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Last One Of These In The Woods

If your childhood was anything like mine, the outdoors was my playground, and indoors was my dungeon.  Sure, if the weather was bad, we may have covered all the furniture in sheets and blankets that would transform the furniture into a starship, but it was the outdoors that refueled the creative reservoirs.  Oh, and when I say, “if the weather was bad”, that just meant lightning or winds above 40.  Anything less was just a new, exciting adventure in my playground.

Nature Deficit Disorder

Weren’t we created to be outdoors.  A quick read of Genius would give you all the proof you need.   Louv, Richard has written a great book, Last Child In The Woods.

Unlike television, nature does not steal time; it amplifies it. Nature offers healing for a child living in a destructive family or neighborhood. It serves as a blank slate upon which a child draws and reinterprets the culture’s fantasies. Nature inspires creativity in a child by demanding visualization and the full use of the senses. Given a chance, a child will bring the confusion of the world to the woods, wash it in the creek, turn it over to see what lives on the unseen side of that confusion. Nature can frighten a child, too, and this fright serves a purpose. In nature, a child finds freedom, fantasy, and privacy: a place distant from the adult world, a separate peace.

Most of these ideas would be intuitive to us if we would just think back to any of our outdoor memories: Pow Wow, a day at the beach, a morning fishing along the bank, a hour or two hanging in a hammock under a tree.  All these things seemed to ease the tension, refuel, and even inspire.

Louv, Richard. Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder (pp. 7-8). Algonquin Books. Kindle Edition.

Richard Louv coined the term, Nature-Deficit Disorder, and though it is not a clinical term, many therapist and clinics now study the effects of nature on many clinical disorders.  Some patients have reported to have stopped taking all prescription meds because of their new found outdoor lifestyles.

Order to Disorder

Countless communities have virtually outlawed unstructured outdoor nature play, often because of the threat of lawsuits, but also because of a growing obsession with order. Many parents and kids now believe outdoor play is verboten even when it is not; perception is nine-tenths of the law.

Louv, Richard. Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder (p. 28). Algonquin Books. Kindle Edition.

Fear Marketing

Environmental psychologist Roger Hart studied children in natural settings in Vermont and then compared those finding forty years later with those children’s children.  The first generation were allowed hours of unstructured outdoor nature play within miles of their homes, the next generation had limited to no unstructured outdoor play that was confined to a small backyard.  The biggest factor was fear.  Parents were certain that the world was a much more dangerous place, but in the town where these families lived crime was actually much lower than when they were kids.

Fear sucks the joy and whimsy from our lives. We’re afraid to explore, to risk, to do the things we are meant to do. The cost to our souls (and our kids’ souls) is great. God takes a look at our tiny maps and draws huge freedom circles on them. He says, “Go where you want. Explore. Spread out. Expand your life and influence!” But fear is always at our elbows, saying, “Yeah, but the bogeyman could be out there. You could get hurt or lost, or who knows all the terrible stuff that can go down?” God spurs us on to greater possibilities. Fear holds us back with imaginary insecurities. The landscape hasn’t changed, but our perceptions have.

Foster, Mike. People of the Second Chance: A Guide to Bringing Life-Saving Love to the World (Kindle Locations 2346-2351). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Rangers Has the Best Of Both

The beauty of Royal Rangers is that if offers the structure of a powerful mentoring program with all the unstructured outdoor nature play a young man needs.  We fully embrace the Creators creation and all the adventure it has to offer.