It is hard to imagine a great childhood that would not involve being outdoors, being active and exploring natural places. From playing conkers and wading through fallen leaves in the Autumn to discovering the magic of a rockpool at the seaside, those are the memories of glorious days we want our children to have.
I have spent my working life introducing children to nature – with the The Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, but mostly with RSPB. To a certain extent I was successful. I was responsible for Wildlife Explorers, RSPB’s junior club with over 200,000 members. Yet no matter how much effort the conservation movement put into working with children, the big picture was depressing. Year on year research showed that children were spending less time outside in nature.
So what has gone wrong? Like so many other problems, this has happened through people acting reasonably and with the best of intentions. The first duty of any parent or carer of children is to keep them safe. Our natural reaction when faced with threats such as traffic, stranger danger or harmful accidents is to keep our children away from the threats. Job done!
Well not quite. At this point it’s important to look at the other side of the coin. What have we lost? What are the consequences of our decisions? All experts agree that children and nature belong together. At its simplest there is the huge amount of fun to be had exploring, discovering, climbing and digging – the endlessly fascinating world of nature. But that is only the tip of the iceberg.
Active engagement with nature is good for children’s health. We all now know that a sedentary lifestyle for children is a health time bomb with dire consequences in later life. Equally importantly, regular contact with nature is good for children’s mental well-being with benefits for social development and decision making. Many education experts argue that the natural environment is the very best place for children to learn and instinctively all parents know that being in nature is good for the whole family.
The problem seems to be, that while everyone agrees that being in nature is good for children, we have failed to get absence from nature recognised as a real problem that needs to be surmounted. Perhaps nature professionals have made the natural world seem complicated and out of reach. Perhaps we have talked too much about the threats to nature and not enough about the joy of it. Whatever the reason, it is now time for a change.
If we are to stop and ideally reverse the trend of children spending less time outside, we have to convince people that this is a big problem which needs big solutions.
But there is hope. The creation of the ‘The Wild Network‘ and its first product, the feature length documentary film ‘Project Wild Thing’ is all about bringing about real and lasting change – beginning the journey to reconnect kids with nature.
‘Project Wild Thing’ takes a fresh look at this modern challenge of getting kids reconnected with playing in the natural world. Expect to laugh and be moved as the director and star, David Bond discovers just how important time in nature should be for his own children. It is impossible to see this film without concluding that this is an important issue which we all, individually and collectively as a society need to address.
This is only the start. The Wild Network has enormous ambitions. We want to put children’s disconnection with nature firmly on the national agenda, working with people and organisations to help get children outdoors and into nature. We want to make it as easy as possible for parents to get their children outside in fun, safe and local green spaces.
I am an incurable optimist. The Wild Network already has hundreds of organisations and thousands of people signed up. These organisations and individuals recognise that this is a problem bigger than any of us. It is only if we can build real momentum that we have a chance to make a difference.
So please do three things. See ‘Project Wild Thing’. I know that you will enjoy it. Go to www.projectwildthing.com and sign up as an individual or an organisation – it’s completely free. But most of all if you are looking after a child – go outside and have fun.
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Interesting points Andy, but there are other problems and reasons why the current generation of children are disconnected with the natural world other then those you’ve mentioned.
Firstly you have to look at the parents or more depressingly the “parent” as sadly in most cases it’s a single parent, the parent/s themselves have very little interest in wildlife, look around a hide/reserve or woodland and there is an age gap, if the parent/s of children have little or no interest in wildlife isn’t plausible that the parent will not take their child out to a wood/reserve or local park? I think whilst looking at the parent/s you have to consider other reasons too, how many parents are living such a busy or hectic life providing for food/heat and clothing they themselves have no “free” time nevermind free time for taking kids to connect to wildlife.
You should then consider costs too. To access many reserves you have to travel and depending on which part of the country you live in depends on how far you how to travel, then there is membership fees, books, binoculars,scopes, field guides, ok maybe books,scopes etc are secondary but if the “bug” bites and the kids get fascinated with nature then these things won’t be secondary for long. How do you afford these things if you’re a single parent or a parent on a low income? In Northampton the local woods cost £3.50 to park, no buses by the way, Stanwick Lakes (how much Mark thats your “patch”) and Pitsford reservoir now costs “GO TO YOUR LOCAL PARK” was a response I got from one wildlife trust believe it or not, well near my estate in Northampton is Eastfield Park, great dipping ponds, a reedbed and lake and a wooded area, fantastic, NO sadly whilst helping to clean the park with a local group last week I personally picked up 26 used needles, would you fancy you kids/grandchildren rooting/exploring around with those present?
