The Power of Green Time

 
Watch kids playing outside with no rules or coaches to govern their behaviour and you will see the magical unfolding of bodies swinging, stooping, throwing, racing, and twirling in space.

A study of 452 parents of children diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder found that one hour of unchecked movement outdoors calms and focuses kids. The researchers call this play ‘green time’ (American Journal of Public Health, 2004). The researchers asked parents to rate how various activities affected their child’s behaviour. They found that overall, the activities in natural settings, such as a park, playground, or backyard, seemed to have a calming effect and increased the ability to focus more than did any indoor place. It works for all people.

Previous studies have shown that when adults are attention-fatigued from close concentration on a task indoors, if they take a break outside, fatigue eases and they grow more alert. Some scientists speculate that it is a residual after-effect from our hunter-gatherer forebears, who had to be instantly alert outdoors in order to survive. In the end we shouldn’t need reasons and research for our kids to have unstructured playtime outdoors. The answer is there in our child—in the flushed cheeks, the breathless telling of discoveries, the sweet fatigue at the end of the day. Now we’ve proven it is good medicine.


Green Time ideas

Wheelbarrow: a real child-sized wheelbarrow is sturdy enough for heavy loads or a passenger. They teach the concepts of balance and displacement.

Tractor-size inner tube: available inexpensively at tyre supply stores, inner tubes are fun to sit on, fun to roll, and they can be used as a sled pulled across snow.   

Cardboard appliance box: These oversize boxes are often given away at appliance stores. Grocery stores also have watermelon boxes with lids that work beautifully. Cut windows and a door to make a fort. Your child can ‘paint’ the fort with buckets of water and sponge paintbrushes, or use real paints or felt-tip pens.   

Your child can tape cut out pictures from magazines or old family photographs to the walls. Put an old sleeping bag inside for a delightfully different place to nap.

Ladder: a short 60 or 120 cm A-frame stepladder works dandy as a step up to trees or as a support for a tarp tent. A taller rung ladder can be used as an obstacle course run when it is laid flat (think football drills), or consider a short rung ladder (150cm) with hooks on the end to hook over a fence or monkey bars. Remove the lower rungs to make it safe for toddlers, who should not play with ladders.

Tarp: make a tent, a water slide, a drag sled for leaves, a curtain for puppet shows, or walls for a fort.

Water play: put together an outdoor water play-box with watering cans, sprinklers, plastic buckets, spray bottles, squirt guns, spray nozzles, a hose, and lengths of 20mm PVC pipe and assorted joints (Ts, 3-ways, elbows, etc.). Buy the pipe at hardware stores or home building centres and have your child saw the pipe into manageable lengths with a hacksaw (a hacksaw is a great saw to learn on—demonstrate the proper technique wearing eye protection of course!). Suggest a network of pipe around the yard using the joints for turns and then use the hose to fill the new water system with water.

Scrap lumber: most building supply stores have a bin of scrap lumber they give away for free. Make regular stops to check out new supplies. Provide a lightweight hammer and nails. If your child needs a few ideas, suggest a birdhouse, a dollhouse, or a bird feeder.  Then turn her loose and do not offer any advice or feedback unless you are asked!  Remember—the most awkward and homely birdhouse made entirely by the child herself has more merit and power than a kit or an adult supervised project!

Sand pile: washed construction sand can be ordered very inexpensively by the yard [metre] from a gravel supply company (look under ‘sand and gravel’ in the Yellow Pages). There are a variety of ways you can present the sand. It can be as simple as a pile in a remote corner of the yard, or a below ground-level built-in box on the deck (easy clean up-—simply sweep the sand back into the box!). You can also use a child’s plastic swimming pool as a sand box (punch drain holes with a large nail in the bottom of the pool before adding the sand), or get a used tractor tyre, available at tyre supply stores—usually for free. Enlarge the opening by cutting off the rim, then fill with sand. No matter how you place the sand, your child will spend many contented hours playing in it.

Nancy Blakey is the author of The Mudpies Activity Books. Her latest book is Go Outside! Interested in more projects? Visit her website