DOWN ON DIRTY KNEES – How a Generation’s Yearning Saves the World

A CLEAR, COMPELLING VISION
During my children’s generation, kids have grown apart from Nature at an alarming rate. Now, as my grandchildren grow up, the cultural forces driving that alienation have only intensified. It’s only due to parents and grandparents with extraordinarily wise values and priorities—and, I’m sure, a few lucky rolls of the dice—that my grandkids are at least as close to Nature as I was as a child.

But fewer and fewer youngsters are so lucky.

There are lots of us out here working to stem the tide of this children-nature alienation—what best-selling author Richard Louv has so aptly dubbed “Nature deficit disorder.” Many wield voices more articulate and influential than mine.

Louv, in particular, and the international organization he co-founded, The Children and Nature Network, has been most eloquent in dispelling the often-unwarranted fears that cause childcare-givers to rein in their charges’ curiosity and sense of adventure. More importantly, rather than sound yet another gloom-and-doom alarm about the future, Louv and C&NN paint a clear, compelling, positive picture of a world in which Nature is once again an integral part of our everyday lives, whether we live in the woods, on a farm or in the inner-city.

More than words and images alone, the movement has given rise to a groundswell of scientific research documenting both the extent of Nature deficit disorder and its effects on kids’ physical and mental health, happiness, depth of character, ability to learn and many other qualities.

    This hunger of the soul is every bit as real...
    as our hunger for food or our thirst for water.

Louv’s and C&NN’s vision—of Nature beautifully and practically reintegrated into education, health care, architecture and city planning, religion, technology and a dozen other aspects of life—is catching on. How do I know this? First of all, the numbers show it.

C&NN has grown from a handful of campaigns in 2006 to 115 campaigns in North America alone. In the past two years, some 3,000 new Nature- and place-based opportunities for kids to connect with the out-of-doors—things like kids’ community gardens, nature clubs for families, natural play areas, neighborhood parks, school gardens, and trails—have sprouted in areas served by C&NN grassroots initiatives. The number of children engaged in these programs has more than tripled in just two years, to approximately 3,000,000 children annually.

And, with C&NN far from the only organization working to reclaim Nature for coming generations of kids, the movement continues to grow exponentially.

THE YEARNING OF OUR GENERATION
I also know the Children and Nature movement is for real for one less empirical, yet more personally compelling reason.

Every generation has its own aspirations, its own signature yearnings. For my grandparents, it was to find their place and make their mark in the new world; for my parents, to weather the Great Depression and World War II, return to peace and see that their children had the educational and career opportunities that may have eluded them; for me and my wife, to embrace sweeping social changes, raise thoughtful kids and then remain relevant in an ever-faster-moving, technology-driven culture.

    Perhaps the epiphany will come when folks 
    realize how vital to life that sense of belonging 
    is…and how quickly we are losing it.

And here’s where there seems to be a departure. It looks like our children’s generation, while certainly practical and ambitious, may prove to be the first in a very long time to not find themselves better off financially than their parents. While this is troubling, it is far less so than the fact that these young adults and their children may also be less well-off physically, cognitively, socially, emotionally and, I dare say, spiritually, than their parents—in ways research is showing are closely linked with their increasing alienation from Nature.

For this generation the yearning is one they may not yet even realize. Indeed, they feel something; perhaps it’s started with a bit of disappointment that all the miracles of efficiency, speed and connection which technology has availed them somehow haven’t delivered the genuine prosperity they expected. It may be realizing that all this virtual experience parceled out to us by corporations teaches them impatience and engages only one or two of their senses—and those with sadly little nuance or challenge. Or maybe it’s the promise of “connectness” which the Internet and social media have failed to provide in any but the most superficial of ways.

Whether we realize it now or not, these shortcomings are starving us parents and grandparents, as well as our youngsters. These two or three current generations are witness to the first-ever mass disconnect of kids from the out-of-doors, their God-given natural state, at a rate unprecedented since the age of homo erectus some 1.8 million years ago. For all that time, we’ve enjoyed—and usually taken for granted—a deep sense of belonging to special places, ecosystems and climates. Perhaps the epiphany will come when folks realize how vital to life that sense of belonging is…and how quickly we are losing it.

DEEP INSIDE, WE KNOW   
So what? What if we are becoming independent of, and indifferent to, Nature? Is that so bad? The answer lies not just in the kind of research championed by C&NN, but also deep in our hearts and souls.

Everyone yearns for something. Some experience it deeply and allow themselves to be moved by it; others may spurn it as impractical, not to be trusted. I suggest that this hunger of the soul is every bit as real, and serves every bit as vital a role in our survival, as both individuals and as a species, as our hunger for food or our thirst for water.

