Ways parents, grandparents and other caregivers can increase a child’s wonder in God’s handiwork
Green Play Settings Reduce ADHD Symptoms
The Landscape and Human Health Lab’s research [University of Illinois] has shown that performing activities in green settings can reduce children’s Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder symptoms. In an initial, Midwestern-based survey, parents of children with AD/HD were more likely to nominate activities that typically occur in green outdoor settings as being best for their child’s symptoms and activities that typically occur in indoor or non-green outdoor settings as worst for symptoms. Also, parents rated their child’s symptoms as better, on average, after activities that occur in green settings than after activities in non-green settings. In the subsequent, nation-wide survey, parents again rated leisure activities—such as reading or playing sports—as improving children’s symptoms more when performed in green outdoor settings than in non-green settings. A more recent study tested children with AD/HD in a controlled setting after they had walked in one of three environments that differed from one another in the level of greenery: a park, a neighborhood, and a quiet downtown area. The findings confirmed that the attention of children with AD/HD functions better after spending time in more natural settings
AD/HD affects up to 7% of children. Those afflicted have chronic difficulty paying attention and focusing on tasks and can be impulsive, outburst-prone, and sometimes aggressive. These behaviors often result in family conflict, peer rejection, and academic failure. Current treatments, drugs and behavioral therapy, do not work in all cases and in many cases offer only limited relief. These research findings suggest adding trees and greenery where children spend a lot of time, such as near homes and schools, and encouraging kids with AD/HD to play in greenspaces may help supplement established treatments to improve children’s functioning.
Kids and God’s Great Outdoors
According to the National Wildlife Federation report “Be Out There,” outdoor activities can make kids. . .
. . . CREATIVE: Whether for building a fort out of branches, creating a fairy forest or pretending to be a superhero, playing outside inspires and requires an active imagination.
. . . SMART: Children who spend time outdoors learn to work as a team and are better problem solvers as adults. They score higher on assessments of cognitive ability (thinking) and standardized tests.
. . . CALM: In today’s overscheduled world, kids could use a little more R&R. Research shows that their stress levels fall within minutes of being outdoors.
. . . KIND: Mom always says to “play nice.” When kids play outdoors, they are more likely to! Being outdoors helps create compassion and improves social bonds.
. . . HAPPY: Play protects kids’ emotional development, letting kids be kids. Lying in the grass to watch the clouds go by or playing a game of tag to let off steam helps keep joy at the forefront.
. . . STRONG: Sunshine helps kid’s bodies create vitamin D, which is essential to building strong bones and preventing disease.
. . . HEALTHY: Overweight and obese children are at risk for shortening their lifespans. Give your kids the run-around—outdoors—to help them maintain a healthful weight.
Whole Child: Developing Mind, Body
and Spirit Through Outdoor Play
Physician-reviewed report examines health benefits
of unstructured time in nature.
08-05-2010 // Amanda Cooke
Physicians understand connection between health and outdoor time: “I am deeply troubled by some of the trends I see in my practice including increased obesity in kids and higher rates of asthma, ADHD, anxiety and depression. What all kids need are natural, safe places where they can play,” says Sandra Stenmark, M.D., a pediatrician with Kaiser Permanente and physician lead of Colorado Pediatric Cardiovascular Health who participated in NWF’s Summit on Children and the Outdoors this last April.
An increasing number of experts recognize the role that outdoor time plays in enhancing kids’ mental health by helping to better connect them to self, to others and to the natural world. Children who spend much of their time indoors watching television or playing video games can become isolated and withdrawn, even if they are connecting to people online.
According to Deputy U.S. Surgeon General Dr. David Rutstein, lack of outdoor time is a key factor in the childhood obesity epidemic and, if trends aren’t reversed, may contribute to a generation with not only less healthy but also shorter lives. “Overweight and obese adolescents have a 70 percent chance of becoming obese adults,” Dr. Rutstein said. “If this problem is not addressed, we will leave our children a legacy of shorter life spans for the first time in history.”
In addition to obesity, “Whole Child” highlights the rising rates of childhood diabetes, vitamin deficiencies, asthma, and vision problems, all of which can be tempered with adequate outdoor time.
“Whole Child” includes recommendations for caregivers, healthcare providers, educators and leaders so that, together, they can change America’s indoor habits. Recommendations include asking parents to model “un-plugging” from technology, taking part in the Be Out There pledge to go outside as a family, and advising pediatricians to write prescriptions for regular outdoor time for kids.
A PDF of the entire report is available online here.
What to Teach Children About God and “the Environment”
1. It was created by God. (Gen. 1-2; John 1:3; Col. 1:16-17)
2. It is owned by God. (Psa. 24:1; 1 Cor. 10:16, Psa. 104:24)
3. It is loved by God. (Psa 145:17 NIV; Psa. 36:5)
4. It is sustained by God continuously. (Gen. 8:22; Psa. 145:17; Psa. 104, Psa. 36:5-6; Matt. 6:26; Col. 1:17)
5. It was placed under man’s dominion. (Gen. 1:28; Psa. 8:6-8, Heb. 2:8, Psa. 145:13)
6. It was assigned to man for care and servant leadership. (Gen. 2:15)
7. It was altered by sin at the Fall. (Gen. 3:14-19)
8. It was altered again by the Flood. (Gen. 8-9)
9. It provides needs for all people throughout time. (Psa. 104:13-15; Matt 6:25-24; Zech. 10:1)
10. It is considered less valuable than people. (Matt. 6:26)
11. It has been redeemed by Christ. (Rom. 8:18-23; Col. 1:20)
12. It will be restored, reconciled to God, and unified at Christ’s return. (Isa. 11:6-9; Rom. 8:18-23; Col. 1:20; Eph. 1:9-10)
13. It will be assigned its destiny by God, not man. (2 Pet. 3:10; Rev. 21:1)
Implications of these biblical truths: We do not own the earth and can never ultimately “possess” any part of it. When we buy and sell land, we are only assigning temporary care to “owners” who are expected by God to use it carefully, frugally, and justly for His glory.
