Each of us-adult or child-must earn nature's gift by knowing nature directly, however difficult it may be to glean that knowledge in an urban environment.
A natural environment is far more complex than any playing field.
If getting our kids out into nature is a search for perfection, or is one more chore, then the belief in perfection and the chore defeats the joy. It's a good thing to learn more about nature in order to share this knowledge with children; it's even better if the adult and child learn about nature together. And it's a lot more fun.
Unlike television, reading does not swallow the senses or dictate thought. Reading stimulates the ecology of the imagination. Can you remember the wonder you felt when first reading The Jungle Book or Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn? Kipling’s world within a world; Twain’s slow river, the feel of freedom and sand on the secret island, and in the depths of the cave?
How can our kids really understand the moral complexities of being alive if they are not allowed to engage in those complexities outdoors?
As a species, we are most animated when our days and nights on Earth are touched by the natural world. We can find immeasurable joy in the birth of a child, a great work of art, or falling in love.
From 1997 to 2003, there was a decline of 50 percent in the proportion of children nine to twelve who spent time in such outside activities as hiking, walking, fishing, beach play, and gardening, according to a study by Sandra Hofferth at the University of Maryland.
One of my students told me that every time she learns the name of a plant, she feels as if she is meeting someone new. Giving a name to something is a way of knowing it.
Our kids are actually doing what we told them to do when they sit in front of that TV all day or in front of that computer game all day. The society is telling kids unconsciously that nature's in the past. It really doesn't count anymore, that the future is in electronics, and besides, the bogeyman is in the woods.
The pleasure of being alive is brought into sharper focus when you need to pay attention to staying alive.
We attempt to remember our collective American childhood, the way it was, but what we often remember is a combination of real past, pieces reshaped by bitterness and love, and, of course, the video past--the portrayals of family life on such television programs as "Leave it to Beaver" and "Father Knows Best" and all the rest.
Kids are absolutely starved for positive adult contact.
Here is the beginning of understanding: most parents are doing their best, and most children are doing their best, and they're doing pretty well, all things considered.
There is another possibility: not the end of nature, but the rebirth of wonder and even joy.
Something else was different when we were young: our parents were outdoors. I’m not saying they were joining health clubs and things of that sort, but they were out of the house, out on the porch, talking to neighbors. As far as physical fitness goes, today’s kids are the sorriest generation in the history of the United States. Their parents may be out jogging, but the kids just aren’t outside.
The real cultural war is between the culture of narcissism and what might be called the culture of renewal.
We do not raise our children alone.... Our children are also raised by every peer, institution, and family with which they come in contact. Yet parents today expect to be blamed for whatever results occur with their children, and they expect to do their parenting alone.
Use all of your senses.
Kids and adults pay a price for too much tech, and it's not wholesale.
Increasingly the evidence suggests that people benefit so much from contact with nature that land conservation can now be viewed as a public health strategy.
Mothers tend to be more direct. Fathers talk to other fathers about their kids more metaphorically. It's a different way of communication.
A lot of people think they need to give up nature to become adults but that's not true. However, you have to be careful how you describe and define 'nature.
If war occurs, that positive adult contact in every shape is needed more than ever. It will be a matter of emotional life and death. There's not a handy one-minute way of talking to your kid about war.
If we desire a kinder nation, seeing it through the eyes of children is an eminently sensible endeavor: A city that is pro-child,for example, is also a more humane place for adults.
Natural playgrounds may decrease bullying.
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