Richard Louv
Chairman, Children and Nature Network
Author, "Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder."
NEEDED: A NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON CHILDREN, NATURE & THE LAW
It’s time for a National Conference on Children, Nature and the Law, organized by the legal profession with a little help from insurance companies, educators, health care folks, policy-makers, C&NN and others. This conference is a fiction, so far. But somebody needs to step to the plate.
As a powerful deterrent to natural play, fear of liability ranks right behind the bogeyman. Parents are afraid to let their kids build a tree house in the backyard. School administrators are afraid to create natural play places (even though
they tend to produce fewer injuries than playgrounds with typical play structures). In July 2005, The Fort Lauderdale (Fla.) Sun-Sentinel reported that Broward County schools had erected “no running” signs at 137 elementary schools, as one of several steps to cut down on injuries and lawsuits. Playground merry-go-rounds and swings were already history.
As I wrote in “Last Child in the Woods,” we’re seeing the virtual criminalization of natural play. In some cities, young people who try to recreate their parents’ childhoods may face misdemeanor charges or see their parents sued.
Most residential communities built in the past three or four decades are controlled by covenants and restrictions, and private governments – community associations – that essentially criminalize natural play. One woman told me her community association banned chalk drawing on the sidewalks. Just try to put up a basketball hoop in some of these neighborhoods, let alone let the kids build a fort or tree house in the field beyond the cul de sac. If it’s like my neighborhood, adult officials will tear down that fort or tree house within days.
