Leave No Child Indoors: Part 3 of 3
May 14, 2008
Larry Schweiger is President and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation and an occasional contributor to Creation Care magazine.
This is part 3 of 3 and originally appeared in Creation Care Magazine. Part 1 and Part 2 appear here.
3. We also have worked with volunteers to create 70,000 backyard-wildlife habitats, schoolyard habitats and community habitats across America where kids can connect with the nature in their back yard. Churches and Christian schools can do a lot with the land they already have (read “Inviting Creation to My Yard” on p. 18 of this issue).
4. Most importantly, we need to be advocates for a societal-scale approach to addressing nature deficit in America. NWF and it affiliates are joining with partners across the nation to ask states to adopt comprehensive Leave No Child Indoors policy programs that include such elements as:
Out of the window of my home office, I look over Pine Creek valley, where nine decades ago, Rachael Carson and her mother often roamed looking for spring flowers. I can’t help but believe that those hours afield in western Pennsylvania had a profound influence on this great conservationist and fostered her deep “Sense of Wonder.”
Edward O. Wilson wrote in The Diversity of Life, “Wilderness settles peace on the soul because it needs no help; it is beyond human contrivance. Wilderness is a metaphor of unlimited opportunity . . . We do not understand ourselves yet and descend farther from heaven’s air if we forget how much the natural world means to us. Signals abound that the loss of life’s diversity endangers not just the body
but the spirit. If that much is true, the changes occurring now will visit harm on all generations to come.”
Kids need to be outside more for their own physical, emotional and mental well-being. We all need to be reconnected to nature for the renewal of our minds and for the future of conservation. Gone are the days when the majority of kids spent hours at a time in the full flush of nature—in unstructured play exploring the hidden wonders under every rock and around every tree.
Gone too are the days when kids sleep under a blanket of stars. What will become of wild places if our children, like the boy on my plane, know little of the mystery, the grace, the interconnectedness of all living things? We only save what we love and we only love what we know.
Let me share a closing thought. Spending time in nature gives us a more vivid multi-sensory experience as we absorb inputs through our ears, through our eyes, through our nose and through our fingers. Our memories are made the richer and more durable by the multiple stimuli around us. We literally absorb the place as it absorbs us.
As a child, I spent many hours afield with my father who was a dog trainer and hunter. My father died more than thirty years ago, yet when I go to the woods and smell a familiar plant or hear a distant crow on a crisp fall morning, my memories of being with dad out in nature come flooding back in rich detail as if it were yesterday. In those moments I can hear his voice clearly and I can see his ruddy face in the golden light of an early morning sun. I cherish those fleeting memories.
I would urge every parent reading these words to make memories in nature with your children. They will scarcely remember watching television with you, but they will hold on to the times they spent in the wild with you for a lifetime.
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3 Responses to “Leave No Child Indoors: Part 3 of 3”
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Thank you, thank you, and thank you!! Yes!! Kids need to be outdoors more. Today’s society is scary – downright scary.
My husband and I have long felt that kids need to be out playing in Mother Nature’s handiwork but, like other parents, had a hard time getting them out there. We finally decided to quit our jobs and take our kids out to see the world on bicycles.
In fact – we are taking off in three weeks to ride bikes from Alaska to Argentina. We can’t wait to get on the road, but the best part of it will be watching the kids be creative with their playing – rather than sitting in front of a computer or TV all evening.
You can read about our journey at http://www.familyonbikes.org
Plastic Play structure, Rainbow systems are out. Nature available for kids to build, discover and manipulate an imaginary creative play are in.
http://mommytsunami.wordpress.com/2008/05/20/backyard-teepee/
[...] is part 2 of 3 and originally appeared in Creation Care Magazine. Part 1 and Part 3 appear [...]