Journal of the mental environment
“The planet is in distress and all of the attention is on Paris Hilton.”
As a kid, I had the good fortune to be hauled along on my dad’s annual canoe trip into the wilds of northern Canada. For one or two weeks a year, we navigated river and trail, ran rapids, struggled along back-breaking portages, and on rare, happy occasions caught sight of the local inhabitants: a beaver chewing on a log, a few moose wading in the shallows, the odd wolf or black bear.
In total, I spent no more than a few months in the north, but my imagination, and to some extent my entire childhood, revolved around that brief chunk of time. Those short encounters with true wilderness had a disproportionately powerful effect on me. Each time I returned to suburbia from the wilderness, I replicated the experience as much as I could by exploring the woods that remained on the edge of the small city I grew up in.
A few acres of woodland next to a golf course became my playground – it was a chance for my friends and I to indulge in the sort of rowdy waywardness that has been an integral part of childhood since the cave days. Sadly, most of those trees have since been cut down and replaced by housing developments. Even if they hadn’t been, it’s unlikely the modern child would be given as much freedom as my friends and I had to explore them.
We are now just beginning to understand that the growing disconnection between kids and the natural world is an increasingly serious social problem. One researcher in the United Kingdom from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Dr. William Bird, has noted a steady increase in the diagnosis of childhood mental illness and in the use of medication to treat it. But he also discovered evidence that simple exposure to nature – anything from unstructured play in a forest to a greening of the view from an urban classroom window – is an effective, non-pharmaceutical means of mitigating mental illness.
“Children undertaking activities in nature appear to improve symptoms of ADHD [Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder] by 30 percent compared to urban outdoor activities and threefold compared to the indoor environment,” notes Dr. Bird.
A child using his imagination to play a game in the woods isn’t just having fun; he’s setting a foundation for future independence, inner strength and an ability to resist stress that will last a lifetime.
We could be encouraging natural play, but instead, we’re in the process of forming a new, potentially dystopian culture of childhood. In the United States, Dr. Joe Frost addressed the Association for Childhood Education International Conference on the worsening situation that threatens the nation’s children. The combination of increasing poverty and urbanization, the failure of the No Child Left Behind standardization initiative and the destruction of play represents a crisis, Frost argues. Cell phones, text messaging, video games and online chatting are supplanting free time in the fields and forests. Kids today are suffering from what author Richard Louv describes as “nature-deficit” disorder.
It’s affecting children everywhere. When the Japanese photographer Keiki Haginoya set out in 1979 to document children at play on the streets of Tokyo, little did he know what lay in store for him. His work became a narrative of decline, showing the rapid loss of play space and the alienation of kids from natural outdoor activities and traditional games. By1996, he reached the depressing conclusion that children’s laughter had entirely disappeared from the streets.
The subtle character of this crisis doesn’t lend itself to a rapid solution. The simple and obvious idea that nature plays an important role in our mental health hasn’t really caught on in the public mind, and is far from a priority for politicians. More and more kids are popping pills, and we’re forking out billions of dollars in health care and other costs to deal with the consequences of poor mental health.
Children who survive through adolescence surrounded by gray walls and little time in the wilderness may not necessarily spend the rest of their lives believing that nature is a scary place, but the evidence suggests that their deficit of experience will result in an adulthood of generally higher stress and poorer health. Preserving and encouraging a natural environment is basic wisdom for the twenty-first century. An attractive future for humanity will be one in which all kids have the opportunity to roam, without fear, in an unspoiled land.
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Richard Louv's book, Last Child in the Woods, and the blog playborhood.com cover many of these points. I highly recommend them both. I too am trying to raise my son to be as much outside and unstructured in his play. I find it difficult though, because other children in our neighbourhood are structured and sometimes it's hard to find someone around to play with.
I posted some notes on my blog about Louv's book if anyone wants to look at a condensed version: http://edgymama.wordpress.com/2008/03/27/last-child-in-the-woods/
when we lose this intended connection with nature we grow dependent on this man made society which robs us of appreciation for the natural environment and as a result makes us rely on others to supply us with our entertainment
It's so ridiculas the way how cautionous and protective parents are these days, let your kids live a little.
I frequently travel near areas that I used to roam in the woods. It brings me to tears to see that those wooded areas have been wiped out. The trees cleared and castle sized homes, within spitting distance of each other, built in their place. Our neighborhood is fortunate enough to have wooded areas and even a creek dispersed throughout it. However, try playing in those wooded areas or the creek and angry homeowners will come and shoo you away like an annoying pest. It's really very sad. Even our school wiped out almost every wooded area from it's lot. I don't understand this fear of trees or fear of wooded areas, as I ran free through them all throughout my childhood years. It's depressing to go outdoors in our neighborhood, because I know how many children live here - but, I never see any of them. I'm raising my boys the way I was raised. They are free to run to their friends' homes.. they are free to explore what little wooded land we have.. they are free to experience life without ma and pa standing over them 24 hours a day to point out every little danger or every little mistake. Many parents will think it's stupid to let a 6 year old have the freedom he deserves. I'll be surprised if I don't have a knock on the door one day from some govt agency telling me I'm a bad parent for allowing my boy to be a boy - but, it's the price you pay for giving children the exposure and independence and confidence they so badly need.
I think the main thing that we don't foster in children today is their innate curiosity and sense of imagination. The simple act of exploring nature allows children to use these attributes that we admire so much yet drum out of them through school and expectations from society.
