37. Nature Play

Hi. I am Greg and I want to grumble about the state government spending on a program to get kids to play in nature.

There is a significant body of research that shows that experiencing nature can help with physical and mental health.

There are obvious things like activity helping to address childhood obesity and benefits later in life in relation to cardio-vascular health and depression, but evidence suggests that kids who play in nature tend to be more creative, have better focus, problem solving ability, self-awareness and self-discipline.

Wow, all that just from playing outdoors in nature.

As one study concluded, children will be smarter, healthier, happier and better able to get on with others when they have regular opportunities for free and unstructured play outdoors.

So why am I grumbling? I am grumbling because we appear to have reached a point where such a program is actually needed.

The stats are appalling: about one in four kids have never climbed a tree, or gone bush-walking, 17% have never visited a national park, and 11% have not played in a garden or a park in the last year.

What is going on there? Is the most complex and dynamic interactive system on the planet – i.e. nature – being replaced by the pale two-dimensional interactivity of computer games, or has nature simply been concreted out of our urban landscape?

Or have the lawyers and safety bureaucrats stolen childhood without a thought about the consequences? Someone might get hurt, someone might get sued, stranger danger – bring out the cotton wool. Where was the cost-benefit analysis of the risk of broken arms verse the retardation of learning, or alienation from the place we live?

But that leads to my second grumble. If these stats are correct and the next generation is indeed living dangerously by living indoors, then we certainly need an organisation like the recently established, Nature Play SA with their list of 51 things to do before you are 12 (it was a long time ago, but I reckon I would have done about 35 of them).

But it is one small community organisation. If we are really going to introduce the sensations of the natural world to a cyborg generation, we need more resources for programs like Nature Play, but we also need to re-think how we regulate childhood.

Yes, even a lefty can argue for deregulation.

I am Greg and I am grumbling.

This Grumble can be heard online or by podcast.
First Broadcast: 6 May 2014