We should not deliberately destroy the land’s capacity to do its assigned work: to produce needed elements (fruit, oxygen, water filtration, moisture, etc.) for the health and survival of all that depend upon it. Our task is stewardship, which acknowledges that we are accountable to the Master for the creation’s health and for how we use its fruit (profit). Since it was made by God, is sustained by God, is loved by God, and will be restored by God, we must use it with reverent care and respect.
We must always be thankful for our parents and their parents for their care of it and be careful to hand it on to our children and their children as little damaged and diminished as we can. Our worship is of the Creator, not the creation. But, we must also remember that with the astronomical wonders above we “join with all nature in manifold witness to [God's] great faithfulness, mercy, and love!” Mankind is expected to establish communities and cultures upon the earth that use the land and its produce with as little waste and destruction as possible. All creatures are made by God and must be respected as His creation.
When we use the earth’s produce, we do it with gratitude and with the understanding that all His creatures, beginning with—but not limited too—mankind, have a right to occupy and make use of their allotted portion of it. As much as possible we should attempt to treat the earth now as we will be expected to treat it at its restoration in the coming Kingdom. While “our citizenship is in heaven,” we cannot forget, as T.S. Eliot reminds us, that such citizenship “is our model and type for our citizenship below.” Children need to know that the earth we see now is not like it was at the creation (because of the Fall, the Curse, the Flood, and the ravages of time), and it is not now what it will be at the restoration (the “peaceable kingdom” of shalom). Nonetheless, we also must show them how it still demonstrates to us the power, divinity, beauty, and awesome creative nature of God. For that reason alone, we should tend faithfully to our stewardship tasks.
Children could think of their use of the earth as a school project that will be graded by the divine Teacher at the end.
Here’s another helpful analogy: If all of us as God’s children offer up our work as art to the Heavenly Father, we can know that regardless of how imperfect and immature it is, He will post it on His fridge.
Short Experience; Lasting Results
Let me tell you about life on Ellavia. Ellavia is a small island on the shore of the east arm of Lake Michigan’s Grand Traverse Bay—about 100 feet long and 50 feet wide. It’s inhabited mostly by herring gulls and mallards—and briefly by two little girls: Ava and Elle. The girls did not live long on it—less than an hour. The island, which really was not an island but a small spit of land, is now a vital part of Elle and Ava’s memories. They had claimed the “island” after braving the current of a small stream that emptied into the bay, leaving Grandpa and Grandma Ohlman on the other side not particularly wanting to drench pants and shoes before getting back into the van.
The first order of business when you claim an island is to name it. Elle suggested that they certainly must include the discoverers’ names in its designation; so Ava proposed “Ellava.” But, with perhaps some placename pattern in mind, she changed the suggestion to “Ellavia.” It was immediately and enthusiastically agreed on by both that such was a most excellent name.
With a stick, a found child’s beach pail and shovel, and a half a loaf of sliced bread they explored the island, collected clam and zebra mussel shells from the creek and surf line, and fed the inhabitants—saying angry words at piggish gulls
who wouldn’t share with a pair of mallards. Having a sandy lake shore, an infinite horizon, a creek on which fresh beaver-clipped branches floated, an ample hill with steep drop-off to the creek, and sand to dig in, it was a momentary paradise in which they found joy—their moment in Eden. The only enticement sufficient to get the granddaughters back off the spit was the promise of the indoor pool at the motel. But Ellavia was now in their hearts and on their minds, and we heard it mentioned frequently during the rest of our grandparent/grandchild weekend getaway.
This adventure reminded me afresh that the outdoors—God’s other book—captivates children and dramatically reduces the tensions our modern world and hectic lifestyles creates for them. Why is it that when we wean children from milk, we also want to wean them from their feelings of natural connection to God’s good earth? Not deliberately, yet surely, we stifle those feelings and break those links.
My heart aches for children today who are not given the opportunity I had as a child growing up with free and safe access to woods, pastures, ponds, creeks. 
This is especially poignant for me in the spring when joy fills my heart and nostalgia grips my emotions as I wander anew among the born-again violets, adder’s tongue (trout lily), trillium, skunk cabbage, and marsh marigolds in the April woods and marshes. Still vivid in my memory is making handled cones out of construction paper in school the day before May 1 and then filling them with wildflowers to take home or hang on the knob of a nearby widow’s front door. We’d knock boldly on her door shouting “May Day, May Day!” and quickly hide in the bushes to see her open the door to discover not a visitor but a floral delight already wilting from the grip of our hot and grubby little hands.
Our children need the outdoors. They need intimacy with it. We know we are to teach them the “decrees, commands, and laws” of the Scripture—God’s special revelation. But the facts, wonders, and wisdom that come from nature—the Creator’s general revelation—are also vital. Sunday School at church is important, but Saturday School in God’s great outdoors also provides wonderful, even everlasting, rewards.
Understand it, harried parents! Get it, busy grandparents, aunts, and uncles!
Teaching About the Birds and Bees
I have to confess to being terribly anxious about my five granddaughters—ages 7 down to 3. They are made to grow up so fast in our culture and are exposed to “sex education,” both deliberate and coincidental, far too soon. I grew up in the “happy days” after World War II, and was probably far too naive about the matter than I should have been; but my parents had never had “the talk,” and since my dad grew up on the farm, his familiarity with birds, bees, horses, cattle, cats, and dogs gave him most of the facts about reproductive activity—and that’s not all bad. There was something more healthy and natural about that.
That’s one reason I recommend “pre-sex education” of the old-fashioned sort—truly using birds and bees (well mostly the birds). As I write this in early April, bird procreative activity is creating a virtual wild riot outdoors here in West Michigan. There are marshes very close to the RBC building that I can get to in just a few minutes with the car, and I often go there, roll down the windows, and listen to goose fights over nesting spots, or watch swans chasing geese away from their nests. When you know what is going on in all that cacophony it all makes sense.
