Kids need adventure. Parent need to teach them how.

Kids want adventure. Parents think it’s a good thing. So why doesn’t it happen more?

Half of kids have never camped out?
According to this poll of 1500 parents and 1103 kids in the UK, over half of children have never camped out, not even in their back garden, nor laid down to watch the stars in the night sky or watched the sun rise.

• 50% of kids had never taken part in any adventure sports.
• 41% of kids had never taken part in a scavenger hunt.
• 44% of parents played outside as a child more than their kids do.
• 38% of parents said they’re more protective of kids than their parents were.
• 40% of parents said they don’t have time or money to do adventure activities with their kids.

So what’s going on here? Everyone thinks adventures are a good idea but somehow it’s just not happening. 

The value of outdoor adventures cannot be underestimated
But there’s a bigger issue too. Child advocacy expert Richard Louv calls it “nature deficit disorder” and these stats sort of bear him out. According to Louv too many kids in today’s ‘wired generation’ live in a personal world that’s disassociated from nature. In his book, ‘Last Child in the Woods’, Louv makes a compelling research based case that suggests “direct exposure to nature is essential for healthy childhood development and for the physical and emotional health of children and adults.” And as we sit contemplating all manner of current and future environmental crises, we have to ask, how can we expect kids that don’t know nature to respect or care for it? And what is the future environmental cost for tomorrow’s kids of today’s epidemic of nature deficit disorder?

Do we really want to see the last child in the woods?

Big questions for sure, but Louv is no doom-monger, he’s got ideas and solutions too and not just of the sticking plaster kind. His book offers hope and guidance, practical ideas he thinks can help bridge the divide we’ve created between ourselves and nature. And many of them are opportunities that exist in our backyards; if we’re prepared to let our kids out there.

Read all of this wonderful article at http://www.familyadventureproject.org/2011/12/adventure-parenting.html