Is The Giving Tree an Environmentalist Book?

I loved Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree as a kid. I loved reading it to my little brother when I was in middle school. I took it with me to college. And it has survived every weeding-out of my bookshelf ever since. It's been sitting on my shelf, mostly untouched, for years. But I've found myself reading it to toddlers several times in the last few months. And it has me deeply conflicted.

For those of you who need a refresher, the basic premise of the story is this: a tree and a little boy are best friends. As the boy grows up, he's no longer interested in playing with the tree. Trying to make the boy happy, the tree gives more and more of herself (her branches to build a house, her trunk to build a boat), until the boy (now a man) has chopped her down to a stump. In the end, the boy comes back as an old man, needing a place to sit and rest -- and then, finally, both he and the tree are really happy again.

Reading this book as an adult, it's clear to me that Silverstein is trying to convey the sense that material things don't make you happy. Seeking wealth and belongings just keeps the boy coming back for more. The only times he is really satisfied are when he's playing or sitting with the tree, enjoying their friendship. That is a good environmental message: more relationships, less stuff.

I do think that message may get through to kids a little. At least on a more simplistic level, one four year old remembered it to me as "the book about the boy and the tree that are best friends." That was probably my first take-away message as well: you can befriend the natural world. Another good message for kids.

And yet, I can't get over this: the boy cuts down an entire tree. And the tree asks him to do it, thinking she'll make him happy. I can't help worrying that this plants somewhere in kids' minds the idea that it might be ok to cut down trees. Not good. (Feminists also note stereotypical gender roles: the tree is female, reinforcing the idea that women give everything and men just take. Also bad.)

My solution? At least at the toddler level, I've been keeping a running commentary. "Oh, how sad! The tree doesn't have any branches anymore!" "It seems like that didn't really make the boy happy, did it?" That kind of thing. Maybe that will let me keep reading one of my favorite books from childhood.

Getting Kids Into Nature: Great Websites

We've had lofty ambitions here at the Natural Capital for lots of posts about fun activities to do with kids outdoors. But, why reinvent the wheel? Here's a list of great websites and blogs that already have a ton of resources for fun with kids and nature.

1. Nature Rocks is a website full of activities that you can search by the amount of time you have available and the age of your child. They're organized into themes like explore, create, and play. Check it out -- you're sure to find good ideas here. Sponsored by the Nature Conservancy and the Children and Nature Network.
   
2. Green Hour is a program of the National Wildlife Federation aimed at getting kids outside for an hour a day of unstructured play. They, too, have a searchable list of activities, as well as a blog. I liked their recent post on how to work in outdoor time during the busy school year.
3. Ranger Rick is another project of the National Wildlife Foundation, and it was my favorite magazine as a kid. Their website posts seasonal activities, crafts, and book recommendations.
   
4. The Children and Nature Network was created "to encourage and support the people and organizations working nationally and internationally to reconnect children with nature." Check out their guide for starting a kids' nature club.
   
5. Take a Child Outside is the home of "Take a Child Outside Week," September 24—September 30, 2009. They have a simpler list of activities but some of them are quite sweet.
6. Let's Go Outside is a website sponsored by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. They have an elaborate, kid-oriented website called Neighborhood Explorers where kids can earn "patches" as they complete projects, answer trivia questions and play games. Action projects include building bird houses, planting native plants, and adopting new habits, such as recycling and conserving water and electricity.
7. Sanborn Western Camps has a PDF of 101 Nature Activities with some fantastic ideas. Some are group activities, but many could be done with one or two kids. A 100 inch hike? Love it. (Thanks to the Grass Stain Guru for passing this one along!)
8. Where the Other You Lives is a campaign by the Ad Council aimed at getting tweens outdoors. (Work warning: lots of audio on this site!) They've got a few on-line activities, and a PDF book of outdoor activities, here.
   

9. Wild Zones is a website dedicated to resources for designing outdoor play spaces that encourage unstructured play in nature: building forts, making nature art, playing in the mud -- things that may not be encouraged by a typical park. They offer a PDF toolkit that describes the concept and gives ideas for how communities can create Wild Zones.
10. The Grass Stain Guru is of the philosophy that  childhood should be "Messy. Muddy. Slimy. Silly. And most of all, joyful...[and] spent outdoors as much as possible." In addition to writing about all that, she has a cute "Mystery Critter" post on Saturdays for kids (ok, I play too).
11. Play Outdoors has a blog they call "the Campfire" which "aims to provide inspirational tips, tricks and motivation to get your kids and the whole family outside playing together." They first caught my attention with this post on sunscreen, which applies to adults as well as kids.
12. The Outdoor Parent is "a collection of surfers, climbers and skiers who have embarked the greatest adventure -- parenthood -- and lived to tell about it." This is a relatively new blog but I really like their tone so far -- and loved their post on teaching girls to pee outdoors.
13. Mama Joules blogs about science and kids, and much of her science involves the outdoors. I especially liked her post this summer on cricket ears. Which, apparently, are located on cricket knees. Who knew?
    

