We are growing sadly removed from nature... and it worries me.
These worries are already manifesting as I read your words about kids chasing the squirrels and I found myself thinking how their sense of self so often is developed around "first person shooter games" where you pretty much have to kill/destroy anything that moves in order to win the game... and now that is showing up in engagement with actual life.
The oldest X'ers among us... we're knocking on 60. Sixty. My wife and I both remember having to pretty much raise ourselves... and we seemed more in touch with nature, perhaps because it was our classroom. I'm grateful the one son we have who has kids (the other two remain stubbornly childless) spends a lot of time taking them out to the park and out in nature.
I worry about that too. I think preserving and understanding the natural environment will get less and less attention as the younger generations take over. Saying you're an environmentalist and truly understanding the importance of Earth's ecosystem are two different things. This will make it much easier for corporations to deceive the general public when it comes to the environment.
Crazy to think our generation is approaching 60! It's so tough for nature to compete with the dopamine hits from our digital devices but I'm glad to hear your son is making an effort. I just recently watched an interview with Casey Neistat where he talks about the struggles he and his wife have with raising their tech-addicted kids. I can't even imagine. Video games were so primitive in the 1980's that we'd never spend more than an hour at a time playing our Atari 2600.