Here’s a way you can get young children thinking about
the whole issue of procreation. During late summer take them to parks, ponds, and marshes and show them the flocks of geese, ducks, swans (which around Grand Rapids are increasing in huge numbers) and herons. Then when spring comes point out how the birds are no longer in flocks, but have broken into male/female pairs. Point out nesting spots and explain what is going on with nest making and egg laying. Do a little exploring to find a nest that’s low enough for the kids to see the eggs. Sometimes it’s as easy as finding a robin’s nest in your own yard. Last year we had one build a nest on a light fixture on our garage—to be abandoned very early when she saw how close we humans were.
Visit the nest as much as you can to see when eggs are laid. Then go to a bird book or a site like iBird, Audubon, or Cornell (a wonderful site) and find out how long the gestation period is for that particular species. Explain to the child what “gestation” means, and then make a mark on a calendar to estimate when the eggs will hatch. If you have spotted the eggs within a day or two of being laid, your child or grandchild will be amazed when the eggs hatch almost on the exact day you marked. From that point onward show them how helpless the little ones are and how protective the mother is. If you are fortunate, you will be able to watch them right up to the point of the fledglings leaving the nest. Young robins in particular are not too hard to observe on the ground. Have the child move close to 
the little bird and observe what the parent does, but make sure they don’t catch the fledgling—unless it is endangered by a dog or cat. Then a “rescue” can be carried out by your family in taking the little bird to a safe spot in a bush—with the mother bird making dashes at you. [Baby robin by Roger Smith]
All of this, of course, is significant learning for the child. The parallels to human procreation are abundant, and depending upon the child’s age, you can take the parallels to whatever level you feel appropriate. This sort of sex education is appropriate, vivid, and void of the suggestive junk that marks so much of TV programming. Because kids will remember this activity so well, you can always make reference back to it as they approach puberty.
And that’s as far as this grandpa is going to take it!
From Anna M. Clark
The Lorax ProjectPosted in Green Living Tips on December 27, 2009
My kids love Dr. Seuss, so for Christmas we gave them The Lorax. I don’t know how I reached age 36 without reading this brilliant 1971 classic. Now that I have, I think it the single most imaginative presentation of the tension between industry and environmentalists ever written. The story opens when a boy comes to a desolate corner of town to hear the story of “the Once-ler” (a green being who is never shown throughout the book except for his arms and legs). After the Once-ler receives payment from the boy (consisting of 15 cents, a nail, and the shell of a great, great, great grandfather snail) he recounts how he first arrived where they now stand, back then a beautiful forest of Truffula Trees, colorful woolly trees that supported various fantastical creatures. As soon as the Once-ler drives his covered wagon into this paradise, he becomes so enamored with the fuzzy tufts of the Truffula trees that he sets about cutting them down to make Thneeds. Why? Because “a thneed is a thing that everyone needs!”
The Lorax, a short furry animal resembling a sea otter, enters the picture as “a voice for the trees” (think annoying environmentalist, but cuter). From the time the Once-ler chops down his first tree until he cuts down the last, the Lorax keeps trying to warn him of the dangers to the Bar-ba-Loots, who survive on Truffula fruits. The Swomee Swans and the Humming Fish also suffer from pollution and smog of the thneed factories.
What I love about Dr. Seuss’ fables is that he isn’t preachy in his moral teaching. Even his villains are not evil so much as they are complex and clever. Just as the Grinch steals Christmas but learns to love in the end, the Once-ler develops a desire to save what has been lost. I won’t give away the whole story, but I can’t resist sharing some of its words of wisdom.
I meant no harm. I most truly did not. But I had
to grow bigger. So bigger I got. I biggered my
factory. I biggered my roads. I biggered my
wagons. I biggered the loads of the Thneeds I
shipped out. I was shippping them forth to the
South! To the East! To the West! To the North! I
went right on biggering…selling more Thneeds.
And I biggered my money, which everyone needs….
And at that very moment, we heard a load whack!
From outside in the fields came a sickening smack
of an axe on a tree. Then we heard the tree fall.
The very last Truffula Tree of them all! No more
trees. No more Thneeds. No more work to be
done….
But now,’ says the Once-ler, ‘Now that you’re
here, the word of the Lorax seems perfectly
clear. UNLESS someone like you cares a whole
awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s
not.’
In 2008, Random House launched The Lorax Project, a fun interactive website that allows kids and parents to play games, send letters, organize projects, and make simple behavioral changes to protect endangered species. And if you haven’t bought the book, here is a link to The Lorax on Amazon.com. I promise that you will get as much out of this book as your kids will, maybe more. I know I have.
Anna M. Clark
Real Bambi and Thumper
A fun pictorial treat for you and the kids in your life:
Keep Kids Active
More and more preschoolers are becoming overweight and out of shape. Getting them outdoors for activities is vital to their vitality (the capacity to live, grow, or develop). Something as simple as walking to a nearby store instead of driving is very beneficial. PBS Parents has some good tips on keeping your kids and/or grandkids active. Check out their tips here.
CAUTION:
I agree with my friend Rusty Pritchard in his article below about children needing to learn how to handle knives. I’ve had a pocket knife for as long as I can remember—probably since I was about ten. But a parent does need to teach and tend younger children with knives. I recall visiting a hardware store when our boys were very young and checking the edge of a Swiss Army knife by lightly rubbing my thumb across the blade—the way I was taught. Our middle son, Eric, was watching; so I cautioned him to never do what I did until he was older. Later as we were leaving the store, Marge noted that Eric was holding his thumb—and then saw blood dripping from his hand! In spite of my caution, he had “tested” the knife as soon as I was out of sight—by rubbing his thumb along the blade! His fledgling observational skills had missed the subtle but critical difference! Rusty’s thoughts are much like my own on this matter. But parents do have to make their own judgments on the wisdom and risks of their own kids using knives. A foot-long Bowie knife in the hands of an 8-year-old is not wise! All my grown sons now carry pocket knives. And I have to confess to owning about six Swiss Army knives, three Opinel knives, a Murphy knife, and six or seven sundry knives. Oops, I forgot about the dozen or so other knives I use in my shop!
