{"id":66356,"date":"2017-09-07T10:15:04","date_gmt":"2017-09-07T15:15:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/?p=66356"},"modified":"2026-03-13T08:36:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T13:36:07","slug":"increase-kids-connection-nature-even-live-burbs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/social\/fatherhood\/increase-kids-connection-nature-even-live-burbs\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Get Your Kids to Love Nature (Even if You Live in the Burbs)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"vintage<\/a><\/p>\n

By now you\u2019ve probably heard about the well-publicized research pointing to the extraordinary benefits of spending time in nature. \u201cVitamin N\u201d has been shown to decrease stress, ward off depression, reduce obesity, boost the immune system, and enhance cognitive abilities.<\/p>\n

You may have even heard that these same frustration-calming, focus-improving, mood-lifting, health-supporting benefits apply to children too. Spending time in nature has even been shown to alleviate the symptoms of ADHD. And beyond these more concrete effects, children who regularly spend time in the outdoors report feelings of greater peace, freedom, confidence, mystery, wonder, awe, and joy.<\/p>\n

Really, the effects of nature are such an enormous boon to physical, emotional, and mental health that were they offered in the form of a pill, people would be rushing out to buy it for themselves, and their children, even if it was exorbitantly priced. And nature is free!<\/p>\n

Yet, many adults don\u2019t spend very much time outdoors, and neither do their kids. Children in fact spend half the time outside as their parents did growing up. Some studies say they only spend about a half hour outside each day, while others put the number as low as 4-7 minutes; either way, today\u2019s kids are spending less time outside than inmates do at maximum security prisons. This, despite the fact that 96% of parents surveyed want their children to spend more time in the outdoors and think a connection to nature is important for their development.<\/p>\n

What accounts for this disconnect?<\/p>\n

The rise of technology is certainly a factor; children ages 8-18 now spend over 7 hours a day looking at screens. And despite what parents say to the contrary, many moms and dads actually prefer keeping their children indoors, worried as they often are these days about their kids being kidnapped or hurting themselves.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s also another factor at work. Many people today have an all-or-nothing approach to experiences; if something isn\u2019t \u201cperfect,\u201d and wholly \u201cauthentic,\u201d it\u2019s not worth doing at all. This attitude shows up in parents\u2019 failure to get kids outside: they feel like nature is something \u201cout there\u201d \u2014 something far away and a little inaccessible. Nature seems like something you can only find at state or national parks, places that require a lot of planning, preparation, time, and hassle to get to. Consequently, busy modern parents, who live in cities or suburbs and often already feel overwhelmed in keeping up the normal work\/life balance, don\u2019t feel like regularly getting their kids into nature is a doable goal.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, with a simple mindset change, and a new paradigm through which to approach things, it\u2019s possible to greatly enhance your children\u2019s connection to the outdoors, and to do so much closer to home, and with more ease than you think. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Follow the Nature Connection Pyramid to Easily Ensure Your Kids Get a Healthy Diet of the Outdoors<\/u><\/h3>\n

In Last Child in the Woods<\/em><\/a>, Richard Louv encourages parents to stop thinking about getting their kids into nature as a leisure time indulgence or as one recreational choice among many equally good options. Given the benefits that accrue from time spent outdoors, he instead encourages parents to see contact with nature as just as essential to their children\u2019s health as sleep and nutrition.<\/p>\n

The parallels between time spent in nature and diet are particularly apropos, in that the optimal \u201cservings\u201d for each lend themselves to being organized into a pyramidal shape.<\/p>\n

Studies show that the more immersed in nature you get, the more its physical and mental health benefits work their magic. But research also shows that even minimal contact with nature, like simply looking at it through a window, produces some positive effects as well. So rather than looking at increasing your children\u2019s contact with nature as an all-of-nothing equation, it\u2019s much better to think of it as a spectrum, in which experiencing an abundance at the lower end is just as nourishing as getting a little at the higher end.<\/p>\n

\"nature<\/p>\n

Kenny Ballentine, head of the Nature Kids Institute, created the \u201cNature Connection Pyramid,\u201d as a great way to visually understand this idea. The pyramid doesn\u2019t scale from the bottom up in terms of \u201cbad\u201d or \u201cgood,\u201d but rather shows how to balance out the servings of nature your kids get on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis.<\/p>\n

