Nature Deficit Disorder

This is a picture of Roosevelt Park in Albuquerque. We always played there in the 50's when we were kids and it was our favorite park because of it's rolling hills and heavy vegetation. It was constructed during the middle of the Depression in 1933-1934. It was built by the WPA, one of those New Deal Programs that NEO-CONS love to hate. I would bet that many Albuquerque NEO-CONS played in this park once or twice before they lost their common sense.

I show this picture because I was reminded of it after listening to a presentation put on my the New Mexico Grant Makers Association in Santa Fe. Their guest speaker was Richard Louv who has written a stimulating book, "Last Child in the Woods-Saving Children from Nature Deficit Disorder."

Essentially, Louv states that children today are outdoors in nature less and less and that it is affecting their health, education and well being in a big way. Louv cites studies that say kids today get much heavier loads of homework in addition to being plugged in to some sort of electronic device for a total of 44 hours a week. He says kids are "overstructured" and they need to go outside and play more. Louv feels that kids have an innate need of Nature but they are increasingly roped in to smaller geographic areas, some ending at their front doors because their parents have been scared into thinking every street and park is crawling with child molesters. Folks, he is right about that one. Just watch the news any night. Both local and national TV news loves a sexual perversion story from the commission of the crime through the court hearings, sentencing and imprisonment of the pervert. As Louv said, one crime is turned into thousands by repetitive 24 hour news.

Louv said therapists say children with Attention Deficit Disorder respond well to being outside and exploring, and that in some cases when they do so their ADD seems to disappear.

The reason I mentioned Roosevelt Park was that Louv suggested most unimaginative park landscapes take second fiddle to places like Roosevelt. Kids are much more creative in their play when the park mimics nature. That makes a lot of sense actually and city park departments should think about this a little bit.

I tend to think that Louv is mostly correct about his theories, although I think kids being plugged in to electronic devices can also be educational and challenging for them. I was discussing this with my sister Carlota and I felt we as kids never had that much exposure to nature, but she reminded me of our weeks of summer visits to Pena Blanca and occasional picnics in the Sandias. Those were defining moments for us as kids as I look back on it now. At the same time I think many kids in the cities have done well without too much exposure to nature in its wildest sense. There is no doubt however that we all need those times away in nature for our overall health. If you want to see a some more about Louv, a columnist for a San Diego newspaper, just click here.