Playing Outside Makes Kids Smarter

I require that they spend every possible moment outside, weather permitting. During the summer, they even have breakfast outside and I kept their potties outside last summer so they wouldn't have to break up their outside time.

This seems like a no-brainer to me. The number of things a child can actually "experience" indoors is very limited. We can simulate part of the experience - talk and read about things, watch them on DVD, have toys representing things, pretend to "be" things - but until they have actually gotten up close and personal with the real thing, they don't really know it. It takes a minute for a 1-year-old to understand "insect" upon meeting one outdoors. How long does it take to get the concept otherwise? Same with many aspects of cause and effect, time, constancy, so many properties of things are not available inside. We provide "clean," "child-safe" materials and surfaces indoors, using a very limited range of colors and textures. For certain muscle groups, physical skills and the confidence they promote also require outdoor play. Add in the cleaner, less-recycled air filling their lungs, the natural sunlight feeding their skin and good spirits . . . I just can't imagine people keeping their kids indoors any more than they absolutely have to.

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My kids play outside almost every day, and they're the only ones in our neighborhood.

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The public school my 3rd grader attends only has P.E./recess twice a week this year as opposed to every day last year. Many of the kids going to her school live in a public housing complex, notin the best area of town, that only has a very small patch of grass where the children can play. The playground and gym at school was the only place for most of those kids to play safely.
My 5th grader started attending a private, university prep school this year. They only have structurized P.E. twice a week but get 30 minutes of recess every day. So, I agree that playtime, time to run off some energy and steam is important for kids.

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This article, along with the one from the other day on that teacher in MN who had the specially-made desks (so the kids could stand up, and had that swing bar for the feet... brilliant!!) should be required reading for EVERY school district, and on up through every level of government involved with education.

It's sickening how we keep ignoring the absolute truth around us - that the more exposure to activity and outdoors that kids have, the healthier they are, both mentally and physically. There have been so many studies that back this up, but it's inconvenient, so we ignore it. It's inconvenient for schools to have recess, because they have to schedule around it, have insurance for it, etc. It's inconvenient to let our kids play outside because of dirt and the dreaded "germs" - that will make them healthier anyway.

ridiculous.

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My suggestion for CommaMamma and others like her is that when the younger sibling is napping, then take out the older sibling. That is how I handled winter with an almost 2 and almost 5. I also look for any indoor play time for example, Chuckie Cheese (lot of great coupons if you sign up your e-mail), McDonald's play area, mall play areas, and air filled party places (they should have open play time). I have a Pump It Up and a Monkey Joe's close to me. The YMCA is also a great way to work out the winter months. It takes work, but you can find places to take your kids to run.

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Los Angeles parents who want to know about places to take their children outside, visit : http://wheredothechildrenplayla.wordpress.com

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I have a story that strikes a chord with the hearts of America, about a time before political correctness hijacked our liberty with restrictions and feel-goodisms for all. The book is called, “Till the Streetlights Came On,” a coming of age story with an innocence that cuts through the hype of the last 50 years.
Today’s children are growing up handicapped by a modern technology intent on giving them a head start on life, while in actuality depriving them of the tools of interaction and imagination. It is to the point that I wonder if children even experience real childhood anymore.

The Changing Culture: I began to realize, as our culture began to change, that the things I used to take for granted were falling out of fashion. Neighbors used to police the neighborhood; not just watch out for their own child. I worried more about a neighbor dragging me home by the earlobe than any whipping my folks might give me. More so, since, if that happened, my punishment would always be ten times worse. If teachers sent me to the office to get paddled – the last thought on my mind was parental consent. I just prayed that the Principal would forget to call my folks and tell them what I did.

Maybe we can’t do that now, but we used to wander far and wide - until the streetlights came on. Neighbors not only knew you, they felt a certain duty to intervene when necessary. Toys were simple – the focus was always on kids to invent the game, not on toys to invent the game. Toys were secondary – we improvised where the toys fell short.

Work: Paper routes were a given, mowing lawns was a given. Every kid did chores, and getting an allowance was seen as a bonus, not a right. Anything over an allowance had to be earned on your own. Christian culture permeated our lives. We didn’t think about all this separation of church and state back then. If anything it meant that church was protected from the state, not the other way around.

The World of Play: The story that unfolds here, about my addiction to play, are irresponsible and dangerous, but also quite humorous. That said, there is a spiritual thread that ties it all together.

