Dad's a Wii Holdout

We’re having a Wii feud in our house.

My sons, ages 15 and 8, have been pressing to buy a Wii video game system – with their own money saved from many birthdays, I might add. After they visited their cousins’ house last Thanksgiving, they discovered joys of playing tennis, golf and other sports indoors. My husband, who is dead set against video games, is standing firm. I’m waffling in the middle. Of video games, Wii strikes me as the most innocuous and playful. After all, aren’t nursing homes using them? Aren’t they good exercise? Are we Wii grinches, the last bastion of Wii holdouts?

Since we haven’t gotten it yet, my boys have been forced to play outside. The past two sunny days, basketball on the driveway has taken up their time after school, and my older son joined in a spontaneous neighborhood football game. So, when they come into the house, sweaty, panting and tired from running after the ball, I’m not so sure we're doing the wrong thing in keeping them from video fun.

Recent news makes me think that any choice I can make to propel them outdoors is good. A study published this month shows that visits to U.S. national parks may be down by as much as 25 percent since 1987, and its researchers believe the drop may stem from "videophilia," the craze to choose sedentary activities involving electronics over outdoor-based recreation.

In an interview with U.S. News & World Report, Richard Louv, author of "Last Child in the Woods," says the most important reason for the decline in national parks usage is a growing break between the young and nature. Constant use of television, video games, the Internet and iPods are driving the disconnect with nature, but time and fear are also big factors, he said.

“Many parents feel that, if they don't have their kids in every organized activity, they will fall behind in the race for Harvard,” he said in the interview. “And we are scared to death as parents now of 'stranger danger' and letting kids roam free.”

He’s right. I can’t count the number of times in the past year parents have confided that they’re afraid to let their children enjoy the same pleasures and freedoms that they had as children. We wonder, “Was the world less dangerous then, or are we more paranoid than our parents?"

Louv said we need to weigh the risks of letting our kids loose outside: “Yes, there are some dangers outdoors, but there is also great danger of raising a future generation of children under virtual house arrest.” In "Last Child in the Woods," he looks into research linking the absence of nature in children's lives to rising rates of obesity, attention disorders and depression.

Anyone who walks outdoors knows the good feeling it brings. Why not encourage out children to step out as we did?

And nature doesn’t have to mean the wilderness, Louv said. “Nearby nature can be the clump of trees at the end of the cul-de-sac or the ravine behind the house. Through a biologist's eyes, those places can seem insignificant, but through a child's eyes, that ravine can be a whole universe.”