As you can see, trips to true wilderness do not constitute the only way to give children an ample dose of Vitamin N, and in fact sit at the smallest part of the pyramid; while these time and preparation intensive outings are certainly worthwhile, you need not feel pressure to make them the foundation of your family\u2019s \u201cnature diet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, the biggest bulk of your family\u2019s servings of nature can be made up of daily, weekly, and monthly outings that are pretty simple to plan and execute. Rather than making the perfect the enemy of the good, you simply need to aim for the (near) perfect at least once a year, and \u201csettle\u201d for making the good (which often turns out great<\/em>) a regular part of your children\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n

Below we riff on the Nature Connection Pyramid, offering advice from leaders in the work of getting kids outdoors, as well as tips from what\u2019s worked for our own family in getting more nature on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis.<\/p>\n

The Foundation: Passive and\/or One-Time Decisions That Can Increase Your Children\u2019s Contact With Nature<\/h3>\n

Before we get to the first level of the pyramid, let\u2019s talk about the foundation this \u201cstructure\u201d rests on. There are several one-time decisions you can make that will increase your children\u2019s contact with nature ever after.<\/p>\n

Now, keep in mind that these ways to connect with nature are on the part of the spectrum farthest from real wilderness immersion. But compared to how relatively passive and \u201cun-wild\u201d they are, they can have outsized effects in the lives of your children.<\/p>\n

When buying a house, consider its natural surroundings.<\/strong> As mentioned briefly above, research has shown that even simply looking at nature through a window creates salubrious effects in the viewer. For example, patients in hospital rooms that had windows overlooking a grove of trees were shown to recover faster from surgery, and needed less pain medication, than those whose windows faced an exterior wall. Conversely, prison inmates with cells that faced an interior jail yard got sick 24% more often than those with windows overlooking farmland. In a study done in an office environment, employees with windows that furnished views of bushes, trees, or lawns, experienced less frustration and were happier on the job than those without.<\/p>\n

These results have been duplicated in children. When a study looked at the degree to which nature surrounded children\u2019s homes (an assessment which included the amount of nature seen through windows, and whether they had a grass, concrete, or dirt yard), they found that the more natural the surroundings, the better the children\u2019s psychological well-being and ability to deal with psychological distress. “Our data also suggest little ceiling effect with respect to the benefits of exposure to the nature environment,” the researchers further noted. “Even in a rural setting with a relative abundance of green landscape, more appears to be better when it comes to bolstering children’s resilience against stress or adversity.”<\/p>\n

So while it\u2019s not always possible to live somewhere bucolic, when deciding between where to settle down, and between one house and another, consider how \u201cnature-filled\u201d the yard is, and how much nature you can see through the windows when indoors. This is something to keep in mind even if you live in the city. When a study looked at two otherwise equal low-income high-rise apartment buildings in Chicago, the residents of the one with stands of trees nearby reported lower levels of aggression, violence, and crime, as well as greater psychological resilience, than the building surrounded only by concrete.<\/p>\n

If you live in a house for 10 years, that\u2019s 3,650 days your kid is going to stare out the windows after having a hard day, when doing homework, and while thinking about the future. The day-to-day view out those windows is going to have a far greater effect than a yearly trip to Yosemite. All without you making further effort after signing the mortgage (beyond the monthly payment!).<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re already settled in a house, find ways to bring a little more into nature into your yard. Plant more vegetation and trees and\/or start a garden. You might also consider the following:<\/p>\n

\"vintage<\/a><\/p>\n

Attract wildlife to your yard by installing bird\/bat houses, bird baths, and feeders, and planting certain trees\/flowers\/shrubs.<\/strong> If you\u2019d like your yard to be a more diverse ecosystem, with various creatures to spy out, there\u2019s a variety of things you can do. If you want to attract birds, offer them a nesting box or feeder. Or set up a bat house to welcome our nocturnal friends (they\u2019ll eat your \u2018squitos!). Create a little pond that can be luxuriated in by frogs. There are also various flowers, bushes, and trees you can plant to increase visitations from butterflies and small animals. Specific ideas are just a google search away, or look over a general list of ideas like this one.<\/a><\/p>\n

Consider getting plants and\/or a pet.<\/strong> If \u201cre-wilding\u201d your backyard isn\u2019t an option (or you don\u2019t have a yard, period), consider bringing some flora and fauna inside.<\/p>\n

The positive effects of contact with nature don\u2019t just arise from looking at it through a windowpane, but even from hanging out with it in the form of a house plant! One study that looked at hospital patients found that those with greenery in their rooms had significantly lower blood pressure, anxiety, heart rate, and pain than those who did not. And in the study mentioned above that showed a link between the amount of natural surroundings in\/around a home and children\u2019s resilience, one of the factors the researchers included in their assessment of a house\u2019s level of nature was the presence of plants indoors<\/em>. Putting a few plants around your house can make it feel like a calmer and more restorative oasis.<\/p>\n

