Don't Mess with Mama

Author Richard Louv

For the last few years, I’ve been really interested in the idea of unstructured play for my kids and having them get closer to nature. We love to go to the beach and check out marine life in the reef – just check out our two-month trip to Hawaii. My favorite memory was my kids climbing trees that stretched over the ocean like it was nature’s jungle gym.

So I was excited to work with best-selling author Richard Louv to come up with tips to help parents encourage their kids to have more unstructured time to play outside. Louv coined the term Nature-Deficit Disorder® in his book Last Child in the Woods and is an outdoor play advocate who encourages kids (with some rules of course) to explore, climb and have fun. Check out Louv’s tips below.

How to Connect Kids to Nature

1. Just do it – and think simple. If we want our children or grandchildren to experience nature, we’ll need to be more proactive than parents of past generations. For small children (or older ones, too), start in the back yard. Encourage them to build forts, dig a hole, or plant a garden. A small pickup load of dirt costs the same as a video game, and provides more hours of creative, self-directed play. Some of the best toys are the simplest and least expensive. Did you know that the cardboard box and the stick have been inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame?
2. Be a hummingbird parent (not a helicopter parent). To reduce parental fear, Michele Whitaker, a guest blogger for The Grass Stain Guru, suggests that we become hummingbird parents: encouraging young children to play outside, but watch from a distance. “I tend to stay physically distant to let them explore and problem solve, but zoom in at moments when safety is an issue (which isn’t very often),” she writes. Notice that she isn’t hovering over her kids with nature flash cards. She stands back and makes space for independent nature play.
3. Create or join a family nature club. Nature Clubs for Families are beginning to catch on across the country; some have membership lists of over 400 families. The idea is that multiple families meet to go for a hike, garden together, or even do stream reclamation. We hear from family nature club leaders that when families get together, the kids tend to play more creatively — with other kids or independently — than during single-family outings. C&NN’s Nature Clubs for Families offers a free downloadable guide on how to start your own.
4. Help create a Homegrown National Park. Doug Tallamy, a professor at the University of Delaware, encourages children and adults to replant their yards with native species to create a vast network of wildlife corridors — ones that help make our cities into biodiversity engines, improving human health and well-being, and bring back butterfly and bird migration routes.
5. Submit your ideas to the CLIF Kid Backyard Game of the Year. The folks at CLIF Kid, maker of organic snacks for kids, have come up with a great way for parents to reconnect their kids with outdoor play and their own imaginations. Kids ages 6 – 12 can submit their ideas for their very own backyard game. The rules are easy: Invent a game for two or more kids to play using basic items that can be found around the house or in nature. Six finalists will win educational scholarships, bikes and helmets and a trip to San Francisco for the Backyard Game Playoffs in July. The grand prize winner will be awarded a $10,000 scholarship.

GIVEAWAY
I have two paperback copies of Richard Louv’s latest book The Nature Principle: Reconnecting with Life in a Virtual Age to two lucky readers.

Log your entries using Rafflecopter below.

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QUESTIONS
Got a question about the giveaway? Email me at tracey dot dontmesswithmama dot com.

DISCLOSURE
I received a copy of The Nature Principle: Reconnecting with Life in a Virtual Age, but have not otherwise been compensated.

Tagged as: kids nature, last child in the woods, nature deficit disorder, nature principle, richard louv

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