Back to Nature

The number of children diagnosed with ADHD, ADD and anxiety disorders has increased dramatically over the past 20 years. Why?

One reason, speculates Richard Louv in Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder is that modern children have become disconnected from the natural world. Early exposure of children to nature helps them thrive intellectually, physically and spiritually. Scientific research also shows that immersion in nature has successfully healed many forms of stress and anxiety disorders in both children and adults.

Perhaps the artificial setting of TV and Computer monitors, hermetically sealed air conditioned rooms, schools and shopping centers have taken away the rhythm of the natural setting from our kids. We have lost a deep and organic connection to our primal nature.

Getting them back to nature can help them reconnect with their emotional and spiritual centers.

Richard Louv makes a lot of sense to me! That's why it is so heartening to see that an agency in UK is actually taking steps to re-connect English children with the natural setting.




Environmental agency Natural England plans to take a million children to nature reserves and farms over the next three years following research showing that contact with nature has halved in a generation.

Members of Natural England feel that nature-based activities like tree-climbing, running through the fields can play an important role in the educational and social development of children.

According to Natural England's Childhood and Nature survey, "less than 10 per cent of children play in natural places such as woods, countryside and heaths. This compares with 40 per cent of adults who said they played in natural areas when they were young."

Their support of natural settings for children is commendable!

Read on:

http://www.cypnow.co.uk/news/ByDiscipline/Education/896105/One-million-children-go-back-nature/