There's a generation now that didn't grow up in nature. Some of these adults are parents and they know that nature is good for their kids but they don't know where to start.

Some kids don't want to be organized all the time. They want to let their imaginations run; they want to see where a stream of water takes them.

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 do not raise our children alone.... Our children are also raised by every peer, institution, and family with which they come in contact. Yet parents today expect to be blamed for whatever results occur with their children, and they expect to do their parenting alone.

Nature does not steal time, it amplifies it.

When we raise our children, we relive our childhood. Forgotten memories, painful and pleasurable, rise to the surface.... So each of us thinks, almost daily, of how our own childhood compares with our children's, and of what our children's future will hold.

If we desire a kinder nation, seeing it through the eyes of children is an eminently sensible endeavor: A city that is pro-child,for example, is also a more humane place for adults.