Most parents and caretakers understand that getting your children to spend time outdoors carries specific benefits. After all, it makes a certain amount of intuitive sense: smelling the grass and being surrounded by trees can significantly improve your mood and add some joy to your life. The same is true for children. In fact, the benefits of outdoor time go well beyond physical fitness. That’s why encouraging outdoor play is so important. 

Unfortunately, it’s not always easy to get your kids out of the house. Screens exert a lot of influence over children’s behavior. In a way, that’s understandable: there’s a lot of interesting and engaging content on those screens (and much of that content is designed specifically to hold our attention). But excess screen time, especially at a young age, can have detrimental impacts on cognitive, emotional, and social development.

While simply limiting screen time can help, adding outdoor play to the equation can also have significant benefits. For parents and caretakers, successfully incorporating time outside into your daily life means better understanding why outdoor activities are so important, learning how to introduce outdoor activities, and deploying effective strategies for reducing screen time in favor of outdoor experiences.

Why Nature is So Good for Your Brain

In part because it is often emphasized in national media campaigns, many people assume that outdoor play is encouraged primarily because of its physical benefits. And to be fair, the physical benefits of outdoor activity are very real and they are an important factor in encouraging a healthy lifestyle. But it’s important to note that outdoor play has also been shown to have significant benefits for cognitive and emotional health in children of all age groups. Some of those benefits include the following:

• Improved academic outcomes: Studies have found that children who spend more time outdoors will also experience generally better academic outcomes. Additionally, outdoor play has been shown to boost cognitive development in children, which can also aid in improving academic outcomes.

• More creativity: Outdoor spaces are by their nature a lot less structured than their indoor counterparts. Which means children are better able to exercise their creativity in a less restrictive environment. This type of creative practice and play often leads to stronger creativity skills later in life.

• Reduced stress: Just as it can with adults, stress can be an issue for children across all ages. Spending time outdoors can help soothe stress responses and encourage the brain to produce various stress reducing chemicals. This reduced stress can make it easier for kids to concentrate in school and have fun throughout the day.

• Boosts in social and emotional learning: Spending more time with sky and less time with screens has also been shown to boost social and emotional learning skills in kids. This means that children who spend more time outdoors are more likely to better understand their own emotions and get along with their peers throughout the school day and beyond.

While all of these benefits (and more) are exceptionally important to your child’s development, there’s one particular boon that should not be forgotten: being outside can just be fun! And that fun is a benefit in and of itself.

Simple Outdoor Activities for Kids of All Ages

Sometimes you know you need to get your kids outside, you’re just not quite sure what to do when you get there. For parents and caretakers trying to figure out how to fill that outdoor time, consider the following activities:

• Go for a hike: Find a park with designated trails or paths and take your family for a hike! You can even bring some sandwiches and turn your family hike into a fun little picnic.

• Geocaching: Geocaching is a fun activity in which you know the map coordinates of a “cache” (usually a small trinket of some kind), and it’s your job to find this hidden little treasure. Geocaching sites exist throughout parks, cities, towns–basically anywhere there are people!

• Scavenger hunt: Make fun discoveries out in nature with a little scavenger hunt! Eventually you can turn this into something like bird watching.

• Play with sidewalk chalk: Who doesn’t love to draw outside? Playing with sidewalk chalk can get your kids outdoors and feeling artistic.

• Play with water balloons: A water balloon fight is something that appeals to kids of all ages (though older children may be a little more intense). Make sure everyone is okay with water and getting wet before you start, but then have fun!

• Have a campfire and make s’mores: This one requires adult supervision, but a campfire is always a fun time! And s’mores are a tasty way to end the day.

• Stargazing: Not all the outdoor activities need to happen during the day. Sometimes, going outside and looking at the stars is all the activity you need.

The important thing is to find something that works for you and your family. Work within your kids’ interests and find activities that genuinely appeal to your children.

How to Reduce Screen Time and Build Traditions

Getting your child outside once may feel like a feat. But the real trick is to build lifelong habits and traditions. To do this, you need to make the outdoors appealing (and, ideally, more appealing than screentime). In some cases, families can create structure around screentime, ensuring that devices are only used in specific instances or for specific durations. Ensuring that outdoor play is genuinely appealing can also help limit the draw of screens and devices.

Many families will also create traditions around outdoor experiences. Maybe after every hike you go and get ice cream together. Or when you go for a walk you also check in on some nearby friends. Anything you can do to make the outdoor experience more enjoyable will help the outdoors compete with screens.

Encouraging your child to spend more time playing outdoors can have significant and long-lasting benefits. If you have questions about why outdoor play is important, talk to your child’s pediatrician during their regular wellness visit. If your child is a patient here at Children’s Healthcare Associates, you can make an appointment at our Northbrook or Chicago offices today!