Outdoor activity has measurable, positive impact on child development, studies conclude

Spring has come. It’s warm and still light after supper. Do your kids go outside to play? When I was a kid, that was the first thing on my mind, but kids today are just as likely to prefer indoor play.

Like me, you probably spent much of your childhood outside. My folks drew boundaries at the end of the street and the gully in back. My brothers and I were free to wander at will within those boundaries. Kids today are seldom allowed to free-range as we did, and studies show this may be putting them at risk.

In this generation, health problems (obesity, diabetes, allergies, asthma) and mental problems (depression, attention deficit disorder, hyperactivity) are rife among children. Preschoolers take anti-depressants. School shootings are all too common. Adolescents cut themselves to relieve stress. Kids seem angry and disconnected.

Child advocates are relating these disorders to a lack of time spent with nature. Its an idea that has roots in the 1984 book by Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson entitled “Biophilia.” His premise is that humans have a powerful need to connect with nature. Living entirely indoors has severe social, psychological and spiritual implications.

A growing number of studies support this idea. It has been shown that time outdoors reduces stress and improves cognition in children. Outdoor activity raises standardized test scores and develops skills in critical thinking. In one University of Texas study, kids using natural playgrounds played more creatively, and more cooperatively, than those who played on asphalt playgrounds.

Sorry, soccer-moms: organized sports provide good exercise, but they can be stressful and don’t encourage creativity or self-direction. A game of tag allows kids to decide for themselves what is ‘fair’ and who is it ‘it’. Negotiating their own rules allows kids to practice adult roles.

There are many reasons that kids stay in. Parents are fearful of abduction, UV rays, traffic, and tick bites. They lack time to supervise, so kids are raised virtually under house arrest. It used to be city kids who lacked exposure to the outdoors. Now suburbanites, seeking to protect property values, restrict access through neighborhood covenants that prohibit basketball hoops, tree houses or even chalk drawing on the sidewalk.

Forget about romping with an unleashed dog.

Last year two Massachusetts schools made headlines when they banned running on the playground for fear of legal repercussions if a child should trip and fall. According to Education Daily, fear of litigation and pressure to achieve has prompted 40 percent of the nation’s schools to cancel, or consider canceling, recess altogether.

Our children’s mental and physical health is deeply connected to their relationship with nature says Richard Louv, author of “Last Child in the Woods.” Left to a flat-screened world, they do not use all their senses, and their brains do not develop as intended. They also miss out on the pure joy of being in the wind, waves, or snow.

Louv is spearheading a “no-child-left-inside” movement to promote exposure to nature. It is gathering momentum. The National Park Service, the Audubon Society and others have implemented new programs aimed at getting kids outdoors.

Kids who have never known anything different will watch TV and text message each other all day. Today’s wired kids can access loads of information about nature, but that is no substitute for the first-hand experience of turning over rocks to see what is wriggling underneath

So get the kids outside. Stomp in a few puddles your self. Studies show the benefits of life in nature apply at all ages. Who couldn’t use a little stress reduction?

Kristin Krause, a mother of three boys, is an adjunct biology professor at Bates College. She lives in Auburn .