Is Playing Outside Important?

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Clarissa

February 25, 2012

Isabel left the following comment that I’m putting in a separate post because I don’t want it to be lost:

When we were kids we used to have the run of the whole neighborhood and we took advantage. Empty lots and woods between houses, construction projects, a deserted day camp, old fields of a nearby farm, etc. When my brother visited recently after many years, we took my nieces, who are growing up in the same neighborhood, for a walk through our old haunts, or at least those that remain. They kept saying things like “isn’t this private property?” “are you sure it’s okay to go here” “isn’t this dangerous?” “maybe we should go back home now” “there are ticks in those woods”.

This is really sad, people. I can’t even begin to enumerate all of the ways in which this picture of the world and of nature as horribly dangerous places saddens me. As a kid, I had the best time ever playing with my little friends outside. Since the age of four (I don’t have many earlier memories), I was always playing outside with other kids, both in the city and in the country-side. Those are among my best childhood memories.

I’ve been having this discussion with N. recently, and he sees the idea of kids playing at home with their Playstations instead of running outside with friends as completely normal. Maybe I’m getting old, but it always makes me very happy to see kids of all ages playing outside and it saddens me to imagine them stuck at home with their video games all day long.I’m not against video games per se, but I feel like important aspects of childhood are being lost for the sake of completely imaginary safety concerns.

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16 responses to “Is Playing Outside Important?”

nominatissima

February 25, 2012

I remember at what point it became obvious to me that playing outside wasn’t going to be much of an option anymore: I took some kids I was babysitting to a field I used to frequent as a kid, and let them run around a bit and have a bit of fun, and someone, who apparently owned the field, came up to me and told me that I had to take the kids elsewhere. When I asked why, he said he was concerned that the kids would injure themselves and that if they did, he’d be held responsible and therefore, vulnerable to a lawsuit.
Sheesh, that was painful to hear.

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1. Isabel
  
  February 25, 2012
  
  Yes, I think this is one of the main drivers of the change.
  
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Lily

February 25, 2012

I loved playing outside when I was younger. Those are moments that formed my childhood. When children are put in an environment that doesn’t encourage them to use there imagination, it’s kind of scary!

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Tim

February 25, 2012

I loved playing outside too. It was awesome. We were all over the neighbourhood 🙂

If you are interested in the hypocrisy involved in raising kids these days, I encourage you to check out Lenore Skenazy’s work. She blogs over at http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/.

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  February 25, 2012
  
  I follow the Free Range parenting blog, of course 🙂
  
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  1. Tim
    
    February 25, 2012
    
    Is there a place on the internet that you don’t frequent? 😀
    
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    1. bloggerclarissa
      
      February 25, 2012
      
      Hee hee hee. 🙂
      
      I’m one of those kids who don’t play outside any more. 🙂
      
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twicerandomly

February 25, 2012

We played outside all the time when we were kids. We invented our own games, which were active and sometimes involved role-playing. I remember taking my son for a walk around my old neighborhood when he was about 4, and he stepped into a rabbit hole. He was so excited, he talked about it for weeks. He still remembers it. No TV program on nature can elicit that amount of interest. At his public school, there were trees, but kids were not allowed to climb them. They were not allowed to hug the teachers or touch each other.

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Evelina Anville

February 25, 2012

I couldn’t agree more. It’s very very important for children to spend time outside– running and inventing games. I don’t think there is anything wrong with children playing video games either but excessive video game usage in children has been linked to obesity and depression. Outdoor play allows children to use their bodies and their imaginations. And, in a slightly different vein, I think that chlldren need private time with their friends—without their parents hovering about them. I think that parents should be near by; and I obviously understand that children need to be safe. But children also need to have their own social world and their own private time. I think that there are too many parenting trends in which parents, with presumably good intentions, invade the private spaces of their children. Children need freedom if they are going to develop……I have actually had somebody tell me recently that my mother ABUSED me as a child because she allowed me, when I was 11 or 12, to walk to the (nearby) beach with my friends. My mother knew where I was; I knew how to swim. The town was safe. And they were wonderful childhood memories……I was just shocked that anybody could possibly see that as abusive.

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  February 25, 2012
  
  “And, in a slightly different vein, I think that chlldren need private time with their friends—without their parents hovering about them.”
  
  – Yes! Ten minutes ago, I was outside and there were three kids of 11 or 12 years of age riding bikes. And, for some strange reason, there was a grandpa hovering over them. Once again, this is the safest area in the world. The only traffic in the street is a police car that slowly makes the rounds.
  
  “I have actually had somebody tell me recently that my mother ABUSED me as a child because she allowed me, when I was 11 or 12, to walk to the (nearby) beach with my friends.”
  
  – This is, indeed, insane. You had a great mother who allowed you to work out how to be independent.
  
  This is how we end up with parents paying for babysitters to stay with their 11-year-old kids.
  
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  1. nominatissima
    
    February 25, 2012
    
    Speaking of babysitting, I’ve got a story for you on parenting obsession being taken to new heights: Like I said earlier in this thread, I used to be a babysitter, I watched over kids who ranged from newborns to age 9, from when I was 12 to when I left for university. I had some basic first aid/safety training, so I knew how to handle an emergency and dress and treat small injuries.
    Recently I thought I’d take a crack at making some extra money by babysitting, and looked around the internet and in local papers to see if there was any interest. The results were rather astounding: The things they were looking for in a babysitter seemed more like something you’d have to do to get a job in a prison, like a criminal background check, a credit check, your job history in the last 5 years, and a variety of courses, not just on safety procedures, but on cooking, “imaginative play”, and God knows what else, as well as a full driver’s license. I actually went back and double-checked to make sure I hadn’t made a stupid mistake and was looking in an advertisement for a full-time nanny. Nope, just a babysitter.
    Whatever happened to paying a neighbourhood kid $8 an hour so you could have a night out with your spouse without your kids flushing your jewellery down the toilet?
    
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    1. bloggerclarissa
      
      February 25, 2012
      
      “The things they were looking for in a babysitter seemed more like something you’d have to do to get a job in a prison, like a criminal background check, a credit check, your job history in the last 5 years, and a variety of courses, not just on safety procedures, but on cooking, “imaginative play”, and God knows what else, as well as a full driver’s license. ”
      
      – I have no words.
      
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ski@ski.com

February 25, 2012

These discussions pop up frequently…one thing I notice is that kids these days seem to have way more allergies. Back in the 70’s when I was a kid, things like peanut allergies were unheard of. Kids need to get outside, run around, and get dirty.

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Jennifer Frances Armstrong

February 25, 2012

Playing outside is always and forever an option, but an overestimation of institutional or formal knowledge and an underestimation of the value of subjective knowledge has made this uncommon.

Playing outside teaches children to know their own limits and to rely upon their own judgments. In other words, it nurtures and develops subjective knowledge.

However “objective” (institutionalized) knowledge is considered far superior and even antagonistic to subjective knowledge. Hence students are discouraged from engaging in activities that involve some risk.

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  February 25, 2012
  
  Exactly.
  
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2. Titfortat
  
  February 26, 2012
  
  Great points Jennifer.
  
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