With
spring arriving before anyone’s expectation (except perhaps Wiarton Willie),
children again feel the call of the outdoors. Meanwhile, horrible revelations
trickle out from the Stafford murder trial, feeding parental nightmares of
assault or kidnap. As father to two young girls, I share those concerns on a
visceral level.
While
there will always be a need to guard and street proof our children, we must
keep our fears in perspective. If we keep children inside or shuttled around in
cars, instead of outside and walking to and from activities, we risk doing them
even greater harm.
As
famed nature artist Robert Bateman noted when he spoke near Barrie last fall,
although we resist this realization, most child abuse comes at the hands of
relatives or family acquaintances – even in the Stafford tragedy. Rare is the
child harmed by a true stranger. Keeping children inside can’t protect them
from those who already have access, and only feeds a false sense of security.
Sitting
in front of a video screen instead of playing outdoors leads to a variety of
harms, including lack of concentration, exposure to violence or inappropriate
sexuality, or even the growing cadre of online sexual predators. Supervising
kids’ internet use 24/7 is beyond even the most involved parent. And of course
physical inactivity feeds the obesity epidemic of our modern age.
Lack
of outdoor time is not just physically unhealthy, but a mental problem we are
just starting to understand. Termed “Nature Deficit Disorder”, this goes beyond
failure do develop respect and appreciation for our natural world. It can also
feed attention deficits, depression, or other mood disorders. Time spent freely
exploring and playing in fields and forests is of huge benefit to a developing
child’s psyche. Exposure to nature reduces stress and anxiety, improves grades,
and creates real childhood memories for a lifetime.
Keeping
children safe outside is not as hard as you might think. In addition to
teaching about “stranger danger” and whom to contact in an emergency, the
simple buddy system is remarkably effective. A lone child (or teenager, or even
adult) may be a tempting victim to the feared roaming predator, but a group of
two or three is an almost impossible target, which is why you don’t hear of
drive-by group kidnappings.
Growing
up in a small farming town, I was never far from a field or forest and can’t
even count how much time I spent outdoors. In today’s urban environment, I
struggle to provide my children with even a fraction of that amount of nature
exposure. Yet this year I’m determined they will experience nature not just in
books or zoos or documentaries, but in their own hands, eyes, and minds.
Written for my Root Issues column in the Barrie Examiner, published under the title "Exposure to nature reduces stress, anxiety"
Erich Jacoby-Hawkins is a director of the
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