14. Similarly, the Growing With Science Blog includes lots of hands-on nature study. See this post on nature journals, or their fun "bug of the week" series.
15. Nature for Kids is a blog by two parents with three kids under the age of six. (How do they find the time?!) They have quite a few good posts for fun outdoor activities with young children. Recent activities have included shadow drawings, footprints, and "binoculars" made of toilet paper tubes. 
16. Birdfreak (a bird conservation blog) has some excellent guides to taking kids birding.
    

That should keep you busy for a while! But who did we miss? Feel free to post more resources in the comments.

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Attachment (to Nature) Parenting: 10 Tools to Give Kids a Passion for Nature

Passion is lifted from the earth itself by the muddy hands of the young; it travels along grass-stained sleeves to the heart. If we are going to save environmentalism and the environment, we must also save an endangered indicator species: the child in nature. - Richard Louv, Last Child in the Woods

If we want kids to have an attachment to nature, for whatever reason -- it's good for them, it's good for the planet -- it's no longer going to just happen automatically. Here are 10 ways parents and other adults can help kids develop a passion for nature.

1. Structure unstructured time outdoors. Do you set aside time to make sure your kid can just be outside, free to play and explore? What would you have to do to make it happen? Being outdoors shouldn't be a special event that gets squeezed in when there's a gap in everything else. Make sure there's time.
   
   
2. Show some enthusiasm. Rachel Carson once wrote, "If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement, and mystery of the world we live in." If you model disinterest, there's a much slimmer chance that your child will find a long-term passion for the outdoors...maybe as part of a teenage rebellion, but it may be too late at that point.
   
   
3. Detach from electronics. The whole family. Turn off the tv and the computer and get outside. And turn off your MP3 players, cell phones, and PDAs when you're out there. Engage.
   
   

4. Don't make being outside like school. Let kids come up with their own theories about what things should be called, or how they work. Ask questions that get them to observe and look closely at things -- but don't quiz them too much.
   
   
5. Find a natural spot close to your home. What's the closest patch of greenery in your yard or on your street? Explore it daily: What lives there? How does it change over time? Don't wait for a big trip to the mountains or even the park to get your kid to engage with nature.
   
   
6. Share books that love nature and adventure. Think of all the classics that tell stories of kids outdoors: Huck Finn, Julie of the Wolves, Island of the Blue Dolphins...I'm sure you had your favorites as a child.
   
   
7. Keep a nature journal with your child. Fill it with their drawings or impressions of what they saw outside. Use it as another way to encourage them to observe closely and create a relationship with the things they're seeing. (See our previous post for more ideas on keeping a nature journal.)
   
   

8. Find a space for a fort, a treehouse, or a special hiding spot. Kids like to have a space to call their own, where they can hide from the outside world. If you don't have space where you live, encourage your kid to find a little hideout in a local park: a hollow tree, a space in the bushes.
   
   
9. Get together with other families outdoors. You may find you all have a longer attention span for being outdoors if the adults socialize while the kids make up their own outdoor play together. And forming friendships with other people who enjoy being outdoors will help you find the time and inspiration to get out there.
   
   
10. Start a collection. Looking for small items to take home creates one more way to engage with the outdoors, and it brings part of the outdoors into your child's room. Just be respectful of park rules and of other outdoor explorers who might also enjoy that thing you're taking home. We have a friend who collects "fairy" items with her daughter: acorn caps as hats, grape tendrils as magic wands. It seems unlikely that removing a few things on that scale would have a major impact, even if hundreds of children start doing it.
    
    

There could be many more than ten things on this list. What do you do to get your kids engaged with nature? What engaged you as a child?

Like the photos in this post? Mouse over for credits; a click takes you to the photographer on Flickr.

Nature is Good For You.

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul. - John Muir

In a review of how nature can be good for you, Howard Frumkin cites Oliver Sacks’ description of going outside for the first time after a serious leg injury:

This was a great joy—to be out in the air—for I had not been outside in almost a month. A pure and intense joy, a blessing, to feel the sun on my face and the wind in my hair, to hear birds, to see, touch, and fondle the living plants. Some essential connection and communion with nature was re-established after the horrible isolation and alienation I had known. Some part of me came alive, when I was taken to the garden, which had been starved, and died, perhaps without my knowing it.

