Last Child in the Woods

My book club read Richard Louv's book Last Child in the Woods and this book has rocked my world, literally. Louv's writings has changed the way I view my children's relationship with nature, as well as streghthen my commitment as a parent to develop the relationship to a deeper level.

We live in Colorado and I grew up camping, hiking and visiting relatives in Nebraska where we learned first hand about cows and wheat fields. Summer visits constituted of long hours spent riding ponies back and forth between by Aunt Mary Anne's home and my grandparents. Both of my sisters grew up to be hardcore nature lovers, one lives in Alaska in a cabin that has no running water and the other works for NOLS, an organization dedicated to taking people out into the wild and teaching them how to outdoor skills and her job has taken her to Brazil, the Patagonia and Alaska in the last year. I on the other hand, did not prefer to climb mountains as much as my sisters, but I do take my kids to the park and we play a lot outside. Yet, reading the Last Child in the Woods, I realize I do need to let Sophie and Luca be outside more in an unstructured natural environment.

Anyway, to get back to the book. I would recommend that every parent, aunt or grandparent read this book and it is especially empowering for parents of hard-of-hearing children. Nature uses all the senses, while the world we are immersed in most of the day is strongly visual and auditorial. Sometimes with Luca, I feel that I'm always assessing and trying to develop his listening and language skills, yet, there are 4 other senses that he has that I should be working on developing too. Being in nature helps me teach Luca more than just words. This book isn't for written for "tree hugging families", it's written for every family.

It's late, I'm tired, let me know if you have read this book and your thoughts!