Is outdoor play risky?

I recall like it was yesterday a moment outside at my new preschool. I'd only just started at the preschool after about six years working in community based early childhood centres. I had been appointed to a school in the Mt Druitt area and was very excited at the prospect of working in a preschool within my local area. My leaders at Fairfield Council had warned me not to go, as if it was some sort of defection. "Don't go to the Department, they'll change you. You'll lose your early childhood roots". I assured them that that would never happen to me. They wouldn't be able to change me, I'd change the department! Their laughter still rings in my ears. 

So off I went with great confidence that I had something to offer, that my early childhood roots would nurture me throughout my career. As it turns out, I was right, but they did have a point. It's been a hard journey and I've often met with resistance, doubt, conflict and have regularly found my philosophy undermined. Most times I managed to hold on to what I believed was best for small children based on my training and experience, as this story will testify. 

We had a small tree at the preschool. It wasn't the best climbing tree in the world but it was the only one we had and if the children wanted to climb it I helped them and supported them. One day the Deputy Principal was walking past and saw a child in the tree. He was shocked at what he saw was inappropriate behaviour by the child and sternly told him to get down immediately, that tree climbing was not permitted in the school. I went to the child's defense and explained that climbing the tree was encouraged in the preschool. "We climb trees here" I informed him. I recall his face very clearly as it transformed from complete confidence in his care of duty and supervisory right to complete shock and disbelief.  I saw his jaw drop and his eyes bulge as his face reddened. "Are you serious?" he asked. "Climbing trees is dangerous. Children aren't allowed to climb trees at this school". I explained the advantages of climbing trees. The gross and fine motor development, the opportunities for imaginative play, the chance for kids to connect to the natural environment. I didn't know then about the importance of allowing children to manage their own risks, but perhaps I had an instinct for that too. I certainly knew of the intrinsic joy you can get from tree climbing, as my childhood was full of it. I think this was probably the first time that he'd been confronted with such strange ideas in education. Keep in mind I'm going back over twenty years. The story has a happy ending, and the tree continued to be climbed and enjoyed for many years, with not one serious accident. There were the odd bumps and one child got their foot stuck and needed to be lifted from an upside down position, but bumps and bruises and falls can be advantageous too. It teaches children about managing risk. 

Since embarking on this journey I've often found myself defending managed and calculated risk. I just want to add a blog entry in defense of trees. Yes we need to keep children safe, but let's get it in  perspective. What are the benefits? 

The types of indoor activities that children are engaging in more and more are in actual fact more dangerous that tree climbing. The impacts of long hours on the couch, screen time and passive activity indoors is leading to many more impacts on our children's health. More people die from heart disease, diabetes and cancer than from falling out of trees, not to mention the impacts of childhood obesity. 

You might find the following article of interest: 

Ben Klasky 

President and CEO, IslandWood

 

Your Couch Is Far More Dangerous Than You Think

Posted: 04/17/2014 3:34 pm EDT Updated: 04/17/2014 3:59 pm

Why are we so afraid to let our kids play outside, when we know that such activity is vital for their physical and mental health? Our fears are so extreme that in a few cases, parents have been arrested for allowing their children to play outside unattended. My mother would have been sent to jail on an almost daily basis.

Until recently, it was common for kids to come home from school, grab a snack, and head outside to play in the neighborhood. This was true for me growing up in suburban Minneapolis, and also for my parents who grew up in L.A. and Detroit. Even in the nation's city of cities -- New York -- children once played in the streets after school. There were games like stickball, hopscotch, and a wild version of tag called Ringoleavio. Author Bill Bryson jests about parenting styles from his childhood: "I knew kids who were pushed out the door at 8 in the morning, and not allowed back until 5 unless they were on fire or actively bleeding."

I believe this dramatic change in parenting stems from fears of what I've dubbed the Three A's -- Animals, Abduction, and Accidents. But our fears greatly exaggerate the risk of playing outside, and have the unattended side effect of increasing the chances of our kids developing serious health threats. Consider the facts:

Animal Attacks: As their natural territories shrink, top predators are living closer to our urban centers (not far from my home, cougars have been found in Seattle city parks). But in all of North America, we can expect fewer than three people to die each year due to bears, cougars, coyotes, and wolves -- combined. Some researchers believe that our fear of these animals is innate, dating back to prehistoric times, when humans fell prey to bear-sized hyenas and saber-tooth cats. Today, however, the chances are miniscule of meeting our demise at the paws or teeth of a large carnivore.

Abduction: The U.S. experiences about 115 "stereotypical kidnappings" annually -- involving someone the child doesn't know, and in which the child is held at least overnight, transported a distance, and killed or ransomed. This is truly scary stuff. At the same time, such kidnappings are incredibly rare... only a little more common than getting struck by lightning.

Accidents: Each year, the U.S. can expect to see the following number of "outdoor" deaths:

5,100 car or bike accidents

3,500 swimming and boating drownings

1,000 plant, mushroom, and pesticide poisonings

fewer than 500 other accidents from bee stings, horseback riding, overheating, hunting, lightning, playground falls, skiing/snowboarding, snake bites, and trees falling on people.

