Awesome article on Nature Play

[treeholm]

Great article, thanks! I may also have to direct my parents to it. I often wonder what happened to teaching our children how to deal with risks rather than just avoiding them. I am old, so I was raised in the area of monkey bars and spinny things at the park, and all sorts of risk. I don't remember being made to be afraid, just taught how to be careful. Bumps and scrapes happened. All three of my own children were born in the 1980s, and while things were becoming a bit more cautious, nothing like today. Only my older two children had any kind of infant seat in the car.... my daughter was in a cloth basket on the back seat of the car, not buckled in! And we drove 4 hours (one way) on the autobahn in Germany many weekends to visit our in-laws in Austria. I shudder now, but that was the norm then. Not that I want to go back to that, I'm a big fan of putting safety first with car seats and high chairs and baby gates, but I don't want to be so fearful that I become afraid of outdoor activity. Surely there is a happy medium... a walk on an uneven terrain in the forest means possible bumps and scrapes, but I'm not going to give up my passion for hiking either. I wear proper shoes, long pants no matter what the weather (because I'm phobic about snakes), don't go near the edge of cliffs, and just enjoy life. If I sprain my ankle it will be inconvenient and someone will remind me that hiking is dangerous. Oh well. I'll deal with it then. I sound like I'm preaching, sorry. I just hate it when people think being outside is too dangerous so they stay inside and play video games. A pet peeve, sorry.

[Inspired by Reggio]

Oh Toregone definitely ad something to your policy and procedures that outdoor time is engaged in ALL YEAR LONG so you do not have to worry about this ... my clients are required to send mud pants, boots and so forth cause unless it is 'thundering / lightening / storming' we go outside even in the light rain and do puddle jumping and other nature fun ~ the worms come out in the rain and the kids LOVE it.