Richard Louv Quotes
The children and nature movement is fueled by this fundamental idea: the child in nature is an endangered species, and the health of children and the health of the Earth are inseparable.
Time in nature is not leisure time; it's an essential investment in our chidlren's health (and also, by the way, in our own).
Nature is imperfectly perfect, filled with loose parts and possibilities, with mud and dust, nettles and sky, transcendent hands-on moments and skinned knees.
Every child needs nature. Not just the ones with parents who appreciate nature. Not only those of a certain economic class or culture or set of abilities. Every child.
We cannot protect something we do not love, we cannot love what we do not know, and we cannot know what we do not see. Or hear. Or sense.
Natural play strengthens children's self-confidence and arouses their senses-their awareness of the world and all that moves in it, seen and unseen.
What would our lives be like if our days and nights were as immersed in nature as they are in technology?
An environment-based education movement--at all levels of education--will help students realize that school isn't supposed to be a polite form of incarceration, but a portal to the wider world.
Time spent in nature is the most cost-effective and powerful way to counteract the burnout and sort of depression that we feel when we sit in front of a computer all day.
In nature, a child finds freedom, fantasy, and privacy: a place distant from the adult world, a separate peace.
If we desire a kinder nation, seeing it through the eyes of children is an eminently sensible endeavor: A city that is pro-child,for example, is also a more humane place for adults.
Children need nature for the healthy development of their senses, and therefore, for learning and creativity.
The woods were my Ritalin. Nature calmed me, focused me, and yet excited my senses.
As one scientist puts it, we can now assume that just as children need good nutrition and adequate sleep, they may very well need contact with nature.
Children who played outside every day, regrdless of weather, had better motor coordination and more ability to concentrate.
In our bones we need the natural curves of hills, the scent of chaparral, the whisper of pines, the possibility of wildness.
The future will belong to the nature-smart...Th e more high-tech we become, the more nature we need.
As a species, we are most animated when our days and nights on Earth are touched by the natural world. We can find immeasurable joy in the birth of a child, a great work of art, or falling in love.
Some kids don't want to be organized all the time. They want to let their imaginations run; they want to see where a stream of water takes them.
All spiritual life begins with a sense of wonder, and nature is a window into that wonder.
There is another possibility: not the end of nature, but the rebirth of wonder and even joy.
If a child never sees the stars, never has meaningful encounters with other species, never experiences the richness of nature, what happens to that child?
Reconnection to the natural world is fundamental to human health, well-being, spirit, and survival.
Mothers tend to be more direct. Fathers talk to other fathers about their kids more metaphorically. It's a different way of communication.
I do not trust technology. I mean, I don't think we're in any danger of kids, you know, doing without video games in the future, but I am saying that their lives are largely out of balance.
The pleasure of being alive is brought into sharper focus when you need to pay attention to staying alive.
Here is the beginning of understanding: most parents are doing their best, and most children are doing their best, and they're doing pretty well, all things considered.
Studies of children in playgrounds with both green areas and manufactured play areas found that children engaged in more creative forms of play in the green areas.
One of my students told me that every time she learns the name of a plant, she feels as if she is meeting someone new. Giving a name to something is a way of knowing it.
How can our kids really understand the moral complexities of being alive if they are not allowed to engage in those complexities outdoors?
As the young spend less of their lives in natural surroundings, their senses narrow, physiologically and psychologically and this reduces the richness of human experience we need contact with nature.
Nature has been taken over by thugs who care absolutely nothing about it. We need to take nature back.
This tree house became our galleon, our spaceship, our Fort Apache...Ours was a learning tree. Through it we learned to trust ourselves and our abilities.
Increasingly the evidence suggests that people benefit so much from contact with nature that land conservation can now be viewed as a public health strategy.
We can conserve energy and tread more lightly on the Earth while we expand our culture's capacity for joy.
The real cultural war is between the culture of narcissism and what might be called the culture of renewal.
A lot of people think they need to give up nature to become adults but that's not true. However, you have to be careful how you describe and define 'nature.
To take nature and natural play away from children may be tantamount to withholding oxygen.