Nature Deficit Disorder

http://www.booksamillion.com/ncom/books?id=3170306918642&isbn=1565123913

Last Child In The Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-deficit Disorder by Richard Louv

"Nature-deficit disorder" is making our kids depressed, distracted, and overweight claims child advocate and author Richard Louv in this groundbreaking work about the lives of today's children.

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. 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 be powerful therapy for such maladies as depression, obesity, and attention-deficit disorder. Environment-based education dramatically improves standardized test scores and grade-point averages and develops skills in problem solving, critical thinking, and decision making. In addition, anecdotal evidence strongly suggests that creativity is stimulated by childhood experiences in nature.

In Last Child in the Woods, Louv talks with parents, children, teachers, scientists, religious leaders, child-development researchers, and environmentalists from across the country; they 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.