Like a child’s deep emotional ache for a departed parent, it is not casually soothed or wished away.

When we lack those physical requisites of life, our bodies—in fact, our hard-wired instincts—tell us we should act. If we don’t or can’t, the body amps up the message from Should act to Must act! If we still don’t get the message, the body takes matters into its own hands and begins shutting down non-essential systems.

The same process has been playing out with our craving for Nature, a need that starts, like corporal hungers, deep inside. For those more accustomed to listening deeply, it’s heard as a clarion call, that Must act! admonition, a charge that’s validated every day by conditions and events we can see and hear and feel.

So the reason our longing for Nature is so much more profound is that, unlike some ideal we can only imagine, it is something my generation once knew intimately, but have since lost. Like a child’s deep emotional ache for a departed parent, it is not casually soothed or wished away. We ignore it at our peril.

     We may well be the last to remember what it 
      was like to have Nature be our companion, 
      our teacher our counselor…our world.

IT IS UP TO US
Why is it so critical for you and me and others in our generations to recognize that deep yearning we’re all feeling at some level, and to act on it? Because if we don’t, we may well be the last generation to remember what it was like to have Nature be our companion, our teacher, our counselor…our world. The last to whom one’s natural state was playing outdoors, in the warmth of sunlight; in fresh, moist, moving air; in rain and snow and the other miraculous manifestations of water; in the knowing, healing chemistry of rich soil; in the company of other growing, breathing organisms which still know primordial truths.

We’re the ones who have to tell those stories and describe what it was like to spend most of our free time, every day, outdoors in that richly instructive, nurturing, healthy, carefree—not to mention breathtakingly beautiful—realm.

Those sublime places and properties made us smarter, healthier, more thoughtful, more self-aware, more socially adept and a host of other qualities we absorbed naturally and automatically, and that today’s kids enjoy only with considerable extra effort by us, their parents, grandparents and others entrusted with their welfare.

Join me in inspiring more such families, institutions and communities to make that effort. Here's how you can do it:

• Share this and other endorsements of the Children and Nature movement with your family and friends.
• Commit to regular connections with Nature for yourself and your family.
• Start a neighborhood Nature club.
• Propose integrating Nature into not just your family, but your workplace, your church and other community institutions.
• Support the Children and Nature Network, where there are links to information and resources to help you, or other children-and-nature organizations.
• And imagine what a world once again whole with its very heart and soul would look like.

GOOD 4 U – Kids: Take Your Parents Outdoors!

We humans—like many animals—have five basic senses (that is, the senses most of us learn to use the most). Can you name them?

When I was a kid, we used all of our senses, all the time. We spent tons of time outdoors. When we got on our parents' nerves, they just said, "Hey, I've had it! Go outside and play!"

We had TV, but our parents only let us watch it when there was something really good on that the whole family could watch together. We had no computers, no video games, no cell phones. If we were bored, we went outside. What do 
you do when you’re bored?

The best, most interesting, most beautiful things 
in the world are already right there, within reach 
of our own, natural, non-electronic senses.

THE DARK SIDE OF DIGITAL
Today, we have all this technology, all these wonderful machines that make life easier, allow us to do things faster, connect us with other people—across the room and around the world.

But all these machines, all that amazing technology, has a dark side. Too many people are starting to confuse it with their real senses. It makes us forget that, often, the best, most interesting, most beautiful things in the world are already right there, within reach of our own, natural, non-electronic senses.

What’s happening in this photo? What would you be doing if you were in their place?

Okay, video games, TV, computers, cell phones and the Internet are great tools for some uses, like learning, looking up information, and just having fun. But there are still some things technology will never be able to do.

Too many kids—and adults too!—are losing touch with all the information, learning and fun that's already right out there in their back yard, down the street at the park, or at a beautiful nature center nearby. What have you learned about Nature close to your house?

Technology often gives us information or experiences made up by someone else. They may be fun, but they don't make you use your senses, your imagination, your creativity…all things that need exercise and that make you smarter and happier.

Your body gets soft and weak…and so does your brain!

IN TOUCH? REALLY?
You can be in touch with your friends by cell phone or texting, but usually that's all it is, just saying hi, where are you? whatcha doing? It's not really like talking, just very short, not very important messages. What’s different about talking with your friends in person instead of texting or tweeting them?

To really communicate with someone, you have to use all your senses, don’t you? You want to see their eyes, the expression on their face; sometimes you need to touch them.

