Why Our Kids Need The Outdoors 

‘Last Child in the Woods’ author Louv to deliver keynote speech in Roanoke 

By Rupert Cutler

We are lucky to have so many natural areas in the Roanoke and New River valleys. Their presence contributes importantly to the high quality of life here. Untrammeled nature is at our doorstep in Explore Park, Mill Mountain Park, Carvins Cove Natural Reserve, Blacksburg’s Brown Farm (now called Heritage Community Park and Natural Area), the Blue Ridge Parkway, the Jefferson National Forest and the greenway trails along our creeks and river.

What we do not seem to have here, as elsewhere, is widespread appreciation of the importance of encouraging our children to roam and enjoy – on their own – these wild lands, or even their backyards and vacant lots in their home neighborhoods, to become confident and comfortable in the out-of-doors.

Society will pay a price for our failure to do so, according to Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods. He quotes a fourth-grader as saying, “I like to play indoors better ’cause that’s where all the electrical outlets are.” Readers of this review who are parents of young children won’t be surprised at that statement, but it should concern them and all of us.

Here’s why, according to Louv: Disturbing childhood trends, including rises in obesity, Attention Deficit Disorder and depression, can be traced to the lack of nature in the lives of today’s “wired” younger generation. So can the declining awareness of our dependence on a healthy natural world, our life-support system.

Direct exposure to nature is essential, says Louv, for healthy childhood development. Parents have the power to ensure that their daughter or son will not be the last child in the woods. Community leaders such as members of city and town councils, county boards of supervisors and school boards; subdivision planners; park administrators; Scout executives and architects can make it easier for parents to encourage a “nature-child reunion.”

Plans for housing developments, parks and school grounds should include natural places for children to play – patches of rough woods with streams where kids are free to build forts, encounter native wildlife and learn that they are part of and have no reason to fear their natural surroundings. “Every school district in America should be associated with one or more wildlife-and-childhood preserves in its region,” says Louv, who calls “green time” for children “nature’s Ritalin.”

Long term, predicts Louv, “the protection of nature will depend on the quality of the relationship between the young and nature – on how, or if, the young attach to nature. If we are going to save the environment, we must also save an endangered indicator species: the child in nature.”

Louv, of San Diego, is a visiting scholar at Brandeis University, a Ford Foundation advisor and the founder of Connect for Kids, the largest child-advocacy site on the Internet. This thought-provoking book, now available in paperback, is highly recommended.    

Rupert Cutler, who lives in downtown Roanoke, finds nature along the new Lick Run Greenway. This article originally was published in The Roanoke Times and is reprinted with permission.