Nature Deficit Disorder
Last week I took my boys Sam (3) and James (2) for the day, all to myself, from 7 am – 5 pm. If it sounds like I'm congratulating myself, then you've never spent a full day supervising two small children.
There’s a lot about that day I could write about, including the fact that their “meals” consisted of donuts and Easter candy.
But it was my impulsive decision to take them to the woods that stuck with me.
I had no plan, really. No bag of toys, no books, no snacks, no diapers or wipes. I just threw them in the van. "Boys, we're going into nature" I said, triumphantly.
When we arrived, I started meandering down the path while Sam and James toddled behind. Pretty quickly they were picking up sticks, pretending to chop down trees, throwing “spears” at imaginary animals, climbing over fallen trees, using branches as balance beams, and kicking up leaves.
The deeper we foraged, the more a feeling of calm washed over me; as if someone had silenced the ever-present buzz of “on-edge-ness” that comes with minding small children. There was no remote to fight about, no cars whizzing past while they chased a ball into the street, no parent to feel awkward in front of because my kid was walking up the slide. No toys. No media. Just three guys in the woods.
We arrived at a meadow with a house of branches, and I found a place to sit and watch my boys just…be. They mostly explored the woods alone, occasionally coming together to discuss, in the innocent way only small kids can, the size of an ant or the softness of the moss. They were just two organisms at home in their original habitat. In Eduspeak, this is called "experiential play-based learning." I just call it goofing off in the woods.
And it occurred to me that we don’t do this enough. Much of what I do is try to think of something to keep them engaged--a new toy, a new show, a new book, a new game.
Maybe I’m trying too hard. Maybe what they need more than anything is more contact with the very source from which they came. We forget that our kids have more in common with a tree than with a superhero, more in common with a beetle than with a toy truck. My boys constantly fight over plastic stuff in the house; in the woods, there are plenty of sticks to go around.
The benefits of time in nature—real nature (soccer fields don’t count!) is well-documented.
Thoreau wrote about it in Walden, his manifesto on the simple life:
“We need the tonic of wildness...At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.”
Anyone who has slept under the stars or sat around a campfire by the river knows what Thoreau is talking about.
Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder writes:
“Progress does not have to be patented to be worthwhile. Progress can also be measured by our interactions with nature and its preservation. Can we teach children to look at a flower and see all the things it represents: beauty, the health of an ecosystem, and the potential for healing? ”
We spent a couple of hours in those woods, and for the last hour, James had a full, stinky diaper. (another benefit to the woods: no one can smell it). As we walked back toward the van, it struck me that, without meaning it, I had shared with my children something transcendent. Maybe that decision to go to the woods was not impulsive. Maybe it was instinctive.
Let’s consider that more tutoring, more practice, more lessons, more tools, more (fill-in-the-blank) might not always be what our kids need. Sometimes a walk in the woods might be enough.
-Mr. Hughes
The South Redford Eagle Scholars Program
Email: rory.hughes@southredford.org
Website: eaglescholars.southredford.org
Location: 26249 Schoolcraft Avenue, Redford Charter Township, MI, United States
Phone: 313-444-2590
Facebook: facebook.com/eaglescholarsprogram