Nature’s full another kind of energy, one we all need much more than we need electricity.

It's the same when we communicate with Nature. Is seeing a picture of a beautiful waterfall the same as being there, standing in front of it? No! Seeing the picture, even listening to someone talk about that waterfall only calls on us to use a couple of our senses, and even those are kind of weak…because what we're sensing is just a story; it's not real. What senses would you use if you were standing next to a waterfall?

Have you ever noticed how, when you have a bad cold, you can't taste your food, even your favorite things? That's what it's like if you're not really outdoors where you don't just see and hear Nature, but also feel it and smell it and taste it.

Nature has no electrical outlets, no Internet, no cell phone reception. But it's full another kind of energy, one we all need much more than we need electricity.

SENSING ON STEROIDS
Now, are smelling, tasting, touching, hearing and seeing our only senses? Some people think so, but I believe there are other senses, ones that are a bit harder to describe and might be very different for different people. One of them is called the sense of wonder.

Wonder is what you're feeling when you come across something that's completely new and amazing, something you've never sensed before—like the first time you turn over a rock or a log and find a little bug or worm that lives under there, the tracks where it's moved, maybe its eggs, and all you can say is Woh-h-h-h!

Wonder is when you're looking up at a big flock of birds and, all of a sudden every single one of them turns at the same time as if they were one giant bird. It's when, in the wintertime, you shuffle your feet across the carpet and then touch something—or some one—and BZ-Z-Z-T!! There's a spark. Have you ever 
done that?

SO EASY THAT IT'S HARD
Wonder is my favorite of all the senses, but it's very hard for some people to find. Why, because it isn't something you can go looking for. In fact, the harder you look, the less likely you are to find it. No, wonder is something that has to find you! And the only way it can do that is if you leave the door open and make room for it.

That can be hard, because we're all so busy. We've got school, music or dance lessons, sports, sleep-overs, and all kinds of other events. We're always worried about being on time, not missing anything. Our time is full, our minds are full…

If you guys keep growing up as disconnected from Nature as many kids are, Nature will have a very hard time staying healthy herself. 

Well, what wonder looks for is a place where you and your senses have nothing else to worry about except just being—being quiet, being observant, being curious, sometimes being playful...just being. That's when life's amazing little miracles happen…or should I say that's when you notice them, 'cause they're happening all the time, even if you don't notice them. It's just a lot more fun when you do.

So I hope you'll ask your parents to help you find times when you can make room for wonder. Times to be outdoors, not with any kind of toys, but just with Nature. Times with nothing else to do or worry about except playing, exploring, learning…just being with Nature.

If you've made room for wonder, you'll never be bored and you'll never be lonely, because Nature can be a very good friend. Do you have any friends that aren't people?

GOOD FOR YOU!
Learning to sense wonder in Nature is good for everyone. It's good for you because it helps you grow strong and healthy and smart and happy. It's good for your parents, because they want you to be all those things—and also because they want to be all those things too!

And it's good for Nature, because if you guys—this generation of children—keep growing up as disconnected from Nature as many kids are, Nature will have a very hard time staying healthy herself. Because only when we know and love something do we do what's necessary to take care of it.

We need to take care of Nature. Only if you girls and boys and your parents care enough to make sure we don't pollute the air and water, don't build things where they ruin the homes of wild animals, keep people and companies from using more and more and more stuff we don't really need, can we make sure that when you grow up, your children and grandchildren will still have a beautiful, WONDER-ful world to love too.

The truth is that being outdoors is just as safe 
and beautiful as it was when they were kids.

So, do your parents—and yourself—a favor. Take them outdoors whenever you can. Remember, they probably spent ten times more time out there when they were kids than you do now. Maybe they've forgotten. Maybe they're so busy that it seems they have no time. Maybe, like most parents, they just worry about keeping you safe.

But you can help remind them that:

• You need free time—when you have nothing else to do, and they're not around. That’s when you’ll get outside, explore and play with your friends and the many animal friends and fun toys Nature provides.

• Many of their concerns about keeping you kids safe come from news on TV, radio or the Internet that focuses only on a few bad people and bad things. The truth is that being outdoors is just as safe and beautiful as it was when they were kids.

• You don’t have to go to the wilderness, out in the country, or even to the suburbs to experience Nature. It’s can be as close as your front porch or back yard. 

• Nature is good for you. Science is proving that it helps you be healthier, smarter and happier.