But if you manage to address those issues you have a far worse problem and that is the attitude of some (not all, mind) of the older generation, I’ve heard it and seen it first hand, a kid walks into the hide, older people walk out, if a young lad with a hoodie walks in (me) and as one older birder I now know very well now once said “when I firts saw you I thought you were going to mug me”. It’s going to be hard to get kids interested/hooked on nature and I wish you luck, sadly I feel it’s going to be easier to leave another generation behind.
Having brought up 3 lads I never once forced them into any thing [other than supporting Leeds United!]. All 3 took up Golf and we were fortunate to have a golf course full of nature. They would come home and tell me what they had seen like the the breeding Buzzards or the Stoat catching a rabbit. Even the Crossbills flying over! One became a Golf pro, One works with children teaching sport and the the youngest works with nature. The present politics of nature is a disgrace. When you have charities covering up the killing of especially Birds of Prey you have to think twice about letting your kids loose with some of these charities. The world is in such a mess no wonder the kids fill their heads with fiction rather than fact!
Great blog Andy. I think there are so many things that contribute to this problem and Douglas has offered some more. To me it is rather like analysing a species decline – we know there are going to be multiple causes and it is sometimes about identifying the severest ones. Press attitudes are probably the biggest element in causing fear in parents and focus on abduction that we have had in the last two weeks can hardly help. Incredibly, everyone believes that crimes against children have gone up and that paedophiles are more prevalent these days yet, local council Safeguarding trainers will tell you that statistically, nothing has changed since the 1950s and 60s. Nevertheless, every story gets its fair share of coverage, sometimes lasting years.
As Douglas says, some of the more accessible local ‘wild’ areas that we would have visited 30-40 tears ago are often ‘off-limits’ due to anti-social behaviour. However, even this is double-edged because whilst we rightly blame the people that are involved, cuts in local services do not help and it is a patchy picture across the country.
There are probably many more things that other contributors can think of but the other major problem is push-button entertainment. When I was a child, the most sophisticated toy for boys was Action Man although most of us preferred a football or cricket set. TV was only geared to children in the teatime slot (before homework was done) although the record player was important to teens (later, the ghetto blaster or music centre). Nothing much has changed in terms of peer-pressure although the much more blatant selling of sex in the music industry creates its own problems (are you reading this, Miley Cyrus?) for growing teens and makes nature (at least the version we are talking about) decidedly uncool.
All this means that it is often not difficult to get children into nature but keeping them there is much harder, particularly through the secondary school years.
This is an issue I have been reading a lot about recently and I have been trying to reflect honestly on my own three score and ten years. When I was a child my early interest in the great outdoors seemed easily satisfied. There were more green areas in our small market town and they were safe for even an eight year old to take his dog for a walk unaccompanied. Most importantly there was so little motorised traffic. At eleven I was cycling from Beccles to Blythburgh to go birdwatching with one of my school masters. The later was politically very incorrect and would probably be thrown out today but his encouragement meant I have never lost my passion for wildlife. He and I started a wildlife club at school but nobody else joined .
Just stand back and consider how many parents would allow that today. I went all through school without any other connection with nature but still passionately keen. I am not aware of anybody else in my time at school who has shown any interest in wildlife since those days. So was it that much different to today? People as always seem to be wearing rose-tinted glasses when thinking of the past but were things so different.
During my time with the Wildlife Trusts I was a passionate advocate for everything that would engage young people in our work and in Suffolk we certainly set up educational centres to accommodate thousands of youngsters to capture their enthusiasm. I considered that getting more and more youngsters interested in their wildlife might be more productive than buying more land.
Was I right? I have no idea. What does amaze me is that the Wildlife Trusts and the RSPB spend a fortune on WATCH and Wildlife Explorers but do they know if all that work is productive? We must be now well into the second and third generations of those efforts but has anyone thought of contacting members from the 1980’s to see if they now have any interest in nature and whether their children have any interest. Only then will we know whether all this soul searching is of any purpose.
When I get a bit down on this subject I think of Findlay Wilde and other youngsters I meet today and not only does that cheer me up it makes me realise things may not be so bad after all.
It seems that right now all of our efforts should be aimed at politicians of all creeds. I can see nobody that will act as a champion for our efforts. I heard Jonathan Porritt on Newsweek last night explaining to politicians why it is important that green taxes should not be dropped and he might as well have been talking to a brick wall. Politicians are not listening and I for one am not looking forward to the next General Election. Of what is avalaible I do not want any of them in Government.