Pets can have a similarly calming effect, and have been shown to lower blood pressure and reduce stress. Fido isn\u2019t really a wild animal, but he does bring a bit of non-human nature into your home. Plus, if you make the kids walk the dog, it gets them outside!<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get a car with backseat televisions (or let your kids watch tablets on shorter drives<\/strong>).<\/strong> At the risk of inducing the ire of their fans, I hate<\/em> backseat televisions. Maintaining the strength of your kids\u2019 attention spans is hard enough these days without making your vehicle another hotspot for non-stop stimulation. Not to mention that in watching these screens, whether built into the seats, or in the form of hand-held tablets, kids miss out on looking at nature through their window, which as we\u2019ve abundantly explained, is actually a really beneficial activity!<\/p>\n

Children not only absorb nature\u2019s health-ifying vibes while staring out the car window, they also get a better understanding of the lay of the land \u2014 of their community, and country. As Louv puts it:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe highway\u2019s edges may not be postcard<\/a> perfect. But for a century, children\u2019s early understanding of how cities and nature fit together was gained from the backseat: the empty farmhouse at the edge of the subdivision; the variety of architecture, here and there; the woods and fields and water beyond the seamy edges \u2014 all that was and is still available to the eye.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now I\u2019m not an absolute Luddite or purist in this matter. On a long road trip, I\u2019m perfectly okay with allowing my kids to watch a movie sandwiched between tech-free stretches of time. But for shorter rides \u2014 I\u2019d say anything less than 3 hours \u2014 they ought to have a chance to think about nothing, and look out the window to watch the world, and different kinds of nature, go by.<\/p>\n

Daily <\/strong><\/h3>\n

Let\u2019s now begin to work our way up the levels of the Nature Connection pyramid, starting first with those things you can do daily to give you children greater contact with the outdoors. This needn\u2019t involve any macro maneuvers; while we grown-ups need a bigger \u201chit\u201d of nature to be impressed, as Louv puts it, \u201cExpeditions to the mountains or national parks often pale, in a child\u2019s eyes, in comparison with the mysteries of the ravine at the end of the cul de sac.\u201d There\u2019s plenty for your kids to explore in your neighborhood and even your own backyard. Getting them out there is really just a matter of you willfully unlatching the door, and creating firm nudges towards it.<\/p>\n

As Scott D. Sampson puts it in How to Raise a Wild Child<\/em><\/a>, the goal is to simply \u201cestablish nature as the fun and preferred option for playtime.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"vintage<\/a><\/p>\n

Let your kids play outside by themselves.<\/strong> Yeah, I know, this is beyond obvious. But for a whole bunch of reasons we discussed in-depth earlier this year<\/a>, parents are often afraid to let their kids play outside alone these days: they\u2019re worried their children will be kidnapped or hit by a car (even though the rates of crime and traffic accidents are both down), or will be traumatized by injuring themselves (even though research shows that getting hurt is actually good for building the resilience of a child\u2019s psyche).<\/p>\n

In trying to mitigate these inflated risks, other risks pop up in their place<\/a>, like the risk of an overly protected child failing to develop autonomy, confidence, and competence. To these general risks, let us also add those specific to being deprived of the benefits that come from playing in the outdoors without parental supervision. Children who play by themselves in nature (rather than on a structured playground) are more physically active, play more imaginatively (including being more likely to invent their own games) and for longer stretches of time, gain greater motor skills and physical agility, increase their ability to concentrate, and show a greater sense of wonder.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a lot to make kids give up, when keeping them indoors barely increases their safety, if at all<\/a>. So yes, let them play outside! If you have trouble letting go, we\u2019ve written a whole guide to doing it as painlessly (and safely) as possible<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Let your kids get dirty.<\/strong> While you may worry that playing in the dirt will make your kid sick, it\u2019s likely to have the very opposite effect. According to the \u201chygiene hypothesis\u201d our super zealous desire to live sanitized, scrubbed-clean lives may actually increase<\/em> our susceptibility to allergy and inflammatory disorders. Tiny microbes present in soil and other organic matter are in fact good for the immune system, and there\u2019s further evidence that getting down in the dirt lowers stress levels and increases attention span.<\/p>\n

