Most of my favorite childhood memories are situated outdoors – picnics with my family on Sunday afternoons, playing with my friends on the front lawn in the deepening dusk, riding my bike to the corner store by myself for the first time, wobbling around the backyard skating rink on my first pair of skates, hiding in the shady depths of a corner of our back garden with a book, making sand castles at the beach….

My mother worried about me getting dirty, scraping my knees and catching cold (all of which I regularly did); nevertheless, she could often be heard saying, “For heaven’s sake, go outside and play!” And I did. Those were different times, with fewer dangers and fewer inside activities like video games. Many parents today prefer having their children safely indoors where they think they’re out of danger, and want their children to get a head start on school by attending structured indoor learning activities. However, we’re now realizing that indoor activities have their own dangers, including childhood obesity, so-called “attention disorders,” passivity, media overdosing and Internet stalking. At the same time, researchers are demonstrating the educational and health value of unstructured outdoor play.

So there is a new movement happening designed to get children outside playing…in all kinds of weather. As author Richard Louv so famously pointed out in his book, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder, connecting children back to Nature is an important part of the impetus to help children explore the outside world. Nature needs to be experienced directly through the senses, not watched on television. Outdoor experiences help children understand the natural world and the need to take care of it – a lesson that will go a long way toward creating a generation of environmentally careful conservers.

A side effect is that many parents are out there playing with their kids – in structured activities like skiing and hiking and just having unstructured fun in the great outdoors. So, for your children’s sake, go outside and play!

Learn More

Have Child, Will Get Outside by Wendy Priesnitz, Natural Life Magazine (January/February 2009)

The Criminalization of Natural Play by Richard Louv, Natural Life Magazine (May/June 2005)

www.activekidsclub.com

www.RichardLouv.com

Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv (expanded edition, Algonquin Books, 2008)

The Outdoor Family Fun Guide: A Complete Camping, Hiking, Canoeing, Nature Watching, Mountain Biking, Skiing, Climbing, and General Fun Book for Kids (and Their Parents) by Michael Hodgson, Nicole Hodgson (McGraw Hill, 1998)

Wendy Priesnitz is the founder and editor of this website, and co-founder and editor of Natural Life Magazine. She is the author of nine books about unschooling, natural parenting and green living. Read her blog.