Posts tagged ‘Richard Louv’
Nature as Tonic for ADHD: Louv Part 3
This is the third installment of reflections from the book: Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv.
It makes intuitive sense that kids diagnosed with ADHD would benefit from outdoor activities. I’m glad that Louv’s book is full of research to back this up.
In a study done at the University of Illinois (p.104), researchers showed that outdoor play in “green” settings resulted in fewer symptoms. By comparison, indoor activities such as watching TV, or outdoor activities on paved, non-green areas, increased symptoms. Even looking out the window at something green, can improve attention-deficit symptoms.
This is why I invite kids with the most energy to come on my outings. Tomorrow, we’re taking a trip to Picnic Point for a cook out. Nearly half of the kids on the trip are high needs kids, some with the label of ADHD. While I believe that all kids need nature to thrive, grow and develop their senses, these kids benefit most from simple green activities.
For example, I work with a first grader who is so high energy that sometimes he literally can’t stop moving. He acts out at times and inadvertently hits others when he loses control of his body. However, when he’s on a hike, these behaviors are non-existent. He’s happy and engaged. His senses are fully piqued.
If you know of a child that can benefit from some nature tonic, be sure to get them into an outdoor program. Or, get them out in the backyard, to explore insects, worms, buds, anything to stimulate their senses. I’ll be looking for easy ways for you to do this and will post the best as I find them.
For now, if you subscribe to my blog, I’ll send you my Bubble Activity Guide for free. It’s full of fun, easy and inexpensive things to do with kids. And, it includes my famous bubble juice recipe.
The Big Burn: Our Outdoor Heritage & Connection to Louv & Creativity
I just finished reading The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt & the Fire that Saved America, by Timothy Egan.
It’s the first historical book I couldn’t put down.
It’s the riveting story of how Teddy Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot invented the radical notion of conservation and masterminded a new agency: the National Forest Service. It’s also the dramatic story of the first Forest Service employees and the massive fire they fought in August 1910. The Big Burn – 3 millions acres of scorched earth – secured the future of the Forest Service and the legacy of Roosevelt, Pinchot and the brave fire fighters who took on an impossible task.
Roosevelt and Muir at Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park
If ever there was an outdoor President, it was Teddy Roosevelt. He thrived in the outdoors and it was his persona that inspired the movement to save vast tracks of land from clear-cutting. In addition to Pinchot, Roosevelt was friends John Muir. Muir’s prophetic voice was very influential to this story and fueled Roosevelt’s bold conservation initiatives which included designating the first National Monuments and congressional designation of Yosemite National Park.
After reading this book, I’m clear that America’s psyche was founded on wide open spaces. As a people, we constantly pushed toward open land until there was no more open land and resources left. All forested land would have been logged if Roosevelt hadn’t stepped in and made conservation a household word. Roosevelt, Muir and Pinchot loved the west and talk eloquently about the healing powers of nature, hiking, and the need to preserve places for desperate city dwellers. This remains even more true today. Cities are larger. Technology keeps us tied to computers and machines. Lives are moving faster than ever before and open spaces continue to shrink. In 1908, most people still lived on farms. Today, just a handful remain closely connected to the land. Kids have become increasingly removed from the very source of rejuvenation.
Richard Louv would likely take this one step further and say that without nature we are removed from a powerful source of creativity.
While Louv cites no study that proves this, it could be said that wilderness, or more broadly, outdoor adventure and exploration, fueled the invention and creativity that built this country. This does makes sense. Out of all the things that we have in America that no one else in the world has, it’s our wide open spaces and unsurpassed natural beauty and resources. We have Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, Glacier National Park, the Boundary Waters and many, many, more places. To be sure, there are beautiful places everywhere, but ours are so accessable. Furthermore, our outdoor legacy is our history. Good or bad, our history is full of adventure and outdoor exploration. Today, we have a parks system that makes visiting these places relatively easy and interpretive programs that make our visits meaningful. It makes sense that Roosevelt and Pinchot hatched the idea of conservation just as the frontier had closed. Could it be that in addition to saving something for future generations, Roosevelt didn’t want to lose what made us American? If we chopped down all the trees, perhaps we wouldn’t recognize ourselves or who know who we are. Would we still know how to think big thoughts or dream big dreams?
Louv writes in his book about how a young Benjamin Franklin and his friends created a water diversion system in their spare time, claiming that the land fueled his genius for invention.
It certainly can’t hurt. Where else, but in the outdoors, do all the senses become piqued. Who isn’t moved by the Grand Canyon and come away a slightly different person? I know I was. My visit makes me all the more hungry to return because I never know what magic will happen. There is a timelessness in huge places. A feeling of being small and of knowing your place against such a massive backdrop. I take heart in that knowledge because it keeps me humble knowing that I can’t change most of anything in the world. I am but a visitor.
I hope to give kids that feeling by getting them outside. We may not get to the Grand Canyon, but I can assure you that the landscape is no less healing and no less a place to hatch big ideas then it was in Roosevelt’s time. It’s certainly a place to start.
