The Influence of Nature on a Child’s Development: Connecting the Outcomes of Human Attachment and Place Attachment Sarah Little and Victoria Derr Contents Introduction ....................................................................................... 2 Place Attachment ................................................................................. 3 Childhood Place Attachment ................................................................. 5 The Influence of Nature on Place Attachment ............................................... 8 Human Attachment ............................................................................... 9 Integrating Human Attachment and Place Attachment .......................................... 10 Home Range Mirrors the Secure Base ....................................................... 11 The Influence of Autonomy .................................................................. 13 Outcomes of Human Attachment and Connections to Place Attachment ....................... 14 Internal Working Model ...................................................................... 14 Resilience to Stress ............................................................................ 17 A Working Model ................................................................................. 21 Discussion ......................................................................................... 22 Conclusion ........................................................................................ 23 References ........................................................................................ 24 Abstract Amidst a growing social movement to connect children to nature, little is under- stood about how children actually attach to place or the role of nature in shaping place attachments. While place attachment is an undertheorized concept, human attachment is well understood. In the chapter, an exploration of human attachment provides clarity of the potential outcomes of place attachment. S. Little (*) University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA e-mail: sarah.little@ou.edu V. Derr Environmental Studies, California State University Monterey Bay, Seaside, CA, USA e-mail: vderr@csumb.edu # Springer International Publishing AG 2018 A. Cutter-Mackenzie et al. (eds.), Research Handbook on Childhoodnature, Springer International Handbooks of Education, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51949-4_10-1 1