I grew up in Detroit when the civil rights marches and riots were going on. I personally was hardly ever out of the city, but we were always outside playing. We didn't watch TV for years at a time, there weren't any electronic devices like there are now. If you wiped out and clocked yourself, nobody got sued over it, you were just laughed at. There were plenty of kids and moms around-- you didn't have to worry about strangers because you were never alone. I look after my grandson every day-- they live across the street- and we play like mad. Playing, not watching is the key to happiness. I tell him,"life is too short to spend it in front of the TV, it isn't real. We must be real." We make cookies and costumes, books and jewelry, ride bikes and garden and for a treat he can watch a cartoon or movie.
It doesn't matter where you live, or how you live. Children need to be taught the skills and joys of humanhood. Life is an unfolding process that they must be able to explore. They won't learn it from the xbox.
I agree nature is fun, but you dont have to visit a national park or a park for that matter. I used to live in an apartment complex when i was 8 and loved going to a tree that was right in front of my complex. I used to watch all the bugs and i climbed on it was a blast. I think just being near anyhting not man made is a way to get close to nature
"We must let them roam free once again"
While I understand what you're getting at, the trouble is that that's exactly what some parents DO do, with the results you see on the streets of most towns and cities.
Our culture has changed almost beyond recognition over the last 60 years. When I was a child most of us boys carried knives, and every newsagent and toyshop had displays of them in the window - I can remember being told by my mother that I couldn't have one until I was nine. Yet the thought of using them as a weapon against another child never occurred to us.
City kids sixty or eighty years back probably had even less exposure to nature than they do now, yet they didn't exhibit the range of pathologies we can find now. While I'd agree that the more time kids spend in the wild the better, I think the cultural changes are more important when it comes to explaining things like increases in "mental illness" .
As a child I spent most of my time out of the house, wandering around the "woods" that surrounded where I lived.
I now realize what a privilege that was and how fortunate for me to experience that. Throughout my life I have always had a compelling desire to explore. I am sure it is a direct result of this childhood activity.
For a variety of reasons my kids cannot do that. Most of all I do not trust where I live to take care of them the way I was taken care of. Life has changed.
Children and youth face too many challenges today. They seemed perpetually short circuited. I think by design. We need to fight to keep them ours.
The culture of consumerism wants to claim them and keep them focused on having unrealistic expectations in life, being spoiled and living in a state of incredible self centeredness i.e. buy and collect more if you want to be happy.
It is harder and harder to emerge from a childlike state and transition into adulthood. I cannot see how over time this will not result in anything but mental illness.
What we need is a re-visualization of the "Commune" movement of the 60's and 70's. A way to move "into the country" without it being just a farther drive away suburbia. There's still plenty of "Hippies" old and new around to help with the good and bad.
The main reason most of them broke up was a government "Cointel" program designed to disrupt them. With the change in politics on the horizon, the remnants of that ideology are too busy trying to avoid prosecution for war crimes than to mess with all but the most openly terrorist groups. They had other problems, chiefly a too open attitude towards sex that caused strife later when people started pairing up. But there are still quite a few communes remaining.
A new setup such as that should be a giant house or series of houses. If I make one, I'll do a large geodesic dome with several levels. It will be designed to sustain itself mostly with agriculture from the land around it. Work will be distributed among members. Some might work on the farm, some might maintain the house, some have transport like the "hippie van", some might work outside and contribute money.
Such a group needs a cohesive theme, even a simple one, such as "Do enough to survive and keep the house together and have plenty of leisure time". A few regular meetings and traditions/rituals, enough to make the group one but not enough to be a "Mind control cult". I'm essentially proposing a return to the "Tribe" here, for this setup will work both as a farming community and as an "Urban tribe" based around a bought up building.
For the urban area, an abandoned building could be bought up and renovated. The areas around it would be secured and monitored to keep out the criminal elements. People would then form a tribal hierarchy, based around "Hunting" meaning working jobs and doing things to support the community. This would be more aggressive and difficult than the agrarian model, but the "Rent" would likely be far less than standard apartment dwellers face for the "Profit" would be the upkeep expenses not usury. Likewise, plants on the roof, vine grapes and tomatoes on the walls, and with light pumps and electric lighting a lot of good food could be made inside.
Ever saw that fake Geico commercial "Manster"? About a human sized hamster wheel? Actually such a setup would generate a lot of electricity with several people moving a modest pace. That would be a good way to power at least the lights and keep people healthy should our system start to crash.
I miss the green, but I think things will get a little better when the cities start to become more in tune with nature and greenify. The advent of urban farming and gardening will help that too. The point is cities are the only long term sustainable form of human habitation. Humans can never go back to "country living", because all you get is suburbia and sprawl, but the current urban designs are also awash with ineffeciencies and car-centric planning. With the budding fields of biomimicry, new urbanism, and Cité du Futur coming to dominate urban planning, we can expect much greener cities.
XVX for life, R.A.S.H. 'til death.
I agree with most of this article. I have always lived in a farming area and when I was a kid, while there were a few kids who acted up in school, there wasn't a lot the illness and mental problems which seem to be in kids today...and no one had ADD. Nowadays, most school don't even have recess, just a half-hour gym period at lunch and even that is so strictly controlled there's no fun in it any more. Many neighbourhoods you don't see kids playing in the front yards much let alone on the side streets. No one knows their neighbours and families are so spread out nowadays grandchildren don't even know their grandparents...and sometimes not even their parents, uncles, and aunts. A lot of children's parks are closed because of someone worried about getting sued by an over-protective parent with a snivelling lawyer. That has to change.