Let’s consider some of the rewards we gain from spending time outside… our creativity, our propensity for passion, the longevity of our lives. While technological advances have changed civilization in many positive ways, people are spending less time outside than ever before. By reintroducing children to nature and creating opportunities to spend plenty of time outdoors, mothers can proactively remind children to tap into their powerful connection with Mother Earth.

Direct Benefits of Outdoor Play
While outdoor play doesn’t directly help children run faster, jump farther, or climb higher, it grants them the freedom to run as fast as they can, climb a bit higher, and try all kinds of activities that aren’t possible indoors. As children stretch beyond limits imposed by an interior play space, they step onto a stage more conducive for developing athletic skills and abilities… the great outdoors.

Experiences with the natural world offer an abundance of benefits, ranging from peaceful serenity to awe-inspiring power, delivering restorative infusions of emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual healing. Children who develop and foster their connection with nature are typically better-behaved, more likely to show kindness, and less likely to struggle with emotional problems.

Sunlight synchronizes our brains with the natural rhythms of day and night, engaging the timeless programming of our circadian rhythm; our brain’s “inner clock” that regulates the sleep-wake cycle. As nighttime approaches, people whose brains have been exposed to sunlight more readily produce melatonin (the hormone that causes sleepiness), influencing the human body to shift gears from “daily grind” to “nightly rest.” Meanwhile, artificial lighting can suppress or delay melatonin release. By encouraging outdoor play and limiting exposure to screen time during the 60-90 minutes leading up to lights-out, we’re likely to get a better night’s sleep.

As our skin absorbs sunlight, our bodies create Vitamin D, supporting bone health, lowering blood pressure, preventing disease, and promoting good mental health. While long hours in dim lighting can impair our ability to learn, bright light helps us concentrate and enhances learning capabilities.

Can We Make Playing Outside Cool Again?
Before the digital hooks of screen time hijacked recreational activities of yesteryear, people of all ages and backgrounds played outside, creating excellent opportunities for social learning. Today, we drive past empty basketball courts when it is 72 degrees outside and sunny. For old timers who remember the world before the internet, it’s like something out of The Twilight Zone. Imagine the immeasurable long-term benefits to the social construct from a global movement of children putting away electronic devices to just go outside and play with their friends!

Children who spend lots of time playing outside are typically less stressed and more cheerful, both of which make it easier to make friends and maintain friendships.

Notice Nature
Not all outdoor spaces are created equally. Just being outside an apartment building isn’t nearly the same as looking out from the top of a mountain peak over vast canyons or luscious forest canopies. Take a moment to appreciate the surreal magnificence of amazing natural events; a brilliant sky, a roaming hawk hunting silently overhead, the wind ripping across a grove of trees—frenzied leaves fluttering in the breeze. When we step outside the door in the morning, take pause to taste and smell the air, listen to the birds singing, gaze at the clouds, allow our spirit to reconnect with the universe. Our children tend to value what we value, teach them about these moments. Show them the beauty of the natural world and they will likely follow in our footsteps, caring for the world they will ultimately inherit.

Engage Nature
Movements and textures found outside widen children’s sensory experiences, offering a hands-on understanding of how things work. Running through a puddle makes a splash, stomping through mud let’s children feel a squish. As children grow older, introduce activities with increased levels of intensity, such as hiking, fishing, sailing, and skiing.

When it comes to free-spirited engagement with nature, children often hear, “No, don’t throw that rock,” “No, get out of that tree,” “No, don’t play over there- you’ll get dirty!” At the teensiest risk of injury, well-meaning helicopter parents forbid children from taking chances. By stopping playfully engaged children in their tracks, we plant seeds of fear, inhibit them from learning to appropriately navigate risk, and effectively stunt their growth. The bigger risk is NOT letting children enjoy free-spirited engagement.

Let’s support the innocent curiosity children have with the natural world by watching from a safe distance, zooming in (only when necessary—which shouldn’t be very often), and zooming back out again to let them do their thing. If we don’t encourage children to test themselves, how will they learn? Rather than instilling worry, let’s inspire the self-confidence and courage they’ll need to overcome challenges. While mothers should never abandon efforts to enforce safety rules, shouldn’t we shift our mindset from “as safe as possible” to “as safe as necessary?”

If we have a yard that gives us fertile soil, consider planting a garden. When children are involved in planting, watering, harvesting, and of course eating delicious home-grown fruits and vegetables, this can be an amazing experience they’ll never forget!

Summary
Let’s be real. Technology can be super cool. Nevertheless, mothers should forbid tech from severing our family’s connection with the great outdoors. Now more than ever, hold close to the words of American author, Richard Louv, “All children need nature. Not just the ones whose parents appreciate nature. Not only those children of a certain economic class or culture or set of abilities. Every child.”

“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” —Romans 1:20 NIV