So much of our play consisted of taking an idea – often from a movie, and then working sometimes for weeks to perfect our recreation. We built an entire stalag in our backyard in order to play “The Great Escape,” complete with tower, fence line, a barracks converted from an old shed, and a Cooler converted from an earlier game – a rat maze of underground tunnels.

We built a Swiss Family Robinson tree house and a yard full of booby traps in case pirates invaded. This included elaborate swinging death logs, tiger pits, and lumber pile traps hidden in trees, ready to dislodge on any poor slob unfortunate enough to trip the hidden twine across the pathway below.

Other things we did out of expediency. We skate-boarded the storm drains as a means to escape highway traffic. We dug a complex maze of underground tunnels as a defense while playing acorn wars; the play in the tunnels soon took over and became so famous that every child from blocks around showed up – where the biggest, oldest, and fattest kid became a monster and hunted in the black catacombs for any morsel he could feast on (or just beat to a pulp).

Some things we simply wanted to take to another level. Everyone has played “You can’t touch the ground” where you hop from bench to railing, maybe to a tree. We turned it into a whole new saga – creating a competition of crossing whole neighborhoods from block to block, including scaling people’s houses and dealing with watch dogs. Neighbors at the clothesline became orcs; the whole thing created another reality.

Even BB gun wars started off innocent enough. Ours started out as a game of Shooting Gallery, where some poor volunteer would put a sleeping bag over his head and wander around at the other end of the lawn, waiting to feel the pings of steel. When he got hit, he would leap in the air and go “Ding” before flipping around the other way It would soon evolve into a full scale BB gun war with ranger style tactics in the ruins of our “under reconstruction” elementary school (if you think about it, the old auditorium projector booths make wonderful pillboxes)

Character Development: Another thing I came to appreciate later on was the skills I learned, and how much my character was defined in those backyards. My brother will tell you the only reason he survived the Vietnam War was because of the tactics he learned playing army in those empty fields. But, if you think about it, there’s a lot more that can go on out there. The trust between friends; the simple selflessness that occurs when confronted with sharing; or the courage it takes to face up to an older kid – all because you learned that you stand up for your friends – or even your team mate. Or how about steering a poorly made cart down a steep hair-pin curved road? Or how about sacrificing yourself as a POW to the Nazi guards so your buddy can get away? In the underground tunnels, despite the terror of a monster chasing you, you still pushed yourself to succeed in foolhardy attempts for no other reason than to encourage those who were scared out of their wits. We put ourselves out on a limb to stick up for the other guy. We also did a lot of problem solving. Here’s one: how do you make a tiger pit equally dangerous when you have a pit and no tiger? Answer: Use buckets of rocks tied to the saplings that hide the hole. We learned resourcefulness too. What do you do when the best hill for a downhill cart happens to be an alley with no place to pull off and your breaks are practically non-existent – oh and the alley does a 90 degree turn at the bottom into a brick wall? Answer: build a barrier of card board boxes to crash into.

Exercise: There’s almost nothing to be said here except this: an infantry officer recently told me that non-combat related injuries are up over 30% in the last decade, due to non-exercise during childhood – apparently the sudden physical requirement is too much for a never exercised body to overcome. Wow, you can imagine how smooth my segway was into the novel.

Spiritual Consequence: Have you ever wondered about the consequences of a dirt clod fight, or what happens when you get up the nerve to explore the hidden passage behind an attic in the back of your closet – the one that leads to Mr. Skeleton’s secret lair? We didn’t put a tag on it at the time of course, but aren’t they all “Opportunities to grow spiritually?”

I wrote this from the irresponsible child’s point of view. But I wanted to add a dimension to the story, and not just entertain. It needed purpose – because like it or not we discovered purpose in it later on, we just didn’t realize it at the time. So I created a responsible adult who makes sense of the thinking that went on back then. It is Christian in nature but on a philosophical level. .Questions about life is part of growing up too, is it not? So these questions are entertained throughout the story as well – and will even provoke adults to contemplate the ways in which we personally view the world. Here are some examples: exploring the intelligence of cats; who do you fear more – God or the devil; what is the meaning of…death; does chance really exist? Who gives authority authority? Stuff like that. It’s good stuff to talk about. It’s healthy stuff.

So there it is in a nutshell. It’s a book about play, imagination, the bonds of family, and spiritual consequence. It’s humorous, a bit out of control, and very thought provoking. If you think this is something that you’d like to read, I invite you to it.

Author: Stephen A. Langdon
202 E. Fifth Street
Lampasas, TX 76550
steve.langdon@us.army.mil
(830) 220-1321

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