What if more and more parents, grandparents and kids around the country band together to create outdoor adventure clubs, family nature networks, family outdoor clubs, or green gyms? What if this approach becomes the norm in every community?

Nature has been taken over by thugs who care absolutely nothing about it. We need to take nature back.

American family life has never been particularly idyllic. In the nineteenth century, nearly a quarter of all children experienced the death of one of their parents.... Not until the sixties did the chief cause of separation of parents shift from death to divorce.

From 1997 to 2003, there was a decline of 50 percent in the proportion of children nine to twelve who spent time in such outside activities as hiking, walking, fishing, beach play, and gardening, according to a study by Sandra Hofferth at the University of Maryland.

We tend to block off many of our senses when we're staring at a screen. Nature time can literally bring us to our senses.

The pleasure of being alive is brought into sharper focus when you need to pay attention to staying alive.

Nature is often overlooked as a healing balm for the emotional hardships in a child's life. You'll likely never see a slick commercial for nature therapy, as you do for the latest antidepressant pharmaceuticals. But parents, educators, and health workers need to know what a useful antidote to emotional and physical stress nature can be. Especially now.