How Engaging With Nature Bolsters Creativity in Children and Adults

Source: Image by Hari Mohan from Pixabay

In 2005 Richard Louv published a groundbreaking book–Last Child in the Woods. He presented overwhelming proof of the increasing divide between children and the natural world. In many cases, according to Louv, we are instructing children to avoid contact with nature: you can get hurt outdoors, there are all sorts of dangerous critters in the woods, we don’t have time for playing outdoors–we have to improve our test scores, theme parks are more fun than running through an open field, and all the entertainment you ever need can be found on a cell phone or iPad.

Louv identified this abstinence from nature as “Nature Deficit Disorder”– a condition suffered by modern-day youngsters who are excluded from the mental, physical, and spiritual benefits of nature via legislation, false beliefs, and technology. Yet, as Louv emphatically proved, “Nature inspires creativity in a child by demanding visualization and the full use of the senses. Given a chance, a child will bring the confusion of the world to the woods, wash it in the creek, turn it over to see what lives on the unseen side of that confusion.”

Despite the inherent benefits, there is compelling evidence that our children are spending less time playing outdoors or engaging in unstructured play in their backyards or neighborhoods. According to a study by researchers at the University of Maryland, there has been a reduction of 50 percent in the proportion of children (ages nine to twelve) who spent time in activities such as hiking, walking, fishing, beach play, and gardening. The data also showed that children’s free play and discretionary time in a typical week declined a total of nine hours over a twenty-five-year period. These days, the figures have not changed to any appreciable degree. There is an increasing and significant decline in the amount of time devoted to outdoor play today than when our grandparents were youngsters.

A Disconnect With Nature

A growing body of research underscores a disturbing disconnect between what we know intuitively and what we see on the other side of the front door: Children are walking away from woods, fields, open spaces, rivers, and streams in increasing numbers. Sadly, those exits are often orchestrated by well-meaning adults, including parents, teachers, community, and recreation leaders. Parks are being fenced in, trees (for climbing and treehouses) have warning signs posted on their trunks, barbed wire is strung around open fields, and kids are told, “Don’t go outside. There’s a lot of dangerous critters out there.” As a result, kids are spending considerably more time indoors than ever before.

In her penetrating piece in The Atlantic (December 2020), Erika Christakis underscored both the relevance and significance of nature in the lives of youngsters. She stated, “…despite what we know about nature’s positive impact on mental health, attention span, academic outcomes, physical fitness, and self-regulation, outdoor time is too often seen as a quirky and marginal add-on, rather than as central to the learning process itself.”

What’s the practical lesson here? Does nature impact creativity? Absolutely. Yet, when we deny our children regular exposure to nature as part of their everyday experiences, we also deny them an opportunity to use and extend their creative capacities. As they grow up and enter the workforce, this nature/creativity connection becomes even more critical. As young adults begin their careers, they push nature to the sidelines; instead, concentrating their mental efforts on “keeping up with the Jones’s” and shifting their occupations into higher gears. Even with its attendant impact on creative inclinations, time outdoors is something we find difficult to schedule.

How to Enhance Childrens’ (and Your)Creativity

1. Get Out!

Plan regular opportunities for kids to interact with nature. You don’t have to schedule extensive journeys to National Parks (although that would be nice). A walk around the neighborhood, a bicycle trip through a local park or nature preserve, a car trip to a forest, lake, or nearby river, a stroll through a vacant lot (looking for insects or other critters), a vacation at the beach, are all valuable learning experiences. All are easy and inexpensive ways to expose children to the creative impact of nature.

When nature is shared as a natural and normal part of growing up, it also can be a natural and normal part of adult life. Kids will begin to understand and appreciate the role nature can have in their daily lives. Eventually, they will start to see how nature has solved some unique and distinct “challenges” (e.g., the design of a spider web, the splay of roots at the base of a tree, the opening, and closing of flowers, the various methods of camouflage employed by certain animals). Nature’s creativity stands as an example of how “challenges” are met in several unique ways.

Source: Mabel Amber/Pixabay

2. Take a Hike.

The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1889) once wrote, “All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.” He may have been on to something because two researchers at Stanford University have proven that walking increases creative ideation. The researchers discovered that more than 80% of their study participants were more creative during and after a hike than sitting down. They also concluded that “walking improves the generation of novel yet appropriate ideas, and the effect even extends to when people sit down to do their creative work shortly” after a walk. Their powerful suggestion: The more we incorporate walking into our daily activities, the more creative ideas we can generate. Shane O’Mara, in his absorbing book In Praise of Walking, devotes an entire chapter to walking’s impact on creativity. He provides expansive empirical research and insightful anecdotal evidence to demonstrate how “We can reach a more creative state…by being in motion.” The bottom line: Take a hike…every day.