The Importance of Outdoor Play With Children

"Christopher Robin was sitting outside his door, putting on his Big Boots. As soon as he saw the Big Boots, Pooh knew that an Adventure was going to happen, and he brushed the honey off his nose with the back of his paw, and spruced himself up as well as he could, so as to look Ready for Anything."

-A.A. Milne

As Christopher Robin and Pooh get ready to begin their Expedition for the North Pole, it reminds me that childhood is filled with opportunities for many grand adventures. For children, these adventures occur in the form of play, and, just as the North Pole is a thing to be discovered by Pooh, play is a time filled with discovery, growth, and creativity. Play is a natural and universal part of typical childhood development. It provides children with cognitive, emotional, physical, and social developmental experiences.

The benefits of play include:

• It facilitates growth and health
• Children develop an understanding of social relationships
• Children learn problem solving skills
• Children learn communication skills
• It increasing confidence, trust in self, and develop a sense of mastery
• Children develop a personal identity separate from the family unit
• It involves the body and movement
• It engages the senses
• Children learn friendships
• It is a creative experience
• It can be spontaneous
• It's exciting and fun!

Outdoor Play

Outdoor play is just as essential, if not more so, for healthy cognitive, emotional, physical and social development. There has been a significant decrease over the last few decades in regard to the amount of outdoor play time children take part in. Over that same time period there has been a significant increase in the amount of children's screen time, in the form of television viewing, internet/computer usage, and video games usage, to the point where many children spend forty or more hours per week engaged in such activities. Additionally, dual-income families have become the norm, and parents are working longer hours and bringing work home. Organized youth sports have expanded tremendously to the point where many three or four-year old children are playing in town recreation leagues. Children are faced with increased pressure to succeed academically with the push for longer school hours, more homework, and higher standards resulting from globalization, rapid advances in technology, and high stakes testing. All of these changes have resulted in reduced time for children to take part in outdoor play. Over the same time period a corresponding increase has been noted in regard to childhood obesity, childhood type II diabetes, high blood pressure in children, the number of children with significant mental health problems, and the amount of children who are prescribed medication because they can't focus in school or who are disruptive in class.

The importance of outdoor play with children cannot be overstated. Outdoor play allows children to engage their senses, explore the world, learn about themselves, increase physical activity, increase neurotransmitters that improve mood and increase happiness, improve concentration, focus, and problem solving, increase creativity, and use their imagination. Children take part in the grand adventure of childhood when they play outside. They are able to discover how the world works and where they fit in. They can experiment and learn from the results; if they fail they can try again. Outdoor experiences teach children the scientific method and how to persevere. This is not the same as watching television and being fed someone's version of how the world works or how it should work. Children who play outside tend to have a deeper, more meaningful understanding of events.

Children can watch a television show of people sledding down a snow-covered hill. The people are smiling and laughing; they are dressed warmly in winter coats, snow pants, boots, hats, and gloves; their cheeks are rosy red. The bright yellow sun glistens off of the freshly fallen snow; they hop aboard their sleds and seem to pick up speed as they go down the hill leaving tracks in their wake. At the bottom of the hill they laughingly get off their sleds and trudge back up the hill with them to repeat the process. A child who views such a show would have a general understanding of sledding down a hill however; children who play outdoors and experience these events might have a different understanding of them. These children would understand the struggle of getting into layers of clothing, the feelings of warmth and heaviness of the winter coat, snow pants, and boots. They would know how difficult it is to put on that second glove and either ask for help or use their teeth to pull it up over their coat sleeve. At the top of the hill these children would feel the light, cold breeze blowing against their face and experience their cheeks tingle as the coldness enveloped them. They would smell the clean emptiness of winter and have to cover their eyes due to the sun's brightness. Their boots would crunch on the packed snow as they awkwardly carry the sleds to a starting point. They would feel the thrill of anticipation as they prepare to push against the snowy ground, realizing that their gloves are now slightly damp. After propelling themselves forward, their feeling of excitement would grow, they may scream or shout, their hearts pounding and adrenaline flowing as the wind rushes unfeelingly past them while they bump their way to the bottom of the hill. Finally, they triumphantly reach they bottom of the hill feeling exhilarated by the thrill of the experience. They excitedly jump off their sleds, boots sinking into the snow with some falling in resulting in a sudden iciness on their sock; it is ignored as they grab their sleds and climb up the hill, feeling the strength of their legs and the excitement of the day as they repeat the process. The children who experience the activity outdoors are going to come away with a richer and fuller understanding of sledding. They will have an emotional, physical, cognitive, and social understanding of sledding. In essence, it will be a multidimensional understanding of the activity, winter, and the people who sled with them.

The Importance of Outdoor Play for Mental Health and Behavior

There are an increasing number of students who have mental health and behavior concerns that attend public schools. These students may seem lethargic, overactive, belligerent, anxious, unmotivated, depressed, angry, frustrated, or uncaring. Outdoor play is especially important for these children. Playing outside increases children's physical activity; increased physical activity has been linked to increased levels of neurotransmitters that affect mood, anxiety, and stress. Therefore, outdoor play has positive physiological outcomes for these children as it reduces stress, anxiety, and depression while improving mood and happiness.

Outdoor play is also beneficial for these children as it provides them with a sense of mastery. These children often feel little control over events in their lives, and they are frequently unsuccessful academically and socially. Outdoor play experiences afford these children an opportunity to be successful and experience the world on their terms and at their pace. The success they experience in their outdoor play often translates into increased academic and social confidence.

Overall, outdoor play is an important childhood experience. It impacts all cognitive, emotional, physical and social development while fortifying children against stress and other negative life events. Outdoor play allows for multidimensional experiences and understanding of the world. Childhood, as is life, is a journey. Tell children to spruce themselves up, go outside and play, be ready for anything, and let it be a grand adventure.