Derek, some lovely observations and you are correct that attitudes have changed especially on how to pass through childhood. I used to work in science support at secondary level and I recall one Year 11 pupil explaining about her out-of-school antics rather graphically to everyone. I felt sorry for her and I wanted to ask her why she was in a rush to grow up but therein lies the problem – too many kids want to leave childhood behind as soon as possible.
As for WATCH and Wildlife Explorers being productive – I would perhaps reverse the question and ask whether it would be equally productive not to have the initiatives. The answer is quite clearly – NO! Apart from being a step backwards in not catering for younger people (some people who follow this blog do not think enough is being done already), I am pretty sure that without the work of Andy and his colleagues that 200,000 would be lost to nature too.
It’s a depressingly interesting subject and I’d like to raise two points. The first about connection. I grew up on a council estate where my back garden backed on to open fields. I was dipping a net in a stream and climbing oak trees across the fields when I was 5 years old, most of those fields are now built on. As settlements expand there is less rural edge and less contact with nature. The kids are trapped inside settlements owing to traffic and fears of abduction etc. Planning has a lot to answer for but so do the alternative electronic stimulation that are used to stop children expressing their energy.
Douglas’s point about parents is well made. An increasing proportion of our children have parents who were not born in the UK. They may never have had a connection with nature here themselves so how can it rank as an important part of their lives. Our culture is more diverse and part of that is many more calls on children’s time. Back to my youth, being out in nature was the easiest way to occupy kids time. That is not true anymore.
I believe in Germany open air nursery schools (‘waldkindergarten’) are quite common, in which the children spend nearly all of the time outdoors in the woods or similar (the children of my wife’s cousin attend one). These seem to be a great way of sowing the seeds of outdoor enjoyment in children before they are irrevocably sucked in by the oh-so-seductive attractions of tv and internet.
I believe there are a few such nursery schools in the UK but they are not widespread and perhaps encouraging the growth of this movement here might be one way of attacking the problem. Of course this is not a suitable solution for all areas as some inner city areas, for example, may not have suitable areas of land on which to operate such a school, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be tried elsewhere.
It would be necessary to convince local education authorities to provide funding for open-air nurseries if they are to be accessible to children from all financial backgrounds.
Yes, I visited such a school in Sweden. The children travelled out from urban Stockholm to get there. It operated in all weathers – rain, snow, whatever; only strong wind seemed to be reason to keep the kids indoors, lest they be blown away. Plainly not appropriate for all but it’s good that there are a few appearing in the UK, and as you say, to be encouraged.
An excellent blog Andy. None of us pretend that there are not some challenging issues here, but it is really, really important, and the creation of the Wild Network is hugely encouraging.
I think the fact they are less interested in nature is that they have a wider range of toys than previous generations and they would rather play with their techy toys than go out and enjoy nature.Of course other things come into it such as it is too dangerous in general for them to go out on bikes both because of traffic and more crimes I would say against children.
Dennis you are certainly right with respect to traffic of which there is much more nowadays than there was forty or fifty years ago and so it is harder for kids to go roaming off on their bikes now as a result. I don’t think, though, that it is really true that crimes against children are more common than they used to be. Child murders and abductions are much rarer than people think but due to hysterical newspaper coverage we have become unduly worried about them. Of course we have to be sensible but we have become so risk averse that I think the cost in terms of restricting what children can do often outweighs the benefit in terms of reducing an already very small risk. Derek going off alone bird watching with one of his teachers would probably be not allowed nowadays but by his account it sparked a lifelong passion for wildlife that I would guess has greatly enriched his life.
Mud is a big killer! Not of children but of parents’ willingness to let their children explore. I get more inquiries from parents along the lines of will they get their trainers/trousers/ dirty when we do events than everything else put together. Many have to go out especially to buy wellies as they aren’t ‘standard’ kit for youngsters these days and often when they appear they are often trendy and not fit for purpose. Designer gear and dirt don’t mix or shouldn’t be mixed in parents’ eyes.
I think there are two very different issues here.
One is that kids are not spending as much time playing outside as in previous generations, and Andy’s excellent blog is very eloquent on that score. It is healthier and better for our kids wellbeing if they spend more time outdoors. We give our kids way too much “stuff” and don’t allow their imaginations to flourish in the same way as when I was growing up. A stick, a cardboard box, a wooden board with pram wheels – they were our swords, cars, boats, houses, shops, guns, dens – we didn’t have “merchandise”. I was a kid in the 1970’s and I spent much of my childhood playing outside….
…but (and here is the second issue)… were we interested in nature? Not in the least! What gets kids interested in nature? Inspiration, imagination and an enthusiastic mentor will capture that minority of kids that have a spark of interest. In my own case, I can tell you the exact day that happened to me – it was the day in 1979 when David Attenborough’s “Life on Earth” series was first broadcast. Nothing to do with me being outside… but what a spark it ignited!
