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Wild Play: Parenting Adventures in the Great Outdoors
When David Sobel’s children were toddlers, he set out to integrate a wide range of nature experiences into their family life, play, and storytelling. Blending his passion as a parent with his professional expertise, he created adventures tailored to their developmental stages: cultivating empathy with animals in early childhood, exploring the woods in middle childhood, and devising rites of passage in adolescence. This book is Sobel’s vivid and moving memoir of their journey and an inspiring guide for other parents who seek to help their children bond with the natural world. As we share this family's experiences, we observe how wild play in nature hones a sense of wonder, provides healthy challenges, and nurtures Earth stewardship—and we share Sobel’s joy as his children, Eli and Tara, grow into earthbound, grounded young adults.
Richard Louv’s Last Child in the Woods identified the urgent problem of “nature deficit” in today’s children, sounding the alarm for parents, educators, and policy makers. Wild Play is a hopeful response, offering families myriad ways to blaze their own trails; it should become another classic in this field.
Richard Louv’s Last Child in the Woods identified the urgent problem of “nature deficit” in today’s children, sounding the alarm for parents, educators, and policy makers. Wild Play is a hopeful response, offering families myriad ways to blaze their own trails; it should become another classic in this field.
224 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
July 31, 2023
3.5 stars
It kind of dragged but I suspect that had more to do with my attention span and his higher education level than it not being a good book.
I didn't really get the first section but I loved the parts on rites of passage and training yourself to let your kids play out of your sight (I think that's harder for a PICU nurse than most people). The chapter on divorce was so heartbreaking, very real.
Overall I think I like the emphasis on fostering independence in our kids, that's something really important to me, I'm not sure I learned a ton but I liked the stories and it gives me some ideas for the future.
It kind of dragged but I suspect that had more to do with my attention span and his higher education level than it not being a good book.
I didn't really get the first section but I loved the parts on rites of passage and training yourself to let your kids play out of your sight (I think that's harder for a PICU nurse than most people). The chapter on divorce was so heartbreaking, very real.
Overall I think I like the emphasis on fostering independence in our kids, that's something really important to me, I'm not sure I learned a ton but I liked the stories and it gives me some ideas for the future.
December 20, 2020
I enjoyed this book. It reads in a way similar to what reading Sobel's journal may be like. Sobel seems to have been very intent on raising his kids in certain ways, with certain ideals and seems to have been a proactive parent. Questionable beliefs about if fairies are real make this book feel lacking of substance. An important read for myself as a new parent and thinking of ways to engage my daughter in The Great Outdoors.
July 16, 2011
I really disliked this book. It's the first of the nature-and-kids books I've read because I feel we've got a pretty good relationship with the outdoors, and I avoid proscriptive parenting books like the plague. I prefer a straight memoir from which I can extract nuggets of wisdom (rather than being guilted or urged into anything) or actual how-to books. This was neither. I was really glad that I had already read "Guilt Trip into the Woods" in Brain, Child magazine for some balance and perspective on this movement, so I wouldn't feel so alone in my opinion. Some of my thoughts follow:
Rather than being inspired, educated, or motivated, I found the book just overwhelming and discouraging. I have a fair amount of outdoors experience hiking, camping, and wandering, but mostly in the southeast and southwest, and I found the terrain of the book inaccessible. I think someone with experience with New England and with skiing, rappelling, backpacking, and so on would find it less so, but I was skimming whole sections near the end when I couldn't even understand what he was talking about. And near the beginning, I found the idea of making up stories on the spot and then remembering them and continuing them for years to be impossible, along with some of the other advice. I guess it was hard to tell what was advice and what was memoir, and in the confusion, I felt totally inadequate as a parent compared to the things the author describes doing with his kids.
Then I got to the part of the book about the divorce, alluded to all along, and I realized that this book would have been likeable if it were an honest memoir, not an admonition to us as readers to value what he values. Honestly, I don't love traipsing through the woods as much as curling up with a good book. My goal as a parent has never been, like the author, to foster a sense of place by getting my kids into the outdoors. I had begun to feel that maybe my goals as a parent have been lacking, maybe they should be more like the author's, and that thought felt bad. But then, after 144 pages of his immersion in his kids' lives, his wife asked for a divorce (out of the blue), and I felt a little less inadequate -- a little. I still feel terrible that I don't have the resources or experience to provide my kids with the experiences the author did, but at least I see the benefit of the ones I am expending lots of energy to provide (like an unbroken nuclear family). I guess the book could have used more humility.
However, all that said, I did come away with some inspiration. I loved the periods of nature wandering I had as a child, and I want to help my children to have them. I think I just need to find another resource to help me practically.
Rather than being inspired, educated, or motivated, I found the book just overwhelming and discouraging. I have a fair amount of outdoors experience hiking, camping, and wandering, but mostly in the southeast and southwest, and I found the terrain of the book inaccessible. I think someone with experience with New England and with skiing, rappelling, backpacking, and so on would find it less so, but I was skimming whole sections near the end when I couldn't even understand what he was talking about. And near the beginning, I found the idea of making up stories on the spot and then remembering them and continuing them for years to be impossible, along with some of the other advice. I guess it was hard to tell what was advice and what was memoir, and in the confusion, I felt totally inadequate as a parent compared to the things the author describes doing with his kids.
Then I got to the part of the book about the divorce, alluded to all along, and I realized that this book would have been likeable if it were an honest memoir, not an admonition to us as readers to value what he values. Honestly, I don't love traipsing through the woods as much as curling up with a good book. My goal as a parent has never been, like the author, to foster a sense of place by getting my kids into the outdoors. I had begun to feel that maybe my goals as a parent have been lacking, maybe they should be more like the author's, and that thought felt bad. But then, after 144 pages of his immersion in his kids' lives, his wife asked for a divorce (out of the blue), and I felt a little less inadequate -- a little. I still feel terrible that I don't have the resources or experience to provide my kids with the experiences the author did, but at least I see the benefit of the ones I am expending lots of energy to provide (like an unbroken nuclear family). I guess the book could have used more humility.
However, all that said, I did come away with some inspiration. I loved the periods of nature wandering I had as a child, and I want to help my children to have them. I think I just need to find another resource to help me practically.
August 3, 2011
I really had a hard time with this and stopped at page 90. It was written in such an intellectual style that I felt it took the feelings that Sobel was trying to get across and made it incredibly boring. It was, however, a great source of inspiration for me to start telling my boys original stories (from within myself) in addition to the natural-style play we already do. Somehow tying them into existing experiences to create a mystical world for our boys, was the only thing I got out of this book. Very repetitious for my liking.
July 25, 2011
On my outdoorsy parenting kick, read this one. A memoir of the adventures he steered his two kids toward in the great outdoors, based upon their age and growth stage. Not bad -- the most useful ideas were those of the stages through which kids grow and how to implement those stages outside of the house and museums. I was definitely inspired at the end.
January 14, 2014
Really a terrific book about connecting with children through nature experiences, both as parents and as educators. I love the part of supporting teens' natural inclination for risk-taking by orchestrating risky nature adventures.
July 11, 2011
Read the Whole Terrain interview of David Sobel about this book.
August 23, 2015
Good motivating and inspiring read for parents wanting to instill a love of nature in their kids.
April 11, 2017
Boring and rather pretentious. The author makes a few too many broad sweeping statements about the nature of all children based off of one or two interchanges with his own two kids for my tastes.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews