Can you remember when you were a child? Were you excited to go outside to play in the neighborhood, in the sand, splash in the puddles, or skip in the rain – with or without your boots? Did you ever wade in a creek, turning over the rocks to discover what lived under them? Did you catch lightening bugs and put them in a jar? Can you remember the outdoor games you invented with your brother, sister, or friend?
Today, too many kids spend much of their time indoors in order to be protected from the kidnappers, sex offenders, and bullies we hear about on television news. Journalist and author Richard Louv coined the term “nature-deficit disorder” to focus attention to the absence of nature in children’s lives.
In his book Last Children in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, Louv proposes that the lack of outdoor exploration is tied to today’s rising incidence of childhood obesity and too many childhood psychological disorders. He also points out that, “Studies suggest that kids are safer outdoors than we believe…That’s not to say that there aren’t bad people out there, but we can’t allow fear to drive us indoors. We are raising a generation of children under virtual house arrest.”
Our children are becoming more wired to electronics, too. Before they enter kindergarten, many children have video games, computers, and television sets in their bedrooms. They could spend hours watching videos not only at home, but on every car ride since so many vehicles are equipped with DVD players. How are children going to learn about the world outside the car window when they are mesmerized by cartoons?
The outdoors, and this includes your backyard, is a child’s natural experiment with risk-taking. Risk-taking is pushed by children’s curiosity to make sense of the “what ifs” of their world. These “what ifs” teach logical thinking and problem-solving skills. Children know what they know from doing, touching, tasting, and jumping up and down.
At 3 and 4 years old, children love to try new physical feats. Build your child’s skills by playing catch together with a large ball or bean bag. If it’s warm, and you have the space, dig a small outdoor garden together with easy-to-grow plants. Walk around the block together at varying speeds. Talk with your child; say we’re going to walk slowly like a turtle or fast like a cheetah.
This summer, create a safe outdoor place for your children and their friends to play and learn with each other. A fabulous quote I found in Sun magazine sums it up, “It’s not just the spotted owl that’s endangered in nature; it’s the human child. And if children aren’t going outside today, who is going to care about the spotted owl 15 years from now?”
Vicki Thrasher Cronin is the director of community and civic engagement at Ready 4 K. She has worked early childhood education for 30 years.