Why Your Child Needs a Knife
Rusty Pritchard 
Kids need knives. It’s a key tool in the creation care toolbox. I still get a laugh when my family goes to a sit-down restaurant, to see servers putting out silverware and carefully making sure that the table knives don’t go anywhere near my kids. This at ages up to nine…! Those servers would have been shocked to see my six and nine year old boys at home, sitting on the back deck, whittling away for hours, making their own bows, arrows, and spears, and eventually making even elaborate little boats and toys. I’ve been on camping trips with other families whose own kids were kept far from knives. Their children were warned not to interact with nature. “Don’t go off the path.” “Don’t play with the fire.” “Don’t pick up insects.” “Stay away from snakes.” “Watch out for poison ivy.” “Don’t play with knives.” “DON’T TOUCH ANYTHING.” My own kids were of course the ones catching snakes, licking slugs, picking up bugs, climbing trees, leaving the path, carving things, and getting the other kids into trouble. They (mostly) don’t get poison ivy, because they know what it looks like. They don’t pick up poisonous snakes because they know what they look like. They know that Florida green anoles (lizards) will bite your earlobes and hang on until you take them off, making great temporary clip-on earrings [This is so cool. I never knew this -DO]. They have a lot of fun. Unsupervised fun for the most part, which is what kids lack these days, according to Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods and the person who coined the phrase “nature deficit disorder.” Why the worried parents? Many are themselves uncomfortable or unfamiliar with the outdoors, for whom camping is a genuine novelty, and who spent more time in malls than outdoors as a child. 
But I think less is personality and more is culture. It’s the culture of childproofing and child safety run amok. These parents seem to have the belief that their main responsibility is to deliver their children to college having never been injured in childhood in any way. [A nice clean knife cut offers a "teachable moment."] Of course children seem to have the opposite goal, but without ever encountering danger, they never learn how to handle themselves in the face of it. It’s also the “Take only pictures; leave only footprints” culture, carried almost to its logical conclusion. Nature is a museum (a dangerous museum), and combining people with nature is a recipe for someone to get hurt, either nature or the intruding human. What we really need is more people in creation, learning to love it and use it and protect it. Kids need knives. They are one of the most supremely useful tools for interacting with creation. They’re an important part of moral and creative development. And they let kids harvest their own raw materials and modify them for creative play. Richard Louv writes about the theory of “loose parts” that has begun to influence child-play experts and landscape architects. The originator of the theory is a well-known British artist named Ben Nicholson, who died in 1990. Nicholson contended that: “in any environment, both the degree of inventiveness and creativity, and the possibility of discovery, are directly proportional to the number and kind of variables in it.” Playing 
with “loose parts” is far different than the scripted play that goes along with so many modern toys with commercial movie and cartoon tie-ins. Up and down the toy aisles of Target and Wal-mart you don’t find much in the way of raw materials. You find products that require you to buy accessories designed to go with them, which are hard to incorporate with toys in other product lines. Loose-parts play is open-ended; requiring far more creativity and imagination, and developing far more skill and competence, than most modern plastic toys allow (and certainly more than is found in computer games). As Louv writes: “a typical list of loose parts for a natural play area might include water, trees, bushes, flowers, and long grasses, a pond and the creatures in it, along with other living things, sand (best if it can be mixed with water), places to sit in, on, under; structures that offer privacy and views. Go beyond that play area, to woods, fields, and streams, and the parts become looser and even more potent to the imagination.” 
Having and knowing how to use a knife gives kids power to transform materials in useful ways. We designate certain weedy shrubs and fast-growing trees in the wilder areas of our small urban yard as permitted source materials for the kids, and keep them around for just that purpose. They learn to use it responsibly. They know there are consequences to their actions with a knife, for nature, as well as for their fingers! And they know that their tool needs care, sharpening, and protection from misuse. They also become firm believers in private property when their brother tries to poach their prized possession.
We started the boys off making soap carvings at ages three and four, on Ivory soap, with “knives and chisels” I whittled out of wooden popsicle sticks. They loved it. We started letting them whittle with a knife, under close supervision, seated with a parent and with no other kids around, when they were about four and a half. The rule was that if anyone else approached, they put down the knife. The best starting “real” knife is a fixed blade knife with a wooden handle and short sharp blade (like the Murphy knife; all the knives mentioned here are available from Flourish store http://flourishonline.org/store/). At age six they got their own folding-blade pocketknife. Some people like lock-back blades (like the Victorinox Sentinel, a great knife), and we got one for our first son, but I seriously don’t think it’s necessary. The French-made Opinel is beautiful (and cheap), has a single folding blade that sharpens really well and has a lovely pearwood handle—my nine-year old loves this knife. My six year old has never folded the blade onto his fingers (yet). To see the knives mentioned above, along with soap carving kits and woodcarving kits, go to the Flourish store http://flourishonline.org/store/ and in the “Browse by Category” section on the right, click on “Children and the Outdoors” and then on the subcategory “Knives and Whittling”. And you must learn to sharpen well! Whether you have kids or not, you should get a strop, a good knife, and the “Little Book of Whittling.” Dr. Rusty Prichard is president and co-founder of Flourish. Its mission: Flourish inspires and equips churches to better love God by reviving human lives and the landscapes on which they depend. This article has appeared on the Flourish website and Sustainlane.
