Prioritising outdoor play

Prioritising outdoor play

By Tanith Carey

If you look back at your days at nursery and primary school, you doubtless remember them as the most carefree of your lives.

Your time was probably spent sitting

cross-legged on the floor, chanting songs and listening to stories before rushing outside for playtime with your friends. Today, the nursery and school ‘curriculum’ is much more structured, with schools feeling they have to cut back on break-time to keep up with national targets.

Recent research from University College, London shows that primary school pupils have 45 minutes less break time a week than in 1995, while secondary pupils have 65 minutes less. All this comes at a cost because play has always been a key element of education.

By taking away this time, we diminish our children’s ‘survival’ skills, as well as reducing the time they need to stay fit. Beyond that, we also hinder them from learning something just as important – the value of friendship. When kids play together, they learn how to compromise, make up rules, think creatively, respond to important facial and verbal cues, and discover what behaviour is acceptable and what is not.

So what can we do to help kids find more time to socialise and play together?

Prioritise more time outside When UNICEF asked children what they wanted for happiness they named time with families, time outdoors and having friends. Yet according to a study by Play England, while 73% of children ages seven to 12 surf the internet unsupervised, 42% are not allowed to play in their local park without an adult.

Fix more outdoor play dates Research shows that when children play together, they have more fun and squabble less if they spend most of the time outdoors, discovering and having adventures together.

Get together with neighbours Get to know other families living nearby and look out for local places for play. Get permission from your local authority to turn your road into a play street by closing it to traffic.

List their ambitions Whether it’s making dens, camping overnight, creating a beach sculpture from drift wood or planting a tree, devise a list with your child of all the achievable things they want to do.

The outdoors is free Just a walk through the park can yield everyday discoveries. Introduce fun activities like barkrubbing or leaf collecting. The more time you spend outside with your children, the more confident they will become in being outside, and the more faith you will have in their abilities to keep safe.

Teach friendship skills Sometimes kids need help with their friendship skills – set up role-play games so that they can learn to see other’s perspectives, and playdates so that they can practice.

Find more ways to help children learn friendship skills in Tanith’s new book The Friendship Maze: How to Help Your Child Navigate Their Way to Positive and Happier Friendships, published by Summersdale and available from Amazon.