Adding up all these statistics, we can predict slightly over 10,000 outdoor deaths this year. This is a small portion of the 2.5 million people who die annually in the U.S. -- over half of them from heart disease, cancer, and diabetes alone. If your chances of dying outside measured four blocks long, your chances of dying from these three illnesses would be longer than running a marathon! And active outdoor time has been repeatedly documented to reduce our chances of getting all three of these deadly diseases. We are exchanging a small amount of risk for more certain health threats caused by a sedentary lifestyle.

Our neighborhoods have additional threats to children's safety, including gang violence, poor air quality, and lack of access to green spaces. These are complex issues that can't be solved by simply encouraging parents to send their kids outside. We have tough work to do such as monitoring parks, passing legislation to clean the air, and demanding quality urban planning. However, if we don't begin to address some of our most basic fears of getting kids outside (the 3 A's), we are unlikely to successfully tackle these more difficult obstacles.

Much of our fears stem from 24/7 access to sensationalist headlines. We are barraged by stories of polar bear attacks, kidnappings, and playground deaths. When you combine the abundance of scary news flashes with the psychological phenomena known as the "recency effect" (we remember best what we saw most recently), it is no wonder that we are afraid to let our kids run around outside.

As a father, I want to protect my kids but my answer can't be keeping them indoors away from harm. Instead, I am focusing my energy on helping them be safer outside. I want my children to be crystal clear on what to do when encountering strangers, wildlife, and dangerous plants. I'm teaching them how to avoid street traffic, and how to properly wear helmets and life vests. By encouraging them to play safely outside, I'm protecting them from a host of much bigger risks -- and they're having a lot more fun too.

Follow Ben Klasky on Twitter: www.twitter.com/benklasky

MORE: Missing Persons Play Children Safety Nature Cougar Environment Animal Attacks Parenting Cougars Bears

The actual article can be found from the following link: 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ben-klasky/the-couch-is-far-more-dan_b_5153066.html?utm_hp_ref=tw

Parents perspectives third installment. School concerns

I've been home for more than a week now. Elizabeth, a colleague at my office told me of a German word that has no translation in English and it intrigued me to hear it. We are used to the term 'home sick', which I may have felt a bit at the beginning of my trip. I certainly felt teary as I left my husband at the gate and went through to board the plane that first morning. The term that Elizabeth shared with me is 'fenweh'. I love this word. It means 

missing a place you have visited in your travels and the closest literal translation we have is 'distant sickness'. I think I have this. I am really missing the places I visited, the people I met and the experiences I was enjoying. I'm glad to be back home with my husband and my dog Danni, and Being back at work is great. I love my job and I'm very busy, consistently challenged and I enjoy the collaboration with colleagues, but I'm fenweh. I'm sad about all that I left behind. 

Anyway, that's not what this post is about. I want to make a last comment about the parents perspectives that were shared with me. Tonight I want to talk about the concerns that parents had about schooling. My experience in Australia when you ask about how children might settle into school after their prior to school experiences is often along the same theme. I hear regularly that children are not being prepared for the rigors and formalities of school, that the Early Years Learning Framework does not make children ready for school. I answer with the same response each time, that the EYLF is not about preparation for school, it's about fostering dispositions for learning, life long learning that will set children up for life. It's always frustrating for me to find myself bailed up in a school car park or in the corner of a staff room to be told that we are getting it wrong. The research and evidence around what makes up a quality early childhood learning environment doesn't seem to be valued within our school systems and is a constant source of professional angst for me. 

So when I asked parents about this on my travels I was pleasantly surprised to hear their responses. In reading the comments below you can see that what worries them is that school is expecting too much of their children at too early an age, and that what they are getting from the prior to school experience is a vital and treasured aspect of their early years, based on a value for children being small and free of formal structures of learning. 

"I saw D go from a confident child who was interested in his surroundings  and who was really keen to contribute to his surroundings to this little soul who's voice wasn't useful anymore. Nobody wanted to know what his opinion was. On a day to day level he had to do what he was told"

"They are at their most imaginative at four and by ten they need to conform"

"He just has a different take that they don't really get at school but maybe one day he'll be the person who will think up new ideas and bring humanity forward. If he doesn't I don't care but I just hope that we don't squash that out of him by undermining his confidence and taking the ability to think differently away from him."

"They don't want people to think differently they just want them to do the same as everyone else. He was forever cutting things out. Or coloring in or joining the dots. There was no free thinking. Schools have to get everyone on the same level"

"There are years ahead of him being in a regimented classroom. That they can still be babies means such a lot to me."

There was also an attitude that the quality of their children's early years experiences gave them fantastic foundations for future challenges and learning . The following comment demonstrates this feeling:

"As I write this, we've just found out that M has his school place for September, which fills me with mixed emotions. I will be so sad to see him leave the nursery yet I know he's had the best possible start by having been there. 