Kids and Consumerism
By Brian Swimme
While I do not endorse Brian Swimme’s philosophical or religious standpoint, I found this essay to offer some sobering truths about the influence of advertisers on our children. –Dean Ohlman
Advertisements are where our children receive their cosmology, their basic grasp of the world’s meaning, which amounts to their primary religious faith, though unrecognized as such. I use the word “faith” here to mean cosmology on the personal level. Faith is that which a person holds to be the hard-boiled truth about reality. The advertisement is our culture’s primary vehicle for providing our children with their personal cosmologies. As this awful fact sinks into awareness, the first healthy response is one of denial. It is just too horrible to think that we live in a culture that has replaced authentic spiritual development with the advertisement’s crass materialism. And yet when one compares the pitiful efforts we employ for moral development with the colossal and frenzied energies we pour into advertising, it is like comparing a high school football game with World War II. Nothing that happens in one hour on the weekend makes the slightest dent in the strategic bombing taking place day and night fifty-two weeks of the year. Perhaps the more recalcitrant children will require upward of a hundred thousand ads before they cave in and accept consumerism’s basic world-view. But eventually we all get the message. It’s a simple cosmology, told with great effect and delivered a billion times each day not only to Americans of course but to nearly everyone in the planetary reach of the ad: humans exist to work at jobs, to earn money, to get stuff. The image of the ideal human is also deeply set in our minds by the unending preachments of the ad. The ideal is not Jesus or Socrates. Forget all about Rachel Carson or Confucius or Martin Luther King, Jr., and all their suffering and love and wisdom. In the propaganda of the ad the ideal people, the fully human humans, are relaxed and carefree — drinking Pepsis around a pool — unencumbered by powerful ideas concerning the nature of goodness, undisturbed by visions of suffering that could be alleviated if humans were committed to justice. None of that ever appears. In the religion of the ad the task of civilizations is much simpler. The ultimate meaning for human existence is getting all this stuff. That’s paradise. And the meaning of the Earth? Premanufactured consumer stuff . [See Swimme's full article here] [See astounding photos of consumerism here]
Leave No Child Inside
I recently attended the Flourish conference outside Atlanta, and was blessed to be able to chat with a long-time friend in the creation care community: Larry Schweiger, the president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation. He and I both share a sense of sadness about what is happening to children in reference to the outdoors. A couple years ago Larry wrote about this in Creation Care Magazine from the Evangelical Environmental Network. Here is a snippet from the beginning of the article. Below you can find a link to a PDF of the entire article.
I was recently on a flight from Washington, DC, to San Francisco. Sitting next to me in the left window seat was an obese boy who was about ten years old. His mom put him on the plane to visit his dad in California. As soon as our plane was over ten thousand feet, the boy broke out his Game Boy and settled in for a long and intense session. After a couple of hours of this, our pilot came on the intercom and said, “folks, off to our left is one of the best views you will ever see of the Grand Canyon.” I watched the boy. His eyes never left the Game Boy, not even for a second. I was saddened by this boy who had no apparent interest in the wonders of nature. It occurred to me that I was witnessing, first hand, an important American phenomenon that is having a profound impact on our children’s future and the future of nature itself. What is happening to our connection to nature and where has outdoor time gone? There are many signs that something major—something profoundly different—is happening to the basic connection between Americans and the outdoors.
[PDF of "Leave No Child Indoors"]
Start Gardening
Spring is the perfect time to start teaching your kids about seeds and gardening. Have your kids begin to look for new growth outdoors (most kids will need a little guidance to spot sprouting plants and swelling buds). Because first growth is under ground, it is hard for children to grasp what is happening to make plants emerge. So right now it would be good to do the old classroom experiment of growing beans or some other fast-sprouting seeds in a glass jar. So they grasp fully what is happening underground, you might put a paper liner in the jar and put potting soil inside the liner. Put a couple beans in the soil and a couple between the liner and glass. As they watch the sprout go up and the roots go down just inside the glass they will also see the bean sprouts coming up from the soil-making the lesson obvious. If you want to really get the kids into gardening, here are a couple Websites that give you just about all the ideas and guidance you will ever need: Gardening With Kids KidsGardening.org
When Thinking Spring
Though spring begins in late March, those of us in the north are at that point still weeks away from seeing many of the harbingers of spring. You can help cure your kids’ cabin fever by getting them excited about the turn of the seasons. In the north, of course, the early robins could be arriving any day. Migrating ducks are already on the open water. Male red-winged blackbirds will be arriving in just a few weeks. So when you go out and about your business (remembering my mantra “everyday outdoors”), have them looking for the early birds. Also, get the rubber boots ready for treks to vernal ponds in April when you will hear the songs of chorus frogs, spring peepers, and toads. Many sites on the Internet will let you hear their songs (s
uch as here at the University of Michigan.) Have the kids learn to identify these wonderful creatures by sight and sound. Remember though, that when you go out looking and listening for them, they usually turn silent at your approach—and many will duck under so you can’t see them unless you wait for a while. A good time to teach patience, silence, and observation skills. You might also get them excited by planning hikes in the woods, on the prairie, or along
sea, lake, and pond shores to look for the first growth of spring. In Michigan wetlands, the skunk cabbage will be curling out of the ground close to the “fiddleheads” of resurrected ferns—and shortly after, the brilliant yellow blooms of the marsh marigolds will unfurl at the head of the woodland wildflower parade that goes from April through May. When we lived in Southern California, we would cure the winter blahs by driving out to see the awe-inspiring desert flowers that begin to bloom in late winter and early spring. So spend a few evenings now getting the kids psyched up about the coming of spring. Get the books out, watch some nature videos, and use the Internet to answer almost any question you might have about spring in your area. And remember, if you have ideas you want to share about celebrating spring, or anything else related to kids and the outdoors, scroll down to the bottom of the page and put your thoughts in the comments form. —DO
Get your kids to camp!