So, kids, can you do that: remind your parents that you need Nature every day just like they did when they were kids? You will? 
GOOD FOR YOU!
(For another perspective on kids, technology and Nature, see my post from March, 2012, SCREEN-BOUND KIDS – The “Missing” Generation)

ARE YOU ON SOMETHING? – Coming Home To the Here and Now

MOM, CAN I GO INSIDE AND PLAY?
Ask kids where's their favorite place to play, and you may be as troubled as I am by the answer. More and more, they're saying that place is indoors. Say what? With the astounding variety of places to go, things to discover and adventures to be had in Nature, why on this precious earth would a child prefer to play inside? The kids' answer: because that's where the electrical chargers are.

  Depriving a child of a close relationship with 
  Nature is as unthinkable as depriving that child 
  of proper nutrition.

It was a conversation like this with a young boy that motivated Richard Louv to write his best-selling Last Child in the Woods – Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder. The book makes a compelling case: that depriving a child of a close relationship with Nature is as unthinkable as depriving that child of proper nutrition.

I'm so grateful that I grew up when being outdoors was more fun than anything else, when "social media" meant playing, sharing real-life adventures and talking face to face. My "friends" were really friends, because we actually did stuff together; they were my classmates, my teammates, perhaps my co-conspirators in some kind of prank.

We knew fresh air, water, sun and soil first-hand. We were aware that we shared our world with lots of other growing, breathing organisms. Hell, we even loved being outside in the winter!

These experiences shaped my friendships, and they also made me friends with Nature. I watched her, waited for her, suffered at her whim, but more than anything, I learned from her. She taught me patience, resourcefulness and creativity. She introduced me to awe.

YOU'RE EITHER ON, OR YOU'RE OUT OF IT!
These days it seems everyone's on something—on line, on Twitter or Facebook,
on their iPad or iPhone. And, since these indulgences barely require one to lift a finger, this means we spend way too much time on something else: our asses.

              

It's not just about separation from Nature, though that's certainly a key symptom of this "on" addiction. It's also the loss of real, first-hand interaction with other human beings. Getting "together" through social media, despite the allure of its sheer ease, is like knowing someone solely on the basis of your conversation through a thick wall. Other than knowing each other is paying attention, not much gets through.

          Am I the only one who senses a 
          kind of lonely desperation here?

Now, I'm not living in a cave; I realize that much of value happens through social media. (Think the $29 million in texted donations the American Red Cross raised in short order a few years back for Haiti earthquake relief, or the occasional bloodless overthrow of a corporate or political tyrant powered by the social media.) Still, kids in general aren't involved in such causes; the vast majority of them are "on something" for far less weighty reasons.

For hundreds of millions of Facebook and Twitter users, it's not about helping; it's not about information; it's not even about anything seriously resembling communication. No, nowadays its about connection, not as in sharing something of meaning, but as in connection for connection's sake, connection worn like a badge. Hey, look, I have so many "friends" or "likers." For what? Is anything of consequence actually being done? Am I the only one who senses a kind of lonely desperation in trading the wonders of (real) Nature for this?

A LITTLE CONSPIRACY
It's not that the technology and media are unhealthy in and of themselves; it's the degree of their use, the sheer volume of time the average devotee spends every day on utterly meaningless pursuits.

Parents know, somewhere in their gut, that too much texting, Snap-Chatting and playing Star Wars or Grand Theft Auto – version umpteen—not to mention exposure to the cesspool of reality television—is not good for their kids. But, as with junk food, there's a little conspiracy at work. This time, the connivance involves the parents, who convince themselves that Jill and Jimmy derive some social or educational benefit, or, truth be told, simply welcome the distraction; teachers, who let kids convince them they can multi-task; the media, with its slick marketing machine; highly-cultivated peer pressure; and, of course, the sheer sexiness of the technology.

I figure there are some people out here who still enjoy reading more than 140 characters at a time.

Of course, all of this is happening on the watch of parents, who are not only failing to set limits, but are, themselves, becoming addicted to the same pastimes.

You must have known the disclaimer would come: I can't rail against all this technology and the social media revolution without admitting my own hypocrisy. The "on" generation epitomizes the sped-up, dumbed-down world I decry. Yet, to spread my message, I find myself using the very machines and media I so despise. I'm on just about everything. Okay, I admit, it's fun. It really is.

In feeble defense I can say, first of all, that I think many blogs, including my own, have substance. What's more, I've not yet fallen for the "sound bite" approach to my message. I figure there have to be some people out here who still enjoy more than looking at a picture or two, or reading more than 140 characters at a time.

Let's resolve to nudge a child outdoors and introduce
her or him to curiosity, discovery and wonder. These companions, with no agenda except just being, will
never "unfriend" them.