mucky and gray and blah. In the summer we get out so much more than in the winter.