Children's contact with nature decreasing

[Bobbie Ireland]

Sadly, today's youngsters are less likely to experience nature than their parents or grandparents did. I can remember all of the activities listed below with great fondness... scrapes, skins, broken bones, stitches and all!

RSPB research shows childhood nature experiences are at a premium

[The] younger generations are missing out on childhood experiences of nature more than their parents and grandparents, according to new research revealed today by the RSPB.

The new research asked the public which outdoor experiences they remembered having as a child. Four out of five boys remembered climbing trees and the same number of girls remembered making daisy chains...

How many of these do you remember??

 Gardening or growing things  
 Pond dipping or looking for tadpoles
 Climbing trees  
 Building a camp or den  
 Making a daisy chain
 Collecting rocks, shells or fossils
 Looking for insects, butterflies or minibeasts
 Feeding the birds
 Exploring rock pools on the beach
 Visiting a farm
 Swimming in a river or lake

The RSPB’s Every Child Outdoors report is available from: www.rspb.org.uk/childrenneednature
  

[Donna]

Wow, I remember doing most of them Bobbie, especially looking for tadpoles. We were always in the woods by the brooks and there was a fort built by "the big boys" as we called them back then, right next to the Big Brook. They made a tire swing and we used it til we got caught and chased by the "Big Boys". The good ole days were great. One day the "Bad Boys" set fire to the "Big Boys" fort and the whole woods caught on fire. The firemen had one heck of a time putting it out as it was so deep within.
We also used to play baseball every weekend and a friend of mine threw a baseball at a helicopter going by and he actually knocked it out of the sky. He didn't think he could throw it that high but oh yes, he certainly did. "No one was hurt but the heli had to make a landing on our field. We were all in too much shock to run. Yeah, he got nailed for it, even though the pilot was amazed he threw that ball so high. I believe as a child, I saw more Hawks then I do now! 

[Bobbie Ireland]

We never managed to knock a helicopter out of the sky (!), but we did manage to break the odd bone... one of our "great fun" actions was to dig traps (we were the Cowboys and Cowgirls... the traps were for the unfortunate Indians... how Non-PC  can you get!?). We also had Big Boys and Bad Boys... plus ca change... wonderful memories, esp when a camp was only an old blanket hung over a clothes-line...

[MAK]

   I remember those tadpole,frog and snake catching days of my childhood! My neighborhood consisted of the boys and me. There was 1 girl a bit younger than me but she was too prissy for me. The boys were way more fun! 

[Patti from Kentucky]

How many of these do you remember??

 Gardening or growing things  
 Pond dipping or looking for tadpoles
 Climbing trees  
 Building a camp or den  
 Making a daisy chain
 Collecting rocks, shells or fossils
 Looking for insects, butterflies or minibeasts
 Feeding the birds
 Exploring rock pools on the beach
 Visiting a farm
 Swimming in a river or lake

Yep, I think I did all of those.  I have a friend who volunteers for the local Girl Scout council as a "Certified Camper."  To explain, GS troop leaders have to attend certain levels of training to take their troops camping, but if the leaders are not interested, don't have time, etc., they can put in a request for a volunteer to camp with their troop who has had the requisite training.  Usually these folks have expert camping skills.  So my friend who takes these troops camping, finds that the leaders (or mothers who come along as chaperones) are massively germ-phobic...they don't want their kids to touch anything, or are always chasing after them with the hand sanitizer if they do!

It seems like part of my childhood exploration involved getting nice and dirty! 

Another friend, who is teaches microbiology at a local university, says there is an expanding body of research suggesting that the reason for an increasing incidence of allergies, asthma, and auto-immune disease is that we're too sanitary...that our immune systems need to be kept occupied, and if they get "bored", they'll start overreacting or attacking our own tissues.

Got a little off-topic there, but those things seem a little bit related to me.

[Bobbie Ireland]

Germ-phobic, Patti? So true! Our childhood friends and ourselves had to be the world's dirtiest kids too. Rudely robust and healthy as a result.

[Bird Crazy]

I read the same thing Patti said the best thing you could do for your children is to let them roll around in the grass. Those that do are not prone to as many allergies as the germ-o-phobes. Which my sister is.

If you changed daisy chain to dandelion chain I did it all. We had the best "natural" playground when I was growing up. A creek with little fish, a swamp with frogs and tadpoles, two ponds for ice skating, a sled riding hill. A bike trail. A club house we dug into the ground (kept flooding) until we moved it to under the big Oak tree who's branches touched the ground, nobody could see us when the tree was in leaf. Two blackberry patches. We went spelunking in the storm sewer that opened up down by the creek. Woods, and cornfields. Farmer Brown (seriously his name) had no kids of his own so we were all welcome as long as we did no damage. My neighbor hood was full of kids and we were all about the same ages give or take. We had so much fun. Its a housing allotment now