When Will Nature Kids Become Extinct?

Here are a few children in nature statistics that might get your attention.

“Children today spend less time playing outdoors than any previous generation. 82 percent of mothers with children between the ages of 3 and 12 cited crime and safety concerns as one of the primary reasons they do not allow their children to play outdoors.” (Source: Children & Nature Network)

Yikes, right? Outdoor learning is a big part of how I am raising my sons.

“Children between the ages of six months and six years spend an average of 1.5 hours a day with electronic media, and youth between the ages of 8 and 18 spend an average of 6.5 hours a day with electronic media;that’s more than 45 hours a week.” (Source: Children & Nature Network)

To celebrate children in nature, in this post I share my favorite children in nature quotes.

Children in Nature

“Children are born naturalists. They explore the world with all of their senses, experiment in the environment, and communicate their discoveries to those around them.” ~ The Audubon Preschool

“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.”
~ Rachel Carson

“As children observe, reflect, record, and share nature’s patterns and rhythms, they are participating in a process that promotes scientific and ecological awareness, problem solving, and creativity.” ~ Deb Matthews Henley

“Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you.” ~ Frank Lloyd Wright

“Children are born with a sense of wonder and an affinity for Nature. Properly cultivated, these values can mature into ecological literacy, and eventually into sustainable patterns of living.” ~ Zenobia Barlow

“Take care of the land and the land will take care of you.” ~ H. Bennett

“Teaching children about the natural world should be seen as one of the most important events in their lives.” ~ Thomas Berry

“A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood.” ~ Rachel Carson

“Play, incorporating animistic and magical thinking Is important because it: fosters the healthy, creative and emotional growth of a child; Forms the best foundation for later intellectual growth. Provides a way in which children get to know the world and creates possibilities for different ways of responding to it. Fosters empathy and wonder.” ~ Rachel Carson

“The woods were my Ritalin. Nature calmed me, focused me, and yet excited my senses.” ― Richard Louv

“Time in nature is not leisure time; it’s an essential investment in our chidlren’s health (and also, by the way, in our own).” ~ Richard Louv

“Nature study consists of simple, truthful observations that may, like beads on a string, finally be threaded upon the understanding and thus held together as a logical and harmonious whole. “ ~ Anna Botsford Comstock