PARENTING ALPHA

Overall, children playing outdoors is fantastic for cognitive and physical health. The outdoor experiences are known to enhance motor skills, and can predict a productive adulthood.

This is particularly true today owing to extensive sedentary lifestyles ushered in by technology, urbanization and environmental factors. The sedentary lifestyle can lead to all kinds of ill health and poor productivity.

Children now spend more hours behind their phones, and parents blame this on a lack of playground spaces. They also fear other societal ills outside the house.

Consider the following:

• Children in urban dwellings spend more than 5 hours bingeing on television sets and computers
• Parents tend to prohibit children from venturing outdoors
• Elsewhere, children in rural settings spend upwards of 7 hours a day playing outdoors

This should be of concern to parents – and many are – especially those that care about the wellbeing of their children. Many others are worrisome about child exposure to man-made electromagnetic fields and other negatives of technology.

Below are a few reasons to motivate you to take your child outdoors

1. Children playing outdoors ‘for the love of living systems’

Children are drawn to the outdoor world where they get to blend with nature. This is fantastic for their physiology and mental wellbeing.

The American ecologist, Edward O. Wilson, hypothesized the concept of human attraction towards nature in the 1980s. Edward translated this into a book named Biophilia.

Wilson defined biophilia as,

the connections that human beings subconsciously seek with the rest of life.

He argues that the need to bond with the rest of the life-forms and eco-system has its foundations deep in human biology.

It is undeniable that co-existence with other species in the park such as plants (flora), and animals (fauna) is a gift that children should get to harness fully.

Nature is beautiful and vibrant, and will remain so despite the overwhelming threat posed by ourselves. Children should be allowed to indulge in all its glory, as long as it is still available.  

Below are a few other reasons why nature is great for children:

• It stimulates their brain beyond the confines of the house
• It makes them think and grow intellectually
• It makes them happy
• It allows them to discover life and plant forms
• It stimulates the five senses
• It gives them opportunities to catch fresh air devoid of EMF pollution
• It promotes their physical wellbeing through extensive exploration

Another benefit children get when venturing outdoors is the opportunity to connect with nature through earthing or grounding. By earthing, they help the body neutralize the excess amount of free radicals, which accumulate due to lifestyle changes in the 21st century.

2. Outdoor play enhances executive functioning skills

Executive functioning skills are mental skills that help adults and children accomplish tasks correctly. They are also vital skills for developing stable emotional health.

The skills entail the efficient use of working memory, self-control, and flexible thinking. If executed correctly, they are enablers for children to form and achieve planned goals and academic excellence at school and in life.

Children are not necessarily born with executive functions. However, they are born with the ability to master them based on early experiences in life and the environment.

Typically, executive functions will enable children to do the following activities correctly:

• manage time
• pay attention
• stay focused on tasks
• switch bwtween tasks easily
• multitask without making mistakes
• plan and organize tasks
• remember important details
• avoid doing the wrong things
• avoid saying the wrong things
• use past experiences to accomplish tasks
• tolerate different points of views
• control extreme emotions

When they engage in outdoor activities, children experiment with tasks that challenge them to think large and out of the box.

For example, just by organizing outdoor activities, you are getting them to memorize tasks and fulfill them. You can make this easy by allowing them to partake in the planning of trips and other activities.

Elsewhere, while playing soccer, doing athletics, riding bicycles, or even playing hide and seek, children learn to use memory, self-control and multitasking functions in the brain, so as to score a goal, ride a bike, or seek out a friend hiding behind a bush.

By playing and socializing with other kids, they learn to check their emotions and overall behavior in public. Of course, this goes hand in hand with effective and active parenting to prepare them for the unknown risks in life.

3. Outdoor playtime is great for vitamin D

The human body needs the sun almost daily, to help create the much-needed Vitamin D which is vital for body growth and development. Vitamin D makes it easy for the body to absorb calcium and phosphate from the food we eat.

Thereafter, this facilitates bone growth to minimize complications such as osteomalacia, which translates to weak bones, bone pain, and overall muscle weaknesses. Lack of sufficient vitamin D also leads to poor health of the teeth.

The exposure is particularly important in the middle of the day and should average anything between 15 and 60 minutes, depending on the skin complexion. Dark-skinned kids need more minutes than light-skinned persons to absorb the right amount of vitamin D.

Humanity gets 90 – 95 percent of Vitamin D through type B Ultraviolet (UVB) exposure to the sun..

In addition, the hormone called serotonin is released when the body is exposed to the sun. to boost mood and positivity. This is just like the melatonin hormone which is released during the night to facilitate healthy sleep.

Without sufficient exposure to the sun, children are prone to complications such as soft and weak bones, rickets, and type I and II diabetes in later years.

4. Children playing outdoors is great for all-round health

There is no better substitute for physical wellness than children playing outdoors. The expansive space outdoors is a catalyst for kids to run, jump, ride, swing, and execute all kinds of motor skills that are impossible indoors.

