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How can our kids really understand the moral complexities of being alive if they are not allowed to engage in those complexities outdoors?

Richard Louv

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Richard Louv
Age: 75
Born: 1949
Born: January 1
Author
Journalist
Writer
Moral
Understand
Kids
Complexities
Really
Outdoors
Engage
Complexity
Allowed
Alive

More quotes by Richard Louv

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What if a tree fell in the forest and no one knew it's biological name? Did it exist?
Richard Louv
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American family life has never been particularly idyllic. In the nineteenth century, nearly a quarter of all children experienced the death of one of their parents.... Not until the sixties did the chief cause of separation of parents shift from death to divorce.
Richard Louv
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To take nature and natural play away from children may be tantamount to withholding oxygen.
Richard Louv
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Nature introduces children to the idea—to the knowing—that they are not alone in this world, and that realities and dimensions exist alongside their own.
Richard Louv
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Another British study discovered that average eight-year-olds were better able to identify characters from the Japanese card trading game Pokemon than native species in the community where they lived: Pikachu, Metapod, and Wigglytuff were names more familiar to them than otter, beetle, and oak tree.
Richard Louv
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From 1997 to 2003, there was a decline of 50 percent in the proportion of children nine to twelve who spent time in such outside activities as hiking, walking, fishing, beach play, and gardening, according to a study by Sandra Hofferth at the University of Maryland.
Richard Louv
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An indoor (or backseat) childhood does reduce some dangers to children but other risks are heightened, including risks to physical and psychological health, risk to children's concept and perception of community, risk to self-confidence and the ability to discern true danger
Richard Louv
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The future will belong to the nature-smart...Th e more high-tech we become, the more nature we need.
Richard Louv
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We can conserve energy and tread more lightly on the Earth while we expand our culture's capacity for joy.
Richard Louv
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Use all of your senses.
Richard Louv
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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.
Richard Louv
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Now, my tree-climbing days long behind me, I often think about the lasting value of those early, deliciously idle days. I have come to appreciate the long view afforded by those treetops. The woods were my Ritalin. Nature calmed me, focused me, and yet excited my senses.
Richard Louv
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Natural play strengthens children's self-confidence and arouses their senses-their awareness of the world and all that moves in it, seen and unseen.
Richard Louv
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Stress reduction, greater physical health, a deeper sense of spirit, more creativity, a sense of play, even a safer life-these are the rewards that await a family then it invites more nature into children's lives.
Richard Louv
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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.
Richard Louv
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Time in nature is not leisure time it's an essential investment in our chidlren's health (and also, by the way, in our own).
Richard Louv
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If getting our kids out into nature is a search for perfection, or is one more chore, then the belief in perfection and the chore defeats the joy. It's a good thing to learn more about nature in order to share this knowledge with children it's even better if the adult and child learn about nature together. And it's a lot more fun.
Richard Louv
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Nature-the sublime, the harsh, and the beautiful-offers something that the street or gated community or computer game cannot. Nature presents the young with something so much greater than they are it offers an environment where they can easily contemplate infinity and eternity.
Richard Louv
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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?
Richard Louv
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Studies of children in playgrounds with both green areas and manufactured play areas found that children engaged in more creative forms of play in the green areas.
Richard Louv