As I write this, my daughter is plucking grass and trying to coax a mountain goat to come and eat from her hands. We are neither in a zoo nor a conservation park. The goat is not fenced in any way – it grazes freely until the sheepdog barks instructions to round it up.

We are in Livigno, a town in the Alpine province of Sondrio in the region of Lombardy, and we have spent most of our time in the midst of nature, a mere 10 paces away from the town’s main street.

For most of the week I’ve been cycling with my daughter behind me in a small rickshaw-like cart but we’ve veered as much as possible from the cycling tracks.

So far we have waded across streams, rolled on hills, stopped to stare at grazing cows, donkeys, horses and goats, bounced on haystacks, listened to the soundtrack of crickets and crows and watched farmers harvesting the hay. We’ve also seen a cow being milked and seen that milk put in a bottle for consumption. Food is no longer from Venus and farming no longer from Mars.

At first, when we got here, my daughter searched the apartment and then came back, puzzled: “Mummy, where’s the telly?” She hasn’t mentioned the box since – real life has been much more entertaining.

And I just can’t help thinking: we are so far removed from nature. I can’t remember the last time I went for a walk in the country and felt so free; so much a part of an un-lonely world full of other species.

It’s not just because we live on an island where patches of grass are few and far between. It’s a worldwide problem. A recent study in Britain has revealed that more children are now admitted to hospital for injuries incurred falling out of bed than falling out of trees.

So what, you might say? In an age of HDTV, Nintendo, Facebook and Youtube, what benefits can my child get from knowing how to climb a tree? Surely, just because I spent my childhood climbing trees in Mtarfa, I’m none the wiser today?

The answer lies in my holiday read, the compelling Last Child in the Woods. The author, Richard Louv, has defined a phenomenon which he calls “nature deficit disorder”. It’s about how our children have become increa-singly alienated from nature, and its effects.

Climbing up a tree, he says, is not about getting children to experience the wider world but themselves. “It is about learning how to take responsibility for yourself, and how – crucially – to measure risk for yourself. Falling out of a tree is a very good lesson in risk reward.”

It is ironic that we live in a time where kids have a plethora of information about the natural world: they can watch it all on screen. But they are not experiencing it directly: “As a matter of fact, our great grandfathers, who never went anywhere, had more experience of the world than we have, who have seen everything,” says Louv.

Because it’s not so much what children know about nature that’s important, as what happens to them when they are in nature.

According to Louv, scientists – doctors, mental health experts, educationalists, sociologists – are beginning to suggest that when kids stop going out into the natural world to play, it can affect not just their development as individuals, but society as a whole.

Without the pleasures of a free-range childhood, the indoor habits become routine, and so the increase in child obesity, attention deficit hyperactivity disorders, learning disabilities, creativity and mental stagnation and child depression.

It’s all well and good that last week we saw the launch of a scheme to make playgrounds in Malta safer. But really, will we just be promoting more structured play? Do kids need more plastic climbing frames, more synthetic grass on which to jump? No.

Last week, we rode a cable car to the top of a mountain. The temperature was something like two degrees Celsius. Two other mummies and I huddled in the tiny mountain coffee shop, thawing over mugs of hot chocolate. Our kids? They were happy to eschew the Nintendos and spent the whole morning lost in play.

They had no toys but there was nature, and their imagination. They used rocks to build a fire heart, they cut different grasses and pretended it was food, stones became potatoes and they were busy ‘cooking’ all morning. I never thought it possible for the human survival instinct to be so pronounced in children.

Above all, there was not a sound, not a whine or a tiff, except for laughs and giggles. Now, that should be the sound of childhood.

krischetcuti@gmail.com