The Benefits of Nature on Children in Richard Louv's Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature Deficit-Disorder

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Essay #2
Richard Louv, the author of, “Last Child in the Woods: Saving our children from nature deficit-disorder,” talks about nature and its benefits to a healthy development. Time Experiencing with nature allows people to have healthy development since it promotes creativity and imagination. It does not take more than a couple of steps outside to see nature. It is all around us. It can even be right outside our window. Leaving the blinds open can bring peace of mind, just by viewing it. As people experience time with nature, no matter the age, they develop greater creativity and imagination. It is like people today fear nature.
Some of us lack creativity and imagination as we are told many lies about how being outdoors is very dangerous. So we stay indoors, where we believe is one of the few places where we can be safe. We have been given images that instill fear in many of us, which keeps us from being out exploring our nature. We fear the animals and bugs in nature because we believe they are able and will scratch, bite, and hurt our kids.
Let’s pause for a second, let’s take a look what nature has for us. It is beautiful and yet harmless. Kids’ don’t spend the sufficient time to intake the benefits of nature. Louv says, “Playtime, especially unstructured imaginative, exploratory play is increasingly recognized as an essential component of wholesome child development” (48). He is saying to let our kids free and explore on their own. It is what brings fun to their lives. Knowing what comes next it’s pretty boring. Imagination brings excitement and knowledge to the human kind.
As a kid, I spent most of my time outdoors. As a result, I gained creativity and imagination. America is well known for too many kids living a sedentary ...

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...t. We also went to a large open field with huge trees in our surroundings and flew our kite. He was so excited how the kite was up in the air and he was running to keep it up. We had a wonderful time. We felt the breeze of the air touch our skin. We used our creativity and imagination by picking up sticks and pretending they were swords. We also pretended were enemies and were fighting for the pile of rocks which we pretended was food. In the end he won and he took over my goods and he enjoyed his victory.
Creativity and imagination can be truly beneficial to our health development, without too much influence of fear. The age does not matter, anyone can benefit from experiencing time with nature. Let’s enjoy spending time with our loved ones outdoors and connect with nature, because connecting with nature it is the only form of life keeping us alive and healthy.

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