When I was three—in 1945—my dad helped to form Camp Michawana in central West Michigan. This was the camp that was first begun in the late thirties by Lance Latham, the founder of AWANA clubs. Dad continued on the board for at least thirty years, staying with it long enough for me to eventually join him on the board—which to me was a great joy and honor. Camps were a vital part of my education and my spiritual formation from age three until my senior year in high school (by which time I was counseling). Part of my love for the outdoors and God’s creation came from my camp experiences. But I have to confess that learning about the natural world in those camp settings was mostly by osmosis: it’s what I was able to soak up unintentionally. Thinking back on those experiences, I find it disheartening that there was virtually no deliberate outdoor education offered, and as I recall, nothing was ever said about the natural setting of these camps as a “revelation of God.” Certainly nothing was taught about our being good stewards of God’s creation. In those days the outdoors was seen by the vast majority of Christians as little more than a collection of “natural resources” that we had a right to use in whatever way we wished. It wasn’t until I visited Timber-lee Christian Center decades later that I had first-hand experience with a camp that incorporated outdoor education as a part of its camp curriculum—a program instituted in large part by outdoor educator and fellow creation-care advocate Mike Manke. Today I surfed on over to the Christian Camp and Conference Association Website and learned that there are at least 165 Christian camps and conference centers listed there that offer outdoor education. That’s great! But that’s still less than 20 percent of the 900 camps and conferences that are members. And that’s sad. It’s my feeling that every Christian camp and conference center should have some sort of outdoor education as a part of its program. They offer the ideal setting for a Bible-centered education on the theology of nature. If you’ve never sent a child to a Christian camp, this is the right time of the year to make plans to do just that. Check out the camps that are members of the CCCA or those that are a part of the denomination you are affiliated with. And I would encourage you to find one that incorporates outdoor education as a formal part of its curriculum. If you already have a favorite camp for your child or grandchild and they don’t have outdoor education, why not send them a note or email and request that they add it to their program. You might also send them these links to our RBC Discovery Series booklets on Celebrating the Wonder of Creation and let them know that they can order these in bulk as handouts or for small group Bible studies dealing with the theology of nature:
- Celebrating The Wonder Of A Tree
- Celebrating The Wonder Of Creation
- Celebrating The Wonder Of Soil
- Celebrating The Wonder Of The Wilderness
- Celebrating The Wonder Of Water
NOTE TO GRANDPARENTS: One of the most important things you can do for your grandchildren is help send them to camp. If the parents can’t afford it, you might be able to help them financially. That would be a gift better than a dozen toys!
On Kids and Wonder From Rachel Carson:
A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood. If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength. If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder without any such gift from the fairies, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in. Parents often have a sense of inadequacy when confronted on the one hand with the eager, sensitive mind of a child and on the other with a world of complex physical nature, inhabited by a life so various and unfamiliar that it seems hopeless to reduce it to order and knowledge. In a mood of self-defeat, they exclaim, “How can I possibly teach my child about nature—why, I don’t even know one bird from another!” I sincerely believe that for the child, and for the parent seeking to guide him, it is not half so important to know as to feel. If facts are the seeds that later produce knowledge and wisdom, then the emotions and the impressions of the senses are the fertile soil in which the seeds must grow. The years of early childhood are the time to prepare the soil. Once the emotions have been aroused—a sense of the beautiful, the excitement of the new and the unknown, a feeling of sympathy, pity, admiration or love—then we wish for knowledge about the object of our emotional response. Once found, it has lasting meaning. It is more important to pave the way for the child to want to know than to put him on a diet of facts he is not ready to assimilate. From The Sense of Wonder, by Rachel L. Carson, copyright 1956.
A Great Kids’ Activity Book:
One excellent resource for activities and games for kids is the classic Sharing Nature With Children by Joseph Bharat Cornell. His middle name reveals that his religious bent is of the Eastern religious, New Age sort; but this book is relatively free of that. Christian parents and grandparents should have no trouble ferreting out what little bit of pantheistic thought there might be in the short book. Having had thousands of hours of outdoor experience with kids and adults, Cornell’s suggestions are well thought out and easily made Christ centered by the activity leader. The booklet itself is inexpensive, especially given its great value for sharing nature with children—just $10. You can buy it new from Cornell’s organization or new or used through Amazon.com. I got mine online from a used-book store.
Birthday Gifts for Kids
Consider outdoor or nature related gifts for your children or grandchildren instead of toys. As a kid, for instance, I loved having a microscope, but always had trouble using only one eye to view a specimen and focusing the instrument. Edmund Scientific has a binocular version for $60 that might help with both those problems. This is not an ad for the device—especially since I’ve not tried it and don’t know how well it works. Maybe one of our readers can give us an idea about how useful this might be for kids. Browsing in the Edmund catalog, though, has always been a treat for me.
Resource Guide
Nature Activities for Kids and Families 
No list of nature activities and community actions can be complete, but here are a few suggestions that may stimulate your own creativity. (For a more complete list see the “Field Guide to Last Child in the Woods,” in the 2008 edition of the book.) Especially read “100 Actions We Can Take.”
1. Invite native flora and fauna into your life. Maintain a birdbath. Replace part of your lawn with native plants. Build a bat house. For backyard suggestions, plus links to information about attracting wildlife to apartments and townhouses, see the National Audubon Society’s Invitation to a Healthy Yard. Make your yard a National Wildlife Federation (NWF) Certified Wildlife Habitat.
2. View nature as an antidote to stress. All the health benefits that come to a child come to the adult who takes that child into nature. Children and parents feel better after spending time in the natural world-even if it’s in their own backyard.
3. Help your child discover a hidden universe. Find a scrap board and place it on bare dirt. Come back in a day or two, lift the board, and see how many species have found shelter there. Identify these creatures with the help of a field guide. Return to this universe once a month, lift the board and discover who’s new.
4. Revive old traditions. Collect lightning bugs at dusk, release them at dawn. Make a leaf collection. Keep a terrarium or aquarium. Go crawdadding: tie a piece of liver or bacon to a string, drop it into a creek or pond, wait until a crawdad tugs.
5. Encourage your kids to go camping in the backyard. Buy them a tent or help them make a canvas tepee, and leave it up all summer. Join the NWF’s Great American Backyard Campout.
6. Be a cloudspotter; build a backyard weather station. No special shoes or drive to the soccer field is required for “clouding.” A young person just needs a view of the sky (even if it’s from a bedroom window) and a guidebook. Cirrostratus, cumulonimbus, or lenticularis, shaped like flying saucers, “come to remind us that the clouds are Nature’s poetry, spoken in a whisper in the rarefied air between crest and crag,” writes Gavin Pretor-Pinney in his wonderful book The Cloudspotter’s Guide. To build a backyard weather station, read The Kid’s Book of Weather Forecasting, by Mark Breen, Kathleen Friestad, and Michael Kline.
