Do your kids have Nature-Deficit Disorder?

We are going to get a copy of Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, by Richard Louv, to add to our summer reading pile.

[...] in the last 30 years, says journalist Richard Louv, children of the digital age have become increasingly alienated from the natural world, with disastrous implications, not only for their physical fitness, but also for their long-term mental and spiritual heath.

Louv argues that sensationalist media coverage and paranoid parents have literally "scared children straight out of the woods and fields," while promoting a litigious culture of fear that favors "safe" regimented sports over imaginative play. Well-meaning elementary school curricula may teach students everything there is to know about the Amazon rain forest's endangered species, but do little to encourage kids' personal relationship with the world outside their own doors. And advances in technology, while opening up a wealth of "virtual" experiences to the young, have made it easier and easier for children to spend less time outside.

Link to Salon interview with Richard Louv

Hat tip to Question Technology where we saw this book mentioned.