Forest school at Riverview Junior school

In our ever-increasing synthetic bubble of concrete, tarmac and artificial grass our children are losing touch the natural earth. We are facing emotional and psychological problems that we have inadvertently created ourselves. Long hours spent indoors exposed to visual technology will eventually take its toll on wholesome well-rounded development.

There has been lots of research on the effects of our modern day living on the development of our children. Richard Louv author of ‘Last child in the Woods’ describes a condition in our children as ‘Nature –deficit disorder’ which cannot be ignored. In “The Nature Principle,” he asserts that the more high-tech our lives become, the more we need to be in nature in order to achieve balance.