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Linda Pelzman appreciates the beauty of the outdoor world, sometimes pulling her children into the yard to gaze at a full moon or peer into a dense fog. An educator and founder of a summer camp, she only wishes her enthusiasm was fully shared. "Kids don't think about going outside like they used to, and unless there is some scheduled activity, I don't think they know what to do outdoors anymore," Pelzman said. "I'm not saying that a child who grows up without nature is going to have terrible problems," Louv said, "but if you look at the studies that...

Hooking youth: Fishing is a pathway to nature for America's children http://www.abqtrib.com/news/2007/jun/06/commentary-hooking-youth/ http://tinyurl.com/2pcycu Mamie Parker Wednesday, June 6, 2007 Waters, long-coursed downstream, press on me still. The lunges of memorable fish linger in the eddies of my mind. Bright waters beckon this private vice of mine, fishing. And my recollections, no matter how old, always have the tenor of springtime, when all things are new. Fishing fixes me to places where I really feel alive. As a young girl and even today the experience carries a vestige of adventure and wildness - an escape from the artifices of man. As...

What Does The Decline In Hunting Mean For America's Kids? http://fieldandstream.blogs.com/news/2007/06/what_does_the_d.html http://tinyurl.com/2azh4n June 18, 2007 “I like to play indoors better,” a fourth grader told Richard Louv, “because that’s where the electrical outlets are.” In his bestselling 2005 book, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, journalist and author Louv argues that never before has a generation of children been so separated from the natural world. The consequences, he says, can be seen in trends such as increases in obesity, stress, and psychiatric disorders among our kids. With the declining number of outdoorsmen indicated by the...

Nature calls even without cell phones http://www.cumberlink.com/articles/2007/05/23/editorial/editorial/daily876.txt http://tinyurl.com/3dmegu By The Sentinel, May 23, 2007 Last updated: Wednesday, May 23, 2007 11:16 AM EDT One of the drawbacks of the highly technological society we've created is the sedentary lifestyle it has inspired. When so much of your information gathering, communication and entertainment is centered around staring into a screen - not to mention the vast majority of most people's work duties - the amount of time we spend mostly motionless adds up quickly. Naturally, we're teaching this new non-active lifestyle to our children, whether intentionally or not. Look at all the...

Go outside and playhttp://www.cleveland.com/living/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/living/1158309564312510.xml&coll=2 http://tinyurl.com/pg6bd That's the advice nature educators have for increasingly reined-in kids and their very protective parents Friday, September 15, 2006 Susan Glaser Plain Dealer Reporter When Steve Cadwell was a kid, he had the North Chagrin Reservation in his back yard, and he used to disappear for hours. "My mom said, 'Go outside, and don't come back until the streetlights are on,' " said Cadwell, 47, now executive director of the Nature Center of Shaker Lakes. Rare is the mother who issues that directive these days. Thanks to everything from fears about stranger danger to video...

One day a few years ago, Khady Lusby's twins were 5 and playing by themselves in the park that abuts their Arlington house when another mother called her at home. "She said, 'Do you know your boys are at the playground playing?' And I said, 'Yes, I know,' " recalled Lusby, who is from Senegal. "She said, 'Oh, you know this is not the way we do things here,' meaning in America. I just made a joke: 'Well, I'm African -- wherever I go I take my African way,' and she said, 'Well you can be reported.' " Undaunted, Lusby...

Nature-deficit disorder is ruining our kidshttp://www.nevadaappeal.com/article/20060816/OPINION/108160053 http://tinyurl.com/zchy3 by jim stiles August 16, 2006 No matter how old I live to be, there will never be a place so full of mystery and adventure as a place of my childhood called The Woods. The stories that grew out of those trees still kindle powerful feelings, even after all these years. My friends and I knew the place was haunted. It had no boundaries, and in our 10-year-old minds, it went on forever. Jump ahead a few decades to a familiar topic: the commercialization of wilderness. What created the demand for such...

Want healthier kids? Send them outsidehttp://www.dailyherald.com/story.asp?id=212657 BY JASON KING Daily Herald Staff Writer Posted Monday, July 31, 2006 Sean Taylor watched as 5-year-old son Payton played "snake tag" with other children at the Grant Woods Forest Preserve in Lake Villa. The father and son were participating in the Lake County Forest Preserve District's Knee High Naturalist program, which focused on snakes that day. Taylor said he wants his son to play outdoors as much as possible and, luckily, Payton loves to do so. "If he stays inside all day, at night he's just crazy," said Taylor, of Lake Villa. "He...

Words are good for kidshttp://www.rep-am.com/story.php?id=10444 Sunday, July 30, 2006 The other night I was telling my son a story about my tree fort. I hadn't thought about the place in years. But every time I give my son P.J. a bath, I'm flooded with the memory of the place. The scent of Johnson & Johnson shampoo sends me back to my childhood, when my mother used to bathe us in Tide. Yes, Tide, the abrasive laundry detergent with the little aqua grains. It sounds punishing, but the truth is, my mother had little choice. By the time my brothers and...

Take a Hike, Kidhttp://www.utne.com/webwatch/2006_258/news/12198-1.html Bears, sharks, and strangers -- oh my! How kids are taught to fear the outdoors By Rachel Anderson, Utne.com July 20, 2006 Issue Kids say the darnedest things. "I like to play indoors better 'cause that's where all the electrical outlets are," one fifth-grader told Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder. Raise the age bracket and you might hear, as did one high school teacher querying his students on the environment: "If you go out [in nature], there has to be a parent because you can't protect...

I'm always drawn to stories about dads and sons who share a hobby or passionate pursuit. A few months ago, I read a story about a couple of father-son pairs in the Dallas area who have climbed three of the seven summits – the highest peaks on each continent. Jackson, my 10-year-old son, and I have done some indoor rock climbing at our community recreation center. But like a lot of boys these days, his passion is video games. He's always asking me to play – bad as I am at it. I usually choose NBA Live 2005 because I...