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Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder
Algonquin Books
April 2005
336 pages
ISBN: 1565123913
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
“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. Local governments, neighborhood associations, and
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 offer powerful
therapy for such maladies as depression, obesity, and
attentiondeficit disorder. Environment-based education
dramatically improves standardized test scores and grade-
point averages and develops skills in problem solving,
critical thinking, and decision making. Anecdotal evidence
strongly suggests that childhood experiences in nature
stimulate creativity. In Last Child in the Woods, Louv talks with parents,
children, teachers, scientists, religious leaders, child-
development researchers, and environmentalists who
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.
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