A generation ago, my three daughters each experienced normal teen angst about peer pressure, parent pressure, and school pressure. As we worked through these issues, their world irrevocably changed. First, the Columbine school shootings suddenly made their school feel unsafe. Then, the horrific collapse of the World Trade Center changed our notion of national security forever. I felt helpless as I watched their anxiety soar.
COVID-19 created a similar disruption. Uncertainty, fear for safety, school shutdowns, and social isolation set children back and raised their anxiety levels. Many are still recovering.
Today, teens and pre-teens face a culture swirling with increased teen angst, now amplified and manipulated on social media and often accompanied by cyberbullying. Recent studies show that 73% of teen boys and 82% of teen girls use social media several hours a day. In a circular entrapment, our children are literally under assault from social media, to which, ironically, they often are addicted.
This vicious cycle sends cortisol, the stress hormone, rushing through teenagers’ bodies and brains. Anxiety skyrockets as sleep decreases, and any number of negative behaviors can result, many of them turned inward on oneself. Self-harm, depression, anxiety, low confidence, poor self-esteem, and teen suicide are all, sadly, on the rise.
According to the YPulse 2023 study, an alarming 79% of middle and high school girls feel like they will explode from pressure. 52% to 57% don’t believe they are smart enough to attain their dream job. 35% to 41% of 5th- 12th-grade boys and girls say they are sad or depressed at least four days a week. Depression for 5th graders has tripled in recent years.* Depression and anxiety are increasing for boys too, though not at the same rate.
In his bestselling book, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic in Mental Illness, Jonathan Haight offers ways to break this cycle. He suggests four new cultural norms to guide parents in their urgent desire to protect their children from the effects of cell phones and social media:
- No smartphones before high school.
- No social media before 16.
- Phone-free schools.
- More independence, free play, and responsibility in the real world.
The last of these is where empowerment through nature can transform children’s lives! With appropriate challenges, information, teamwork, freedom, and individual space, children blossom as they explore the physical world on their own evolving terms.
Two decades ago, Richard Louv’s seminal book, Last Child in the Woods, revealed nature’s effects on children’s brains. Kids who played outside were more creative, better at problem-solving, better at spatial awareness, and more in touch with a sense of wonder about the world around them. Time in nature nurtures positive brain development and pours positive endorphins, dopamine, and serotonin into the brain, bringing humans joy!
Beyond the physical benefits, connecting to nature provides children with a spiritual awareness of the reciprocity with nature that humans must have to survive. This, in turn, leads to a moral awakening of the responsibility each of us has in our relationship to the Earth.
Our camps and programs offer kids personal challenges and nature experiences that grow their self-confidence and their relationship with all life on Earth.
Click on the link to view more details about our Kids Nature Camps.
*Source: ROX Study, 2023
