Teach Your Children Well

Authors

Penny A. James; Karla A. Henderson; Aram Attarian

Print Reference

pp. 33

Abstract

The nature of outdoor play has changed. Today children increasingly spend their free time in adult-led activities and indoor play (Hofferth & Sandberg, 2001). Concerns regarding this societal shift gained mainstream attention with the publication of Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder (Louv, 2005). A back-to-nature movement ensued at national, state, and local levels with parks and recreation organizations creating programs designed to get children back into wild environments (e.g., Children in Nature Programs offered by the National Park Service). We proposed that the conversation surrounding the back-to-nature movement missed the mark on two critical points. First, replacing children’s spontaneous, unadulterated (Lester & Maudsley, 2006) outdoor play adult-led programming was not an equivalent substitution for informal outdoor play. Secondly, the decline in children’s outdoor play had been attributed to a host of modern ills (e.g., electronic games) without acknowledgment of the role of parents.

Recommended Citation

Penny A. James; Karla A. Henderson; Aram Attarian (2014) "Teach Your Children Well," Taproot: A Journal of Outdoor Education: Vol. 23: Iss. 1, Article 8.
Available at: https://digitalcommons.cortland.edu/taproot/vol23/iss1/8