And then there was the excitement that parents were able to share their knowledge of early childhood to the school. At Boldon it is often the parents who question the school as to how their programs are adapted to the individual needs of their child. Parents were able to see the value of schools introducing play based pedagogies that utilize natural elements:

"My other son attends the reception class in the school at the moment and it seems the teachers there are starting to embrace the outdoor classroom idea- this week they are building a mud kitchen in the garden!"

This last comment leads me to the final aspect that seemed to be a common theme as I interviewed parents. That in connecting with nature and being given the freedom to play and explore, children were receiving quality early childhood education. The comments below demonstrate this:

"It's a much more natural way for children to learn and the longer they can keep the better, because as soon  as they get to school they beat it out of them"

"Teachers need to see that outdoors is a classroom too, not just a novelty. They would learn from the children when they can see that children can think more freely being outdoors"

"The determination! M's first day we had a shockingly cold winter. It was Never above minus 8. M was little, only two. We got her clothes and dropped her off at 9 and picked her up with her cheeks rosy and eyes sparkling and she just wasn't cold. They are hardy kids. They get half the sniffles than D was getting at school."

"When we had driving rain for a month I asked M if she was getting bored with it and she said 'eye mummy, it's just so muddy', but she went each day and was happy to go."

 

"It's going against the grain a bit, I rarely see them inside the class. That's good. The world Is a classroom, being in the open air, being outdoors"

"In going to the woods, my children really enjoyed the 'adventure' of getting ready, taking their own snack, experimenting with the space, the pond, the trees and everything"

I saw that parents had very real insight into the value that their children were getting from being outdoors in natural play environments. Is this perhaps because such programs attract parents with such beliefs and ideas? Or is it because the centres do a fantastic job in communicating the benefits to parents? Can such ideas take hold in Australia?

I guess I'll leave it at that for now. The photo below shows how happy Danni and I were to see each other on my return. She loves me a lot. 

Parent perspectives second installment: The way of teaching

I am pleased to say that by now, Friday, I'm completely recovered from the jet lag that turned my feet to cement and the insides of my head to straw. I've had two full nights of sleep where I haven't woken at two in the morning with the feeling that it was time for breakfast or lunch. I'm back! 

To continue my writings on parent perspectives, below are some of the comments that parents made regards the teaching practice and philosophy of the outdoor nurseries.

Auchlone 

"You can see how ideas just evolve. There will always be different things developing for the children and the ideas come from the children"

"It's not this pristine environment. The children can get dirty, muddy and it's ok"

"The things they do are just useful, like making soup. They're not making some ridiculous easter bonnet nonsense. It's useful stuff. It's not done for them, they all learn about this together. They're involved from the beginning of the process. Not just a stir. They are totally involved. And half the time the teachers don't know what they're doing either. I love that. They'll get there and they'll all work out together what they're going to do, they'll trial things. Like, let's see what happens when you dye eggs with beetroot and nettles. There's such excitement form discovering things for yourself."

Boldon

"The way they shape them as kids will impact them as they get older. If they grow up being told don't do that, don't do this, well it doesn't give them a chance to think about their decisions. Here they are given confidence. The  learning development phase up to five is the ideal learning time."

"When we first started here the staff were so supportive of him and me, constantly keeping me updated and asking what can we try now, what do you think, how do you think it's working. Giving me the odd phone call to reassure me that he was ok"

"There are great relationships. The staff are so approachable, we are on first name terms and when we arrived that first time they Introduced this as our home. Sue told us it was going to be the children's home. I was so excited. This is a second home to them and to me. All the children know who I am and while there's a professional balance, I'm noticed as a person and welcomed."

"We can come here as a family and watch them play. I'm quite emotional about it. I love it here. I'm excited to come through this door every morning"

Secret Garden

"It's important to me that she can just be. She's got opportunities to be in tune with nature like I did when I was little."

Cowgate:

"I feel really fortunate that he has such a magical place to go where he can learn so much and not even realise it."

These words are straight from the parents that I interviewed. They were from all different walks of life and had often had previous experience with regular nurseries. Their support for each centre is a strong indication of the impact that these nurseries have on families. I was greatly impressed with what parents knew about early learning and that this type of freedom, autonomy, connection to nature was in their children's best interests. I know that many of the nurseries work very closely with parents. In the case of Boldon, parents are invited to workshops to learn about the learning that their children will be engaged in. At Auchlone parents are often invited to social functions at the centre. 

It's got me thinking about the ways we invite parents to be involved in our preschools, and by involved I don't mean the usual attendance at meetings or volunteering in the garden. I mean real, authentic involvement. The comments above indicate to me that parents are in tune with the teaching philosophy of the nurseries I visited, even to the extent of seeing them as a second home. 

So my question for you today is this. What sort of involvement do your parents have in your preschool? Do they know about the philosophy enough to believe in it as you do? What can we be doing to engage parents in what we do?