When our first son, Nick, was born, we struggled to accommodate a little infant who seemed unusually irritable and sensitive. As he grew to be a toddler, Nick experienced difficulty with coordination, falling down or tripping frequently and constantly bumping his head. These and other challenges began to affect his enjoyment of pre-school. His classmates’ singing was too loud, the little jungle gym too scary, the finger paint too cold, the toy too hard to wind up, and the storybook too heavy. When our son was three years old, a wonderful teacher advised us that all of these things might be related, and that perhaps we should have Nick evaluated by a specialist. Eventually, Nick was diagnosed with Sensory Integration Disorder (SI), a condition that interferes with his ability to process a broad range of sensory input. There are many ways to treat SI, but in our family’s journey, we have found no greater therapy than nature.
The condition’s symptoms can include hypersensitivity to noise or touch, poor balance, or weak hand strength. These difficulties play out in the life of a child in unusual ways that can affect early development. This explained why Nick had difficulty engaging in messy play like finger painting and why he felt so isolated on the playground. It explained his fine motor delays, which made it difficult to button a shirt, tie a shoelace, and even color with crayons. SI children also can exhibit behaviors that their teachers and peers do not understand, including resistance to touch, fist clenching, lethargy, chronic fidgeting, profound fear of heights or noise, temper tantrums, and low self-esteem. The good news is that occupational and physical therapy can help children overcome the challenges of SI by providing a mix of sensory input that challenges but does not overwhelm, that builds muscle tone and strength, that evens out the peaks and valleys of sensory input. We were fortunate that Nick’s SI was not severe, and today there are virtually no signs of his early difficulties. Nick’s therapist gave him exercises and activities to do as “homework,” like carrying grocery bags in from the car, playing with Legos, and getting dressed in front of a mirror—simple tasks that are challenging for a kid with SI. Over time, occupational therapy helped Nick learn to hold a crayon without breaking it, to pump his legs on a swing, and to cope with loud noises. But time spent outdoors, interacting with the grit, noise, and challenges of nature, has proven to be the most effective therapy.
As children of parents whose careers revolve around conservation, our kids have been exploring wild places since they were infants; Nicholas was only four months old the first time we took him camping. We’re fortunate to live about one hour away from Everglades National Park, Big Cypress National Preserve, and Biscayne National Park. Looking back now, I find it hard to believe that we ever dared take Nick into the wilderness, given his hypersensitivity as an infant. It turned out to be a very fortunate case of blissful ignorance. From the very beginning, we noticed that he was more at ease and more confident the deeper “in the woods” we were. It wasn’t because things were easier out there, or because there was less sensory input. On the contrary, he quickly learned to paddle a canoe, climb rocks, gather fire wood, and became expert at catching lizards, frogs, and insects—all abilities at least as demanding as playing with Legos. In fact, we find that even today, the bigger and more unstructured the natural space, the more physically confident and capable Nicholas becomes. After learning how occupational therapy treats sensory integration disorder, we now believe that spending time in nature is an exceptionally effective form of therapy, requiring Nick to work all of his muscles, to focus on the path or stream in front of him, or to react to an uncontrolled physical situation unfolding before him (like a canoe threatening to tip over). Nature provides endless opportunities for fun, adventure, creativity, and exploration that our modern “indoor” world simply doesn’t provide our children. Nick’s experience illuminated all of this to us in a very obvious way.
And it isn’t just kids like Nick who benefit from nature. I am convinced that all children yearn for the freedom, challenge, and adventure wild places provide, even if the benefits aren’t as immediately obvious. Then again, perhaps they are as obvious, but we don’t realize it.
In recent years, the concept of nature-deficit disorder has hit the mainstream, following on the heels of Richard Louv’s book, The Last Child in the Woods. Louv and others have made a compelling case that children lose out when they are disconnected from nature, a phenomenon that is fast becoming a hallmark of modern American life. Research across a wide variety of disciplines indicates that children benefit enormously from the unstructured, free, and imaginative play open to them in natural, unordered settings. I am not a child psychologist or an educator, but based on my experience as a parent, I couldn’t agree more. There is also speculation that nature can help children suffering from common conditions such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
America must reintroduce its children to wild places where creativity, imagination, exploration, and wonder—the very stuff of childhood—fit perfectly. Our national parks represent the most magnificent of these wild places, where families can go and explore together, where a child from the suburbs or the city can be free to “conquer” a vast forest, wild river, or tall mountain. Our parks are places that belong to all of us, but mostly they belong to our children, for whom we hold them in trust, those who can appreciate them in ways that we grown-ups can only remember. Of course, experiencing nature also helps the rest of us remember our own childhoods, before video games and 24-hour cartoon channels, when we ran outside barefoot, drank out of the garden hose, and had to be called inside for supper. Today’s world is certainly quite different, but a child’s need for nature is the same.
