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Louv addresses that question as he talks about what the lack of connection to nature, unstructured free play, and the damage this imbalance is creating, is doing to our kids today. How safe is this, really. This is such a good book you'll be sharing it, talking about it, writing the author, and making some changes in how your own family free time is spent. I think it's so weird that I rarely (if ever) see kids playing outside anymore. The research says they're all tucked safely inside, playing computer games, watching DVDs and TV.
A must read for the "Green Revolution" and as importantly for your "heart & soul". Awesome.
Otherwise, I liked the book. The book has excellent information and a an better message that I agree with wholeheartedly. The only problem is that it is written with fairly complex psychological information which is hard to follow at times.
There really wasn't enough for a full book and Louv gets repetitive and even inserts lists of ways to address the problem. It is sad, but not surprising to ask any kids under age 16 or so if the know how to play "Kick the Can." Hardly any do, and even fewer have played.Louv offers a lot of data to back up the negative effects of this nature deficiency and some prescriptions to turn it around. While reestablishing phys ed in school will help, the answer is simple: parents, unplug your kids and kick them outside.Having said this, I felt the author could have made his points and supported them in a long magazine article. Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv is a timely book that needed to be written.The author's point is that kids today are facing a nature deficit and that affects childhood obesity and even the potential for the next generation to appreciate the breadth of nature enough to want to preserve it. I found myself scanning some sections later in the book because the points in those pages had been made before or the prescriptions he was offering were simplistic and I didn't feel worthy of the full play he gave to some.That being said, important argument and point, I just wish I would have read this in about forty pages in a periodical. Videogames, TV, computers and the like have proved a powerful pull on today's children. After all, if the local mall has an arboretum and that's all you know as nature, that's all you'll expect.The culprit is not news to anyone, nor to any parent with enough income to plug their kids into all manner of electronic gadgets. The cost is a lack of simple play outdoors, exploring creeks, fields, rocks and trees (the author doesn't count organized sports as nature exploration and rightly so in my book).
The good news is it produced a lot of nostalgia for days spent playing unfettered in a creek/woods and does have some concrete suggestions for how to detach children from their Ipods and video games. Plus, if you are a parent,chances are good you'll walk away feeling like you've failed your child in new and creative ways by not exposing them to nature. While this book produced great topics of discussion among my book club, the author's pedantic tone made me want to whack my head against a wall. He is clearly dedicated to his mission, and the book shows an impressive amount of research, but gets bogged down with anecdotes.
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