The Green Hour by Todd ChristopherMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I gave this five stars because I am super supportive of the ideas shared in this book! The author is the creator of the GreenHour.org website. The author references The Last Child in the Woods (2005)by Richard Louv who coins the term "nature-deficit disorder".
In his introduction (well worth reading), Christopher reports that the annual dollars spent on marketing to today's media-prone children has increased from $100 million twenty-five years ago to $17 billion today. He observes, "the signal-to-noise ratio for today's kids is pretty bad...". The by-product of this is, "the sense of wonder that seems to be first to go."
Christopher sites studies that have found that "green outdoor settings appear to reduce ADHD symptoms in children; even in individuals not diagnosed with an attention disorder, time in nature had the effect of reducing ADHD-like symptoms such as inattention and impulsivity."
The first chapter is devoted to the ideas of the "importance of free time" and "tips for reclaiming free time", the "benefits of less media" and "tips for unplugging your family", the "joys of discovering nature together" and "tips for enjoyable outings".
Further chapters engage spaces as diverse as your own backyard to hiking and camping and star-gazing, whatever the weather!
Now for my confession... I don't consider myself an "Outdoorsy" kind of person. Not only that, I have been a full-time working-outside-the-home mom for most of my children's lives. I tried to replicate for my children my childhood years of living in a small town where I could bike anywhere I wanted to go and spend most of my out-of-school hours outdoors having adventures. But today's spaces are different than those of yester-year due to the ever-present fear of kidnappings and increased traffic and smaller yards and so forth. I even confess to using screen-time as my free-time which I used to prepare meals, fold laundry, and such.
One day I chose the hymn "God is Love" for our family devotional. I wondered if my children had a "hook" for the phrases celebrating the outdoors. I resolved to spend our family-learning-connection time going on short hikes. I wanted them to know first-hand "Earth with her ten thousand flowers, Air, with all its beams and showers, Heaven's infinite expanse; Ocean's resplendant countenance—All around, and all above,Hath this record—God is love."
Fortunately we lived a short drive from a canyon with many "short hiking trails" that I learned about from friends. I worked every Saturday so I could have every Monday off while my husband, who worked out-of-town every Wed.- Sat., was home. I might begin the day perusing an alumni magazine which had many articles on recent research and other noteworthy topics. I might pose questions to my children sparked by my "breakfast reading" while we walked. I might select non-fiction books to read aloud to my captive seat-belted audience while my husband drove us to the day's destination. I might have selected a sound track or some other music to listen to on the drive and we might talk about the music. We might stop at a playground and swing or we might stop at a picnic spot and enjoy a packed lunch. Often we would sing songs I'd learned in spanish while we walked. We took pictures. We stopped and toured homes. We tossed sticks in streams. We took detours.
We live where there are seasons so all that came to an end when winter arrived. Other years we would take a daily twenty-minute walk to a park, dog in tow. I might grill my children on homonyms or other tedious subjects while we walked. They good-naturedly put up with this because, after all, we were OUTSIDE and walking. Our youngest children were forever stopping and picking things up -- rocks, twigs, treasures. It was ALL treasure to them. We would get to the park and the older ones of us would jog, run, walk while the younger ones played on the equipment. My husband and I or an older child would spell each other off standing sentry.
Another year we would all pile into the van and drive twenty minutes so our oldest child could attend an afternoon class with a friend. Luckily my work schedule was flexible, allowing me these "splits". I would find a nearby park and let them all out to play. I might spend the hour with one-on-one time with one of them or I might beef up on that day's or week's family-learning-connection curriculumn topics. I might doze away the hour. Sometimes we just drove around and looked at houses and chatted about books we were reading. Car-time was always captive-audience time and everyone got a chance to talk.
Another year one of the girls took horse-riding lessons. This was a half-hour drive and a forty-minute lesson. I might spend the time catching up on my reading. Sometimes, when my husband could come too, there would be walks or drives or even some sledding, depending on the weather. Often the younger siblings would explore the stables under my guarded watch.
One summer while the older children were taking swimming lessons I walked along a wooded stream path with the younger ones. We were fortunate that this "wilderness" abutted the parking lot of the pool.
We have taken advantage of many a park. We have walked campuses. We have planted gardens.
Garden and yard time is sometimes the best. Our youngest would collect materials with which fairies might construct dwellings. Many a morning she would be rewarded with one, two, or three "fairy houses" sprouting up amongst the landscaping. She never wearied of lining our front steps with materials, even when the fairies ceased their building. While I weeded we might listen to audio books or have long philosophical chats. The girls were free to dig holes and sling mud at a fence. We learned about snakes enough to not be heart-stoppingly alarmed should one slither past.
For some of our children climbing trees was a must. Sometimes in spring or summer baby birds would be tossed from their nests by the wind. This was one part exciting and another part agonizing for our girls who eagerly adopted these little orphans.
We didn't have air-conditioning in our home so some summer nights we would drag sleeping bags out to the yard.
You don't have to be a parent very long before you discover that stepping outside with a fussy baby will almost always distract her from crying. (All our babies were girls).
I remember one night when the clouds were so marvelous I told all the girls to stop what they were doing and get into the van and to not ask any questions. It was late, dark, and all was quiet. We drove to the parking lot of the park near our home and quietly carried some ground cloths out to the middle of the grass. We sat and looked up at the clouds, illuminated by the moon. It was magical.
I dont' know how this would go over with boys. Our children are all girls. We loved all of these times. Very seldom were we ALL present. There are six girls, teens included. There are so many demands on teens, whether it be classes, extra-curricular commitments, church, friends, or work. Our time with our children is really very short. I will never regret our "outdoors" time.
