A slew of new books will be arriving this summer dealing with the issues of children today being separate from the natural world. And a name has been attached to this condition: Nature-Deficit Disorder. Oh, my, another thing for parents to fret about.
It does seem, however, that happily playing in the mud or building magical treehouses has gone the way of the dodo bird. Now the little darlings are attached to the screens of their PlayStations, Game Boys or the television. Or, if there is some interaction with nature, it is planned, just like soccer games or swim lessons. The Cub Scouts or Boy Scouts still have nature programs; Discovery Park has a huge roster of nature activities. But it is the unplanned sense of discovery that many of us remember from our childhoods.
My first garden was an abject failure, but I still love the memory of that little plot of growing space I was given. The reasons for failure were many: it had a steep slope, so all the water just ran off and made a muddy mess; it was mostly in shade; and I was instructed to keep it all very tidy. In the years that followed I found ways to get better sites.
There must be ideas and positive ways we can get our children reconnected to "nature," yet it appears even the experts are flummoxed. Two books being published this summer that might give us some helpful insights are: "Building for Life: Designing and Understanding the Human-Nature Connection," by Stephen R. Kellert (Island Press), and "Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder," by Richard Louv (Algonquin Books).
I just wish that the topic, problem, challenge or whatever you wish to call it had not been identified as a dis-order! Can we just say that for a number of reasons, including fear, we are not letting our children out to play?
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