Unlike television, reading does not swallow the senses or dictate thought. Reading stimulates the ecology of the imagination. Can you remember the wonder you felt when first reading The Jungle Book or Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn? Kiplingβs world within a world; Twainβs slow river, the feel of freedom and sand on the secret island, and in the depths of the cave?
Time spent in nature is the most cost-effective and powerful way to counteract the burnout and sort of depression that we feel when we sit in front of a computer all day.
How can our kids really understand the moral complexities of being alive if they are not allowed to engage in those complexities outdoors?
If war occurs, that positive adult contact in every shape is needed more than ever. It will be a matter of emotional life and death. There's not a handy one-minute way of talking to your kid about war.
Leave part of the yard rough. Don't manicure everything. Small children in particular love to turn over rocks and find bugs, and give them some space to do that. Take your child fishing. Take your child on hikes.
As a species, we are most animated when our days and nights on Earth are touched by the natural world. We can find immeasurable joy in the birth of a child, a great work of art, or falling in love.
It's easy to blame the nature-deficit disorder on the kids' or the parents' back, but they also need the help of urban planners, schools, libraries and other community agents to find nature that's accessible.
No other youth group like the Scouts has trained so many future leaders while at the same time being a nature organization with its outdoor focus.
Kids are absolutely starved for positive adult contact.
Kids and adults pay a price for too much tech, and it's not wholesale.