So let your kids get dirty!<\/a><\/p>\n

Of course, you (or more likely, your wife) may not be crazy about your kids playing in the dirt and mud, less out of fear of their getting sick, and more out of the worry that they\u2019ll ruin their shoes and clothes. To allay this anxiety, designate some old outfits as their \u201cget-as-dirty-as-you like\u201d duds and also invest in a pair of Croc-type boots<\/a> your kids can wear in puddles and mud.<\/p>\n

We have a drainage ditch in the backyard that turns into a little stream after a heavy rain. After Gus and Scout put on their boots and crap clothes, it\u2019s easy to give them the parental greenlight to go crazy in the \u201ccreek.\u201d <\/strong><\/p>\n

Start a \u201cnatural history museum.\u201d<\/strong> When Theodore Roosevelt was a boy, he had a keen interest in natural history and the flora and fauna around him. He not only read books on the subject, but collected specimens himself and wrote works of his own, filled with detailed observations. Sometimes he pocketed an animal he already found dead, sometimes he brought live critters \u2014 including mice, frogs, snakes, and a snapping turtle \u2014 home with him, and sometimes he hunted, and then taxidermied, his own game. Altogether, by the time he was 11 years old, his bedroom was filled with 1,000 living and stuffed specimens \u2014 a collection he dubbed \u201cThe Roosevelt Natural History Museum.\u201d<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t have to let you kids go quite as far as TR (even the members of his understanding household eventually got tired of the smell of critters and taxidermy chemicals, as well as finding snakes in their water pitchers). But you can encourage your children to start a more modest \u201cnatural history museum\u201d of their own; Sampson advises setting aside a \u201cnature table\u201d for the purposes of \u201chousing\u201d this collection:<\/p>\n

\u201cConsider putting aside a table for kids to bring in their latest discoveries. Rocks, sticks, pinecones, and bones are all fair game. You might even encourage the collection of live critters \u2014 bugs and lizards, for example \u2014 to be kept temporarily in clear containers (with air holes added, of course) before being released. A further step, if your comfort level allows, is a terrarium, often made from a recycled aquarium with a lid added. Terrariums allow kids to care for animals and watch them for extended periods. At least a portion of the objects in this mini-zoo can be changed out on an ongoing basis, as new finds arrive. The beauty of a nature table is that it can be something your child is proud to curate.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read books with a nature-themed backdrop or plot.<\/strong> Having your children read (or reading to them) books that incorporate nature in some way can spur their imagination and interest in the outdoors. These don\u2019t necessarily have to be non-fiction, or even realistic fiction; even fantastical nature settings \u2014 like those found in The Hobbit<\/em> or the Narnia <\/em>series, for example \u2014 can increase the magic and allure of nature for kids. C.S. Lewis explained the effect of such stories on a child:<\/p>\n

\u201cFairy land arouses a longing for he knows not what. It stirs and troubles him (to his life-long enrichment) with the dim sense of something beyond his reach and, far from dulling or emptying the actual world, gives it a new dimension of depth. He does not despise real woods because he has read of enchanted woods: the reading makes all real woods a little enchanted.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Weekly<\/h3>\n

With activities you\u2019re only going to do once a week, you can afford to be slightly more ambitious with your outings, and leave your literal backyard for your metaphorical one \u2014 the local parks about town.<\/p>\n

Even though every family is busy, every family, if they took an honest look at their schedule, has a small block of time on the weekend or after school to take an outing that only requires a couple hours. If you find you have good intentions in this area, but trouble following through on them, I would suggest taking an 8-week microadventure challenge<\/a>. And if simply declaring that challenge to your family still doesn\u2019t motivate you enough, then I\u2019d recommend taking part in the 12-week Strenuous Life Challenge<\/a>, and making the Microadventure Badge the one badge you must earn to successfully complete it.<\/p>\n

\"vintage<\/a><\/p>\n

Take a weekly hike.<\/strong> While you might associate hiking only with state and national parks, almost every city has smaller wilderness areas, nature preserves, and municipal parks that include plenty of trails, and are easily accessible by the suburban or urbanite. You very likely don\u2019t have to drive more than a half hour to get a good dose of nature, and you\u2019ll find exploring your hometown\u2019s little nooks and crannies strangely satisfying \u2014 even more satisfying in some ways than visiting a well-known wilderness area. To find these urban trails, check websites like trails.com<\/a>, and lists of \u201cthings to do\u201d in your town on travel websites and blogs.<\/p>\n

Hiking is fun for the whole family, but little ones have a shorter attention span than grown-ups. So consider incorporating some of these tips to maintain your kids\u2019 interest in your perambulations:<\/p>\n