Last Child in the Woods

The entire title for today’s book review is Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit-Disorder. That is a mouthful and, to be clear, I don’t think you need to go research Nature Deficit Disorder to understand this book. Don’t worry it isn’t a new diagnosis for parents to worry about–it’s a term coined by author Richard Louv. The premise of the book is simple, but one that I think we can’t afford to lose sight of: our kids need nature. Not only do they need to be in it, but they need the freedom to explore it. Many of us are raising our children in a world of tightly scheduled days, manicured lawns, and structured play. What about the time for a kid to just dig in the dirt and see what he finds? Dam a stream and see where the water goes? Watch bugs crawl and fly around and eat each other?

I remember my son coming home from elementary school with a project to watch a particular square of land for one full school year to see how it changed over the seasons and with time. I was curious to see how this would play out in our yard, but he chose a spot beside the creek behind his school. Why there? Because it had a dead crow! It definitely wasn’t the spot I would have directed him too, but this book helped me to understand why it was so important that he choose what he was interested in. Dead birds and all.

Each kid will interact with nature in their own unique way, but this book describes why this experience is important to their physical, emotional, and spiritual development. One of my kids liked to dig in everything – dirt, snow, sand. The other mostly wanted to climb everything – trees, rocks, whatever.

Being a fairly academic non-fiction book, I can’t say that this was a page-turner that kept me up all night, but it did influence how I raised my kids so I wanted to include it on Elephant Mamas. It also addresses some of the obstacles between kids and nature in today’s world. The one that resonated the most with me was fear–both real and imagined.

I have the first edition of this book, but I understand the new one offers 100 actions you can take to create change in your community, school, and family.