Last child in the woods: Part 2
I agree with Louv that we are making outdoor play more structured. In my work, all the activities are structured. We hike, we ski and we skate as a group. We are not just letting the kids go off and explore on their own. As a staff member working with other people’s kids, I do have to be sensible.
Regardless of this structure, I have observed that kids do act differently when they’re in the woods. Kids that are normally loud are quieter, though not all together quiet, while hiking. Kids are humble and more respectful of adults. I think they sense their smallness and vulnerability. Their senses are peaked. They look for things. They wonder about things.
On a recent hike, the water pump provided endless fascination. They showed great satisfaction and joy when pumping while pumping and especially when the water pour out. Just the act of pumping creates an awareness of the earth’s geology and where water comes from. I could see their brains ticking frantically after telling them that the water is stored between cracks in the rock. They thought there was a tank underground. My heart grew several sizes in that moment. I’ll never know what these kids will take home from these trips, but I doubt they are the same.
In today’s world, we do what we can to get kids outside, even if it’s structure. We can encourage outdoor play and creativity. I don’t see how I can do more.
Eagle Watching Success Story
Small successes with kids need to be celebrated.
Yesterday, while picking up kids at Emerson Elementary School (home of the Emerson Eagles no less) for our after school program, the principal, Karen Kepler, pointed out the eagle button she was wearing.
“Do you know who gave me this?” she asked.
“John?” I asked.
Yes, it was John. A tear welled up in my eyes.
John is an African American boy in the fourth grade who had been struggling in our after school program. This was a really big deal for him to have this success. No, it’s not academic success, which some may argue is the only measure of success in school, but a real life success that he will never lose.
He got to see and learn about birds of prey first hand. This is the stuff that Richard Louv talks about in his book No child left inside. Louv writes that when kids feel a sense of wonder about the world, their world expands exponentially. John felt that. I could see it in his face that day. I could see it on the bus the day after. And clearly, something inspired him to give that button (that John made) to his principal.
I am grateful for our partnership with Emerson School. Ms. Kepler will follow-up by putting a photo of John in the upcoming newsletter. When John learned about this, he was very excited. John got even more from this trip. He had a great day with his mom. He connected with his principal. He will get needed recognition from his peers at school and after school. He had a positive experience with other kids. He learned a lot about birds and he saw a new place. Our relationship became stronger.
I may never know the full impact of this trip on John, but that’s part of teaching.
Teachers live for these little successes.
Last child in the woods: Part 1-Nature Deficit Disorder
This is the first installment of my comments about the book: Last child in the woods: Saving our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv.
About 6 months into my job, a volunteer said, “So, you’ve probably read about Richard Louv, right?” I hadn’t. He told me a little about him and I Googled him that night. So this was the guy who coined the phrase “nature deficit disorder (NDD)?” Brilliant. Now that I have a year-and-a-half of experience working with kids, I’m finally ready to pick up his book and find out what he’s talking about.
Like me, Louv thinks that kids need nature to thrive. Without access to nature, kids are missing a sense of wonder about the world that they can’t get from a book or video. I only have to remember my first look at the ocean or a glacier to know this is true. To be sure, books inspired me, but the actual thing filled me with awe and wonder that never left me. Louv talks about kids that know much about the natural world because they’ve seen it on TV. These kids can talk about the rain forest and think they know the rain forest and nature. The sad part is that they don’t know that they are missing anything. Louv writes that nature has increasingly become a spectator sport, something to be consumed just like toy. That’s NDD. And that’s a shame.
While Louv is careful to say that NDD is not an illness, I think he’d like us to think of it that way. For myself, I know that if don’t get outside to enjoy nature on a regular basis, I get sick. Sick in the head. Sick of myself. Sick. Nature keeps me well and it heals me. It stands to reason that a growing child, who is deprived of nature could be considered ill. In his book he cites ample evidence to show that nature makes a difference in people’s lives.
It’s fascinating how scientists and researchers are documenting the benefits of nature. I’d love to hear a doctor say, “Take a walk in the woods and call me in the morning,” to treat someone for depression. Or, “Lay on your back and watch clouds,” to treat an overworked professional. We all intuitively know nature works and now there is growing evidence, all documented in Louv’s book, that proves it. Kids who don’t have nature as a tool for living are at risk. At risk for depression and for numerous physical and emotional ailments.
What I do in my work is provide programs to help get kids outside so that they develop lifelong habits. That way, they’ll have nature to fall back on when the going gets tough. They’ll also just have fun. Hopefully they are getting a sense of wonder. It’s unfortunate that kids don’t have the unstructured access to nature that they used to, but we can’t go back. My programs are structured. They have to be. However, I’ll write about the “Criminalization of Natural Play” in my next post. There’s a lot more to read and comment about….
Last child in the woods: Reading Louv’s book
I have finally started to read Richard Louv’s seminal book: Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder (2005). I feel like I have enough experience now to place his book in context. This is an important book and I’m looking forward to reading it and posting my thoughts here.
