Kids are plugged into some sort of electronic medium 44 hours per week.

The real cultural war is between the culture of narcissism and what might be called the culture of renewal.

No other youth group like the Scouts has trained so many future leaders while at the same time being a nature organization with its outdoor focus.

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.

It takes time--loose, unstructured dreamtime-- to experience nature in a meaningful way. Unless parents are vigilant, such time becomes a scarce resource, not because we intend it to shrink, but because time is consumed by multiple, invisible forces; because our culture currently places so little value on natural play.

Natural play strengthens children's self-confidence and arouses their senses-their awareness of the world and all that moves in it, seen and unseen.

Now, more than ever, we need nature as a balancing agent.