Getting our kids to spend time playing outdoors (which is an admirable and worthwhile goal) is quite different, I think, to getting them interested or connected with nature (also a worthwhile and admirable goal, but a different goal). One does not necessarily and inevitably lead to the other.
We are products of our times. As adults today, we are so much more concerned about the environment, conservation, pollution, saving energy, etc than our parents were back in the 50s, 60s or 70s. And so we now expect our kids to reflect our expectations and we panic that they are not “connected to nature”. I think that there was always an interested minority, and there still is.
Kids today are way more clued up about the environment than I was at that age. The ones that care will go on to help preserve our natural environment – regardless of how many kids play outside.
Don’t get me wrong, I think that Project Wildthing, outdoor learning, play initiatives etc are brilliant and should be encouraged – because they can provide that spark that may ignite a child’s imagination and fascination in the natural world. And if it results in just one more kid going on to a career in natural or environmental work then it is a success. Inspiration and imagination is what kids need.
Well done and thank you Andy for a really excellent and thought-provoking blog.
A passionate and heartfelt blog Andy and it has prompted me to sign up to projectwildthing. A few days ago, prompted by recent news reports on this theme i have set up a personal project called outdoorswithdad on facebook and twitter. In that context I am looking at ‘outdoors’ in its widest sense, from Archery to Zoology and with a big F for Football inbetween! Happy to help in any way you think relevant.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Outdoorswithdad/714050935289778
https://twitter.com/outdoorswithdad
Judging by the replies so far you are going to have to get clever and fill the needs of parents to expose children to nature and hope those children who are interested find it.
First capitalise on what you have.
I am in a holiday area with lots of families looking for things to do with children, especially on wet days.
You have a Discovery Centre at Minsmere created with lots of politically correct eurospeak and euro money and inter euro travel and getting together, if I remember the blogs right.
It is full of interpretative stuff (I gather) and my visitors’ young children love it and it’s free ( I was told by a visitor – if not it should be). Go find it on the Minsmere Website?- there is a line in the About page and I had to use Google to find that , as I was lucky and knew what it was called. Nothing on the Facilities page or its own heading on the menu list.
(Maybe you don’t want to put off your older supporters!!)
Maybe a leaflet to all the holiday accommodation in the area plugging it, would be worth doing.
You say “Perhaps nature professionals have made the natural world seem complicated and out of reach. “ I think the thirst for knowledge in children is underestimated here. (I wonder if that is why Chris Packham and Springwatch is so popular as he imparts gems of knowledge.) You have got to go for the wonder of complexity. (The wonder of the colour of birds is mostly distant, and ”little brown jobs” and ticks in lists are no match for the wonders of the rendering of images on modern computer screens and games.) I see from the Minsmere Facilities page there are education courses for £3 – for that much surely you can scrap that for weekends and holidays and throw it in too. I am sure one of the comments by a boy reported in one of Mark’s blog some time ago was to the effect that “was there anything besides pond dipping”.
For this, shall we call it follow on interest, Findlay has gone bird ringing but that opportunity is presumably limited. Can your researchers think of research projects that can follow on from their work. Eg house sparrows, RSPB has the answer, I gather – they have gone from London because of the lack of insects. So why have mine gone when we have a large gardens and are next to marshland.
Young visitors are fascinated by owl pellets and Suffolk Wildlife Trust used these to map harvest mice. Maybe some work on kestrels’s pellets. Come on there are masses of expertise out there. Someone used cameras to find what Ospreys ate.
I know it was an inspired teacher who started many of the older generation, but we have skype now.
I know trailcams are expensive but some boy oops /girl ( I have a boy who built his computer) could use Raspberry pie, a sensor, camera and a 3d printer and the internet forums to make one and it may lead to a career in electronics but an interest in wildlife.
I guess now you Give nature a home you could include other species but that would be treading on the toes of other charities but they should also think what research they can spin out.
PS Google “what to do in Suffolk with children” not on the first link, RSPB Minsmere itself is on Visit Suffolk the family page, only members free here no mention of the Discovery cneter . It actually comes third- because an architect is showing off his work on it. If the Discover centre is free is should be on the what to do FREE page which has not much – make sand castles etc.
Oh well I only sell holiday accom. You know your own business and aims.
I notice kids watched Avicll with 126,027,785 hits on u tube this summer!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5y_KJAg8bHI
And an e petition to save birds of prey gets 6,683!! http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/46473
We have certainly got a long way to go!!