Saturday, September 06, 2003, 12:00 a.m. Pacific

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Outdoor play has lost some of its appeal

By Mary Beth Faller
The Stamford Advocate

"Go outside and don't come in until dinner time!"

Many baby boomers heard those words on a summer day when mom, who likely didn't work outside the home, wanted the kids out of her hair.

Fewer children hear that admonishment today.

In fact, in a random survey of more than 800 mothers, 71 percent reported that when they were young, they played outdoors more often than indoors, while only 26 percent said their own kids do that nowadays.

Go out and play Some results of the Wisk Play Day survey of more than 800 mothers, authored by Rhonda L. Clements, a professor of physical education and sports sciences at Hofstra University: • 85 percent of moms agreed that children today play outdoors less often than a few years ago. • 70 percent of moms played outdoors every day as children. Only 31 percent of moms said their child chooses to play outdoors every day. • 71 percent of moms said that as young children, they played more outdoors than indoors, as compared to only 26 percent of moms who said their children play more outdoors than indoors today. • When moms did play outdoors, 56 percent were able to play for three or more hours. Only 22 percent of mothers indicated that their children are able to play outdoors for three or more hours. • When moms played outdoors, they most often played tag or chase games (93 percent) and imaginative/made-up games (78 percent). Today when children play outdoors, mothers indicated that they most often play tag or chase games (64 percent), but the percentage of children who play imaginative/made-up games has dropped significantly (57 percent). The percentage of children who engage in jump rope/hopscotch/street games has dropped significantly (85 percent for moms compared to 33 percent for children). • Youth sports with a coach present (such as baseball and soccer) are the only outdoor activities that children play more of today than the moms did (22 percent for moms versus 34 percent for their children). The top five reasons moms identified for why children today spend less time playing outdoors: Dependence on television and/or computers, 85 percent; safety concerns, fear of crime, 82 percent; parent(s) work and don't have time to spend outdoors with child, 77 percent; lack of supervision available, 61 percent; fear of physical harm to child, 61 percent. • 48 percent of moms attributed the lack of appropriate outdoor play areas nearby (playgrounds, parks, etc.) as a reason why children today spend less time playing outdoors. • When their child spends less time playing outdoors than normal, moms say their children get bored and misbehave.

"Kids aren't getting outside daily, and they're playing for less time," says Rhonda Clements, author of the study and a professor of physical education and sports sciences at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y.

Clements, president of the American Association for the Child's Right to Play, says that outdoor play has a lot of obvious benefits, such as physical fitness, but other advantages as well.

"If we don't see children being more active, it will have an effect on strength, not just their muscles, but also on expanding heart and lungs," she says. Her group works to ensure that school districts don't remove active recess time from the school day.

Bypassing nature

"And a real concern from my perspective is that young children are not developing an appreciation for nature. Children in today's generation are not having sensory experiences like dirt and water, jumping over puddles and playing in dirt piles — without having any fears about doing it."

The sponsor of Clements' study is Wisk laundry detergent (with the reasoning that children shouldn't be afraid to go outside and get their clothes dirty). The study surveyed mothers across the country last year, and the results were similar regardless of location. "That's how I knew we had a trend," Clements says.

"Outdoor play enhances a child's imagination," she says. "The mothers (in the study) talked a great deal about the make-believe play they participated in and playing with neighborhood friends and determining the rules for a game."

She says that years ago, all the children in a neighborhood played together, regardless of age. "You had 7-year-olds playing with 12-year-olds and learning from them."

That social aspect of outdoor play is important, says Ellen O'Sullivan, a professor of public health at Southern Connecticut State University who researched the benefits of recreation for children and adults.

"I always laugh — although not really — that they teach conflict resolution in school now. Before, when children were involved in free play, they had to work out their own conflicts about rules and who would do what in the game."

Free play teaches lessons

And while team sports get kids outdoors and active, they don't replace free play, the experts say. "I don't want to seem like I'm not an advocate for youth sports, but I'm concerned that it's not child-initiated. It's adult structured, with adults assuming the decision-making," Clements says. "And you see children playing with the same age level and ethnic group, with no diversity of play."

O'Sullivan agrees. "A lot of the time, they're not playing. They're on the sidelines."

Clements, who grew up in rural Maine, remembers being sent outdoors for hours.

"There was a real expectation that you'd be outside until dinner so your mother could prepare a healthy meal. But there was always something to do. Some of my best memories are making giant snow forts or taking a stick and using it to make hopscotch patterns," she says. "We used anything we could find."

Additional resources For more information, visit http://www.wiskplayday.com/ or http://www.ipausa.org/, the Web site of the American Association for the Child's Right to Play.

The point was to do it by themselves. "That sense of freedom away from adult supervision helps in character building," she says.

But parents must be judicious. According to the survey, 82 percent of mothers cited safety and fear of crime as a reason why children spend less time outdoors.

The No. 1 reason for indoor play: television and computers, cited by 85 percent of the survey mothers.

"We're raising a generation of 'screen-agers,' " says O'Sullivan, who advocates setting aside some technology-free time every day.

The third reason that kids don't play outside, the moms in the survey say, is lack of time: 77 percent say they work and don't have the time to go out with their kids.

Lifestyle change is factor

This time crunch is leading to not only decreased time outdoors, but less play time overall, O'Sullivan says. She cited a University of Michigan study that found a decrease in the amount of unsupervised play time from 40 percent of a child's day in 1981 to 24 percent of a child's day in 1997.

Another study, by the Surface Transportation Policy Project, found that parents of all types — stay at home, single, working couples — are spending much more time in the car running errands and transporting children to academic, recreational or enrichment activities.

"We almost have kids on the same kind of treadmill that adults have: nonstop," she says. "We know it's not working well for adults.

"The whole idea of play for everyone is a novel concept that we've taken for granted."

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