7. Make the “green hour” a new family tradition. NWF recommends that parents give their kids a daily green hour, a time for unstructured play and interaction with the natural world. Even fifteen minutes is a good start. “Imagine a map with your home in the center. Draw ever-widening circles around it, each representing a successively older child’s realm of experience,” NWF suggests. “Whenever possible, encourage some independent exploration as your child develops new skills and greater confidence.”
8. Take a hike. With younger children, choose easier, shorter routes and prepare to stop often. Or be a stroller explorer. “If you have an infant or toddler, consider organizing a neighborhood stroller group that meets for weekly nature walks,” suggests the National Audubon Society. The American Hiking Society offers good tips on how to hike with teenagers. Involve your teen in planning hikes; prepare yourselves physically for hikes, and stay within your limits (start with short day hikes); keep pack weight down. For more information, consult the American Hiking Society or a good hiking guide, such as John McKinney’s Joy of Hiking.
9. Invent your own nature game. One mother’s suggestion: “We help our kids pay attention during longer hikes by playing ‘find ten critters’-mammals, birds, insects, reptiles, snails, other creatures. Finding a critter can also mean discovering footprints, mole holes, and other signs that an animal has passed by or lives there.”
10. Encourage your kids to build a tree house, fort, or hut. You can provide the raw materials, including sticks, boards, blankets, boxes, ropes, and nails, but it’s best if kids are the architects and builders. The older the kids, the more complex the construction can be. For understanding and inspiration, read Children’s Special Places, by David Sobel. Treehouses and Playhouses You Can Build, by David and Jeanie Stiles describes how to erect sturdy structures, from simple platforms to multistory or multitree houses connected by rope bridges.
11. Plant a garden. If your children are little, choose seeds large enough for them to handle and that mature quickly, including vegetables. Whether teenagers or toddlers, young gardeners can help feed the family, and if your community has a farmers’ market, encourage them to sell their extra produce. Alternatively, share it with the neighbors or donate it to a food bank. If you live in an urban neighborhood, create a high-rise garden. A landing, deck, terrace, or flat roof typically can accommodate several large pots, and even trees can thrive in containers if given proper care.
12. Raise butterflies—from egg to caterpillar to chrysalis to emerging monarch. The website for Chicago Wilderness’s Leave No Child Inside initiative tells how to do it.
13. Collect stones. Even the youngest children love gathering rocks, shells, and fossils. To polish stones, use an inexpensive lapidary machine-a rock tumbler. See Rock and Fossil Hunter, by Ben Morgan.
Copyright. Used by permission For more information, see solutions presented throughout Last Child in the Woods. Also, visit the nonprofit Children & Nature Network for more ideas for your family and community, including an action guide for change as well as to read state and national news and the latest research.
Tips from WOC friends:
My son, now 42 was 6 months old the first time our family went camping, and we’ve been doing it ever since. Now he brings his daughters too, and our two daughters bring their kids too. We have a great time. We don’t bring anything electric to distract us from enjoying the outdoors. You can start with a tent and today’s models are so much better than what we began with, and you can actually keep dry in rainy weather. You can get by with not much “gear” because what you absolutely need you probably have in your home. Begin small, camp for one night to start,and enjoy yourself. I recommend state and national parks without all the attractions that some commercial campgrounds offer. It forces you outdoors and after several times, I believe you’ll be hooked. –Bob Rowe
Two of my Oklahoma grand daughters are being home schooled. One morning I had the honor of being their science teacher. So I took the 9 and 7 year old girls outdoors. We walked like foxes, (watching where we put our feet) and viewed things like owls (focusing our eyes straight ahead, thus maximizing our peripheral vision). We startled a covey of 
quail (causing us to jump too
) and saw lots of other birds. One morning 7 year old Rachel came running into the house and said: “Grampi, come quick, there’s a hawk on the ground catching grasshoppers” Sure enough. We sat on a lawn chair together and watched the free show and I got some of the best pictures of a red-tail hawk ever. –Gary Fawver
Don’t be afraid to let you children have strange ‘pets’. Our Kim loved the outdoors and would catch various creatures and put them in her aquarium to ‘obseve’. One particular neat experience we shared was when she caught a large female praying mantis. Kim arranged the aquarium with the type of plants that the mantis was found on and even caught various foods for her. Eventually the mantis laid eggs (in 2 beautiful symmetrical lines). We were able to see the baby praying mantis hatch…and for many days we talked about how delicate and beautiful God made these little insects. We took pictures so she would have a memory of one of her many strange ‘pets’. –Karen Crepin
Photography With Kids
Get a kid-friendly digital camera. [Or teach them to use yours--risk and all! I make sure my grandkids have the strap around their wrist. I'm amazed how even a five-year old can learn to center and square up a photo]. Help them make photo collections that they will be able to see on a computer. Stationary things are best for the younger kids: wildflowers, leaves, trees, and geographical features (creek, river, swamp, lake, wetland, forest, mountain, valley, etc.). As your child’s skill and age increases, progress to insects, birds, and animals. They can even make their own field guides [Trees, leaves, and wildflowers work best; animals and birds are not cooperative!] Photograph plants as they grow and then play them back when the plant is mature. Better yet, do it with plants that the kids grow. Always be growing plants inside with as many as possible growing from seed. Make the children aware of the miracle of growth: Mix seeds, soil, air, sun, and water—and “voila,” you have a plant! Pick a tree that changes with the seasons, and shoot a picture of it every month from the same place, angle, framing aspect (wide and/or tele). Play them back at the end of the year.
Click on the collage below to see the full-sized photos of an old apple tree I selected to shoot over the course of a year:
Do photo “hide and seek”: Take a picture of something outdoors, show the child the photo on the camera, and have them go look for it. [I started this by doing it indoors with my grandkids. They loved it. I would have them close their eyes in a closed room, and I would then go out and take close-ups of things around the house. I'd then go back to where they were and show them the pictures one at a time until they could go find it. Even our three-year old was able to recognize and recall the location of very small details -- like the brand logo on the oven].
Adopt-a-tree:
Have the kids adopt a tree nearby. Depending on the logistics and the number of kids you care for, you can adopt one tree for all or a tree for each. Have them check their tree often and look for the birds that use it and/or nest in it. Have them look for insects or leaf damage from bugs or disease. Make sure, of course, that they know what kind of tree it is. Seasonal changes should be noted. Have older kids make a journal on the tree with photos.
