Time to reconnect with outside world
For most adults, the outdoors was the backdrop of their childhoods.
For their children, it's but a postscript.

Over a little more than two decades, American children have lost half
their time outdoors. They've traded in tree climbing and worm-
watching for video games, schoolwork, TV and extended day care.

Lost opportunities

Lost contact with the natural world means the loss of some of the
most sustaining and enriching parts of childhood. It means less
opportunity for exploration, physical activity and solitude.
Children - long famous for their close association with caterpillars,
dandelions and grass stains - are now often at odds with their own
backyards, either afraid of the natural world or simply unsure of how
to behave in it.

In his provocative book, "Last Child in the Woods," author Richard
Louv has termed the phenomenon Nature-Deficit Disorder and warns of
its immediate health implications for children and long-term impact
on everything from environmental policy to emotional well-being.

Louv will be in town Feb. 6 to kick off Leave No Child Inside of
Greater Cincinnati, a movement to reconnect children to nature that
is part of a growing national crusade. It is a critical issue for
every community, including ours. We hope parents, grandparents,
children's advocates and policymakers will fill the 3,500 seats at
Crossroads Community Church in Oakley to hear Louv's speech.

He'll make clear how profoundly the disconnect with nature affects
children's physical, emotional and even spiritual development.

Nature counters stress

In his book, he highlights studies that show children who regularly
play outdoors exhibit higher confidence, better concentration and
quicker recovery time from physical injuries than children who stay
inside. Preschoolers develop better coordination by walking on the
uneven terrain they find outdoors. Elementary students learn physics
by constructing treehouses and sharpen spatial skills by designing
obstacle courses.

And then there's what Louv calls "nature's Ritalin" - the unfolding
evidence that time spent in green spaces helps children focus better
and think more clearly. New York State College researcher Nancy Wells
found that time spent on nature activities lengthened children's
attention spans. And Louv says more than 100 studies confirm what
must of us discovered digging in dirt and sloshing through streams in
childhood - outdoor activity counters stress.

Reasons to hope

Accepting Louv's both well-documented and intuitively sound thesis
could be a disillusioning awakening, but we in Greater Cincinnati
have reason to be hopeful:

First, children here and everywhere are resilient, and reconnecting
them to dirt and bugs is a lot easier than getting them to clean
their room or eat their vegetables.

Second, we live in a region bursting with public green spaces, from
city parks to a sprawling zoo to rural nature preserves.

And third, in No Child Left Inside in Greater Cincinnati, we have a
coalition of nature and children's groups breaking ground to get our
kids back outdoors.