A matrix of societal changes is leading our children to "Nature deficiency".

Journalist Richard Louv conducted a multi-year investigation for the book "Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder".

While most of us have already observed that our children are much less often outdoors than we were at their age, Louv wondered when he realized that this trend was as strong in the countryside as in the cities, and even stronger in the suburbs than in the cities, where there are far fewer natural spaces. Are technologies and the Internet to blame?

Louv has a gift for evocative formulas. He notes that :

• safe" playgrounds are more "lawyer-friendly" than "child-friendly", designed to protect the authorities from prosecution.
  
  
• the message sent to children is that it's dangerous, complicated and often illegal to play outside in unfenced areas. It's even dangerous to walk home from school!
  
  
• the growth of team sports parallels that of obesity, not that soccer or basketball promote obesity, but that the fact that society and parents encourage these sports in response to a lack of activity in no way compensates for the fact that one or two hours of movement per week is nothing compared to the 12 to 30 hours of walking, running and unframed play that children did per week 30 years ago.
  
  
• It's easy to blame video games, TV, the Internet and the car, when a matrix of societal forces is being erected, all working in the same direction: to frame and make profitable the slightest moment and space of life and attention.

Nature is fundamentally at odds with this logic: daydreaming for pleasure, strolling in a public park or playing games with fluctuating rules that have no merit other than to be fun don't fit into the circuit.

Hence the "nature" response, and the idea that, in response to these and many other problems, promoting activities in nature can help restore common sense, balance and self-confidence.

Do today's kids have "nature-deficit disorder? in "Salon".