My children have been living wild in a forest for three days. They’ve been making fire, building shelters, tracking badgers and sleeping under the stars. Every time I imagine them out there in the woods - deprived of their screens, hot running water, and the fridge - I’m torn between guilt and delight. My 14-year-old was particularly resistant to the prospect of adventure and bushcraft at Camp Wilderness; he’d explained that he couldn’t go, as he was scared of spiders.

But while video games - my kids’ favourite addiction - always cause frustration, tears, and rage, there’s increasing scientific proof, as if we didn’t already suspect, that spending time in nature soothes and de-stresses. Our high-pressure, fast-paced, technology-focused lifestyles fatigue the brain but, according to a recent article in National Geographic, Your Brain on Nature, when we slow down, breathe fresh air and gaze upon beautiful surroundings, we feel physically and emotionally restored. Notably, there’s a 'three-day effect’, where even our mental performance improves.

As we drive the children to the Camp Wilderness drop-off point in Hatfield Wood, Oscar, 14, blind to its magnificence, is still talking about Pokémon Go ('There’s a squirtle nest, three minutes from our house!’). The car bumps along a dirt track bordered by a dense forest of feathery ferns, and tall trees. The kids are greeted by beaming twenty-something bushcraft instructors: Rosie Pickford is Camp Leader, and Alex Peers is in charge of activities. There are eight boys, two girls. I ask if Oscar is the oldest. Alex, a jolly young Hagrid of a man, understands, and reassures me: 'We’ll make him tribe leader.’