The more kids play outdoors, the more they

• develop stronger bones
• burn more calories and avoid obesity
• have better brain functionality
• become creative and imaginative
• eat better
• are resilient and stable psychologically
• avoid boredom
• have better immunity

Outdoor physical activities also help young children figure out special skills and talents, which they can build on to professional levels.

These skills include riding, soccer, athletics, etc. which apart from becoming a source of income when they grow up, will ensure they remain physically alert throughout their lives.

5. Outdoor playtime stimulates sensory skills

Children are born with empty sensory faculties and nerves and itching to be filled up. Filling up these spaces starts with what they do, see, eat, touch. This is important for brain development and the general fulfillment of life desires and pleasures.

Just like adults, they use their senses to explore and understand the world around them.

Sensory skills allow them to explore senses of touch, smell, vision, hearing, taste, balance/movement, and body awareness. These are enhanced with the vast resources only available outside the house.

When they venture outdoors children will naturally interact with the vastness of plants, animals, and environment to explore the senses listed above.

In what is known as sensory play, they will engage in fun activities to discover touch, smell, sight, voices, taste, and movement.

Sensory play will satisfy their curiosity, enhance memory, sharpen the brain and learn sensory attributes such as sweetness, bitterness, and coldness. They also get to appreciate sticky forms, mud, insect sounds, good and foul smell, etc.

6. Outdoor play for social well-being

Nothing is as painful when children are rejected socially for one reason or another. While one child may develop better social skills early in life, others will falter, and this will have to be addressed through a handful of outdoor hacks.

Caution should be exercised early on, as kids may want to gang up against each other, and this may impair their ability to see the good in others. This is especially true if measures such as anger management are not addressed from early on.

Children can as well get trained to participate in volunteer activities to enhance their social skills. They can volunteer in the homes of the elderly, and even Sunday schools.

In these and other places, they can read for others, and help with small chores here and there. Of course, the need to go out and volunteer makes more sense in slightly older kids than the very young ones.

Besides games and volunteering, other activities that can foster social skills include,

• music classes
• dance classes
• drama
• live events for kids
• educational trips
• afternoon camping for kids
• treasure hunt

7. The value of risky play outside the house

Risky play is a thrilling and adventurous form of unstructured physical activity for children. These forms of activities may actually carry a specified or unspecified uncertainties and outcomes.

Whereas the word ‘risk’ has not been used to mean ‘danger’ in the past, the interpretation has changed considerably in the 21st century. Many parents now view risky play as a negative and dangerous form of play. The consequences may include mild to serious physical injury, or even death!

Here is the thing, children are naturally drawn towards risky play because their bodies desire to expend the immense energy they possess. They are out to discover new things, and have little understanding of the underlying dangers.

The likelihood of an object causing serious harm to a fellow child does not arise until it actually happens.

While ‘risky play’ was a common thing in the last centuries, parental concern over the safety of child play and societal emphasis on injury prevention has meant that children play under supervision or in safe playgrounds.

Statistics show that adult supervision has actually contributed to reducing injury in children worldwide, but has contributed to sedentary existence for many children.

In order to minimize the dangers arising from unsupervised play, parents now choose to keep children indoors to play computer games and watch movies.

Increasing research shows that placing too many restrictions on child-play hampers physical and cognitive development. Children need to take risks to prepare for real-life challenges most of which are risky!

Through risky play, they

• overcome the fear of failure by trying over and over again
• develop self-awareness by learning about how they react to dangerous encounters
• learn to deal with environmental dangers such as sharp objects, snakes, electrical shock, etc
• are more confident after successes in various challenges
• learn independence in instances where they disappear and have to find their way home  
• become versatile by falling from high heights
• learn to deal with dangers such as fire, water

Risky play outdoors may involve more than just physical play. It may also include encounters that expose them to cognitive and social risks. By trying and failing to earn trust from friends, they never give and will try again. As mentioned above the need for active parenting at home will facilitate this journey even better.

8. Children escape from tech and EMF

Yes, let the children venture outdoors and you will surely get them to escape the addictive television and computers in the house – at least for a few hours. If done consistently, the sedentary bingeing will reduce considerably as children discover the physical side of their existence.

They will even ask for hours to explore with games and other activities outside the house. Of course, it depends on the nature of outdoor activities and whether they enjoy them or not.

Besides TV and Smartphones, your children get to escape from the invisible electromagnetic fields (EMF) waves that roam the house at all times. The increasing number of electronic devices and electrical wiring and installations in the house usually means more EMF waves circulating in the air.

The Wi-Fi devices, smartphones, laptops, just to mention a few should be left behind when the children venture outdoors.

We should all get our children to play outdoors!

It is no mean feat to get children outdoors to play. Of course, they are always eager to, but the problem usually is the readiness of parents to let them live the moment.

As a parent,

• become an outdoor role  model
• deliberately create time for outdoor activities
• give them the freedom to explore
• control screen time at home
• create child-friendly backyard
• encourage them to participate in communal activities