-- from A Leg to Stand On

Sacks credited this garden as an important factor in his recovery. The idea that contact with nature is physically and mentally good for you is intuitively true to many people, but scientists are starting to try to actually gather evidence to bolster the case for nature. Consider these studies that Louv cites in Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder:

• People in hospital rooms a natural view recover faster than those with a view of buildings (Ulrich, 1984).
• People in jail cells with a view of nature go to the clinic less often for health problems (Moore, 1981-2).

• Kids with more nature near their homes do better on measures of stress and self worth, especially during stressful times (Wells & Evans, 2003; see their lit review for many other benefits of nature).
• Kids with attention deficit disorder (ADD) do better in an environment with greenery: after play in natural, green settings, they are more able to concentrate and focus than when they play in non-green settings, even outdoors. (Faber Taylor et al., 2001)

The authors of the ADD study make the following recommendations. But it seems to me they don't just apply to kids with ADD -- they should be good for all of us:

• Encourage children to play outdoors in green spaces, and advocate recess in green schoolyards.
• Plant and care for trees and vegetation at your residence, or encourage the owner to do so.
• Value and care for the trees in your community. Caring for trees means caring for people.

Or, as Louv puts it: "time in nature is not leisure time; it's an essential investment in our children's health (and also, by the way, in our own)."

"How come it was more fun when you were a kid?"

I spent my elementary school years in rural southern Illinois in the 1970s. I was recently trying to remember how old I was when my friends and I were spending entire days in the woods, on our own. My best friend from the time thinks we started around age six, which now seems outrageously young. Certainly by third grade, we’d make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and tie them up in bandanas, which we would tie to the end of sticks and pretend to be hobos, or stranded on a desert island, or any other fantasy that involved not interacting with adults for long stretches of time. The only rule I remember was to be home by dark. Neither of us ever got hurt. I think we really were some of the last kids to grow up the way we did.

Like me, Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods, remembers:

I knew every bend in the creek and dip in the beaten dirt paths. I wandered those woods even in my dreams. A kid today can likely tell you about the Amazon rain forest -- but not about the last time he or she explored the woods in solitude, or lay in a field listening to the wind and watching the clouds move.

For me, one of the most memorable quotes in Louv's book was from his son: "Dad, how come it was more fun when you were a kid?" Ouch.

Matt remembers the shift right in the middle of his childhood. He grew up in Columbia, MD, which was designed to get everyone outside -- there are terrific wooded paths connecting neighborhoods to their schools and shopping centers. He started out walking to school with his older sisters on these paths. He still has a hand-drawn map of the creek near his house, made with his friends over many long days of unsupervised exploring. But at some point, the moms started driving all the kids to school. He remembers hearing about kidnappers, and thinking they were enormous spiders, waiting to pounce on kids from under the bridge over the creek.

Don't get me wrong -- parents have a right to worry about their kids. And spending time outdoors is a fantastic thing for parents to do with their kids. But my worry is three-fold: 1) in this ultra-busy town, ultra-busy parents don't have time to be outside with their kids, so the kids stay indoors; 2) kids play and explore differently under close parental supervision; and 3) the combination of these two facts will result in a generation of children that has less fun outdoors.

What are your thoughts? Do you think you had more freedom to play outdoors than kids do now? Was it, as Michael Louv's son asked, more fun when you were a kid? And what can parents do now to give their kids a taste of the freedom that so many of us grew up with -- and inspire them with the same love of being outdoors?

On Fathers (and Daughters)

On my commute, I've been reading a book of essays by geneticist/journalist/environmental activist David Suzuki that my father gave me. The other day, I got all choked up over a piece that centered around a speech that Suzuki's daughter, Severn, gave at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio:

One thing clearly at work here was the role of Severn's father -- he took her fishing and hiking regularly, and showed her his love and curiosity for nature. And he modeled the translation of that love of nature into action, with his work as the host of environmental TV shows and regularly speaking out on environmental issues.

My own dad was no internationally-known TV host, but he (and my mom) did much the same thing. There's a picture from before I can remember of me, fascinated by a mouse Dad brought home from his lab. Later, he'd take me in to feed crickets to his frogs. We went fishing, hiking, camping, scrambling over rocks, looking under logs, and bringing bugs home as pets. My parents made sure we saved our recycling (even though, in the late 70's, we had to drive to a collection spot to drop it off), and they canvassed for green politicians. They haven't stopped, and neither have my brother and I.

Thanks, Dad. Happy Father's Day!