“Recent research has shown that the UK is one of the worst places in the western world to be a child.” -Bob Reitemeier, chief executive of The Children’s Society
Ouch. The reason is because kids are losing opportunities to play, especially outside, and that loss can be detrimental to their health, according to some 300 experts.
It seems my wife was right. When she worked at a pre-school she always insisted the kids go outside every day (unless the weather was dangerous), much to the consternation of concerned parents who thought it was too cold or too hot or too whatever for their poor child. What their poor child really needed was to go outside more.
I wonder if the same could be true for adults?
Hey Lexi, want to go outside?
I take this idea a bit further and say that kids need to (1) have a connection to where things come from, and (2) kids need the opportunity to create in unstructured play.
(1) Get kids on a farm so they can see where eggs come from, plants, meat, etc. They can understand the life cycle of life and death, reproductive basics, the benefits of hard work and planning, etc. I’m not saying kids all need to live on a farm, but they should at least get that connection. I still remember my cousins refusing to eat our farm-raised chicken because “We only eat chicken that comes from the store.” Yeah. They were way disconnected.
(2) My brothers and I built forts in the woods and my parents never told us how to build them or what to use to build them. We would dig in the junk pile, discuss what things could be used for, then try it out. A lot of kids I know have their parents building forts for them and planning their weekly craft time out step by step and all of that. Where does creativity and problem solving come from? Unstructured play!
steph –
I completely agree with you. But in the case of this article they were referring more to the health concerns. Parents seem to feel that to keep kids healthy they should keep their kids indoors all winter so they don’t catch a cold or get the flu. Well, guess what? When you keep the kids inside, the germs stay inside too. They need to be outdoors, breathing fresh air, building up immune systems.
But Steph you are right, health issues aside, they need to have unstructured play – especially to help learn conflict resolution and how to compromise – and to learn about nature, where things come from, etc.
And when it’s warm out, parents keep kids inside because they don’t want their kids playing in dirt or coming in contact with allergins, etc. Hmmm…if you keep your children in too sterile of an environment then they don’t have a chance to build up a strong immune system and end up being sick more often than the neighbor kid who is building mudpies.