Adopt-a-place:
This is of broader scope than just one tree. Set boundaries of one place that your child will get to know in every way possible through all seasons—from tree or bush tops to beneath the surface of the soil. Help them to identify as many plants, animals, insects, and soils as possible. Have them journal the changes and note what weather does to their place.
Kid tips:
“Every Day Outside.” Make it a goal to have your kids experience the outdoors every day of the year. “The weather outside is frightful” but the kids can find it delightful! “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these” parents from getting their kids outdoors at least once each day. This isn’t just running them from the house to the car. It means getting out and deliberately examining what’s happening in the creation. It is important to make your children aware of what’s going on in the natural world every day: windy or calm, sunny or cloudy, wet or dry, hot or cold, humid or arid, where the sun and moon are, what the birds are doing, what the natural sounds and scents are. Be bold, dress the kids appropriately, and go out and experience rain, fog, snow—even blizzard-force winds (dressed appropriately and close to safety, of course). [At least one time each year, I get my warmest gear on and go sit outside in a howling snowstorm for as long as I can take it. John Muir did this in a Sierra windstorm--up in a tall tree. Nearly killed him, but he DID get to feel what it was like to be a tree in a windstorm!]
Make your own weather station and have older kids make written records of daily conditions. If you have a TV, watch The Weather Channel with them once a day and see how close your own weather station is to what is reported on TV.
Make sure your child knows where their food comes from. Go to a dairy farm or a poultry farm. Show them wheat fields, corn fields, soy bean fields and explain which of their foods comes from each. [Which, of course, requires some learning on the part of the parent or other caregiver!]
Make the children you care for aware of the importance of water to their lives: Rain, clouds, humidity, soil moisture. They should know what happens to the stuff they flush, where storm water goes, where their drinking water comes from. Take a tour of the local water treatment plant and waterworks plant.
Make sure the children understand what happens to the trash that comes from your home. [In Grand Rapids there is a very efficient and low-polluting incinerator that produces electricity from tons of trash---and they provide educational tours.]
Seek to observe the Sabbath Principle with your child. [We will need lots of tips from the WOC community to learn the many ways to do this.]
Games, games, games! Make everything a game. Pretend you are an animal and have your child guess what animal it is. Do treasure hunts using natural things as waypoints (tree, bush, grassy spot, and so forth).
Climb trees with your child. [Trees are our Creator's "monkey bars!].
Safe free play: Because there is so much risk from evil people today, parents seldom allow their children to just “go outside and play” as my generation did. But kids do need free play: maybe playing house under a pine tree or making a hut under low-hanging bushes. Parents just have to make a point be outside with the kids—which is not a bad thing. Around the house, this is fairly easy. But kids also need to get out in the boondocks too. Here is where community comes in. Sets of parents can take their kids out to wild areas they have examined to make sure there are no high risks like deep rushing streams, patches of poison oak or ivy, obvious stinging insect nests, and so forth. Then individual adults can space themselves out on a perimeter that allows them to keep an eye on the kids as they play. The length and depth of this experience can vary with maturity and experience—of the kids and the parents! Safety tape from the hardware store, in fact, can be tied to trees and bushes to set boundaries. “Soft” parents or grandparents can bring along lawn chairs and read books and magazines as the kids play. “Tough” ones can prop themselves against trees or sit on “tuffits” like Miss Muffet. [Better to read than books and magazines, however, are field guides to natural features that surround you. No parent knows everything about the local flora and fauna.] All sorts of teaching can go on before, during, or after free play. Nothing lifts a mom or dad’s spirit like watching their kids grow in wonder as they discover the world outdoors.
Make low power microscopes out of old lenses. Never pass up a garage sale bargain on old projectors—the lenses of which make great microscopic viewers. [Here's my batch--from big to tiny]:
Attach your
video camera to a TV as a substitute for binoculars or microscope. You know those cables that came with your camera that you never use!? The ones with plugs colored red and yellow. Plug those into your camera and the other end into the back of most TVs which will have with sockets color—matched to the plugs. On your TV menu select “video.” When you turn your camera on, you should see what’s on the camera—either live or already recorded. You might have a bird-feeder nearby or some animals visible through a window or a door that you can zoom in on so your child can get a close-up look. While you can record the animal and then play it back, it enhances your child’s understanding of real-time events to have the camera in its reading mode so they can look out the window or door and back at the TV to see what is happening live. That’s the binocular effect. But you can also use your camera in macro mode to get up close to a bug or something small. This is especially helpful with children who are afraid of insects.
Games
“What Doesn’t Belong?” Along a natural trail, place unnatural items in spots both easy and hard to spot (depending, too, on the age and experience of the children). The number and nature of the items will also vary in reference to age and experience. Here are some things you can set out: pop/soda cans, plastic bottles, candy wrappers, caps and other small clothing items, Styrofoam cups, and so forth. After you have done your “planting,” take the child/children on the walk. If there are more than one, have them first silently observe (so each can be looking) and then report when you go back through. In the end, of course, each item should be retrieved and properly disposed of. “Find The Bottle!” [This was a blast with even our preschool grandchildren.] In a fairly clear natural area, hide a bottle beneath something natural, but unnaturally indicated: [I took two grandchildren to one of the typical red-oak sandy clearings around us. While they closed their eyes, I buried the bottle and then make a ring of twigs around it. A real easy find. Next, I set a sort of twig arrow down, but not too close. Then I placed a few more leaves over it than was natural for the spot. Next, I just made a fairly small depression in the sand over it. Finally, I tidied up the whole clearing with a leafy branch and then buried the bottle with only the very tip of rim showing.] This helps to make the children aware of what is natural and not natural—becoming real nature sleuths. As the kids become older and more experienced, you can make it harder. Finally, you can graduate to the sport of orienteering [ http://www.orienteeringunlimited.com/aboutorienteering.htm ] and geo-caching [ http://www.geocaching.com/ ].
