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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
Engage
Complexity
Allowed
Alive
Moral
Understand
Kids
Complexities
Really
Outdoors

More quotes by Richard Louv

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The woods were my Ritalin. Nature calmed me, focused me, and yet excited my senses.
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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We are telling our kids that nature is in the past and it probably doesn't count anymore, the future is in electronics, the boogeyman is in the woods, and playing outdoors is probably illicit and possibly illegal.
Richard Louv
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There's a generation now that didn't grow up in nature. Some of these adults are parents and they know that nature is good for their kids but they don't know where to start.
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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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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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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Kids are plugged into some sort of electronic medium 44 hours per week.
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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These days, unplugged places are getting hard to find.
Richard Louv
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Use all of your senses.
Richard Louv
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Prize the natural spaces and shorelines most of all, because once they're gone, with rare exceptions they're gone forever. In our bones we need the natural curves of hills, the scent of chapparal, the whisper of pines, the possibility of wildness. We require these patches of nature for our mental health and our spiritual resilience.
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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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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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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The times I spent with my children in nature are among my most meaningful memories-and I hope theirs.
Richard Louv
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There’s no denying the benefits of the Internet. But electronic immersion, without a force to balance it, creates the hole in the boat — draining our ability to pay attention, to think clearly, to be productive and creative.
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
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We have such a brief opportunity to pass on to our children our love for this Earth, and to tell our stories. These are the moments when the world is made whole. In my children's memories, the adventures we've had together in nature will always exist.
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