Balanced and Barefoot: How Unrestricted Outdoor Play Makes for Strong, Confident, and Capable Children

by Angela J. Hanscom

Children literally thrive by challenging their bodies. When their bodies aren’t challenged, they fall behind in their development

Without adequate gross motor strength, coordination, and control, it becomes very difficult to master fine motor skills, such as buttoning a shirt, cutting with scissors, and taking off shoes.

To keep gross motor skills in optimal condition, it’s important to ensure that children under two years of age get to move throughout the day—preferably a total of four hours or more of active movement. Give them regular opportunities to crawl, climb, jump, roll, walk, and run. Older children should ideally be exposed to three hours a day or more of the aforementioned plus squatting, hanging, carrying heavy objects, jumping off of things, tumbling, and other rigorous activities.

Proprioception is the ability to sense what different parts of your body are doing without even looking at them. The vestibular sense is your awareness of where your body is in space; it determines your ability to effectively navigate your environment with ease and control.

Pulling a wagon with another child in it, picking up heavy rocks to build a dam in a stream, and digging in the dirt or the sand are great ways to get nice sensory input to the joints, muscles, and connective tissues. Heavy work helps to develop a strong and capable proprioceptive system.

Children develop a strong vestibular sense by having frequent opportunities to move—especially activities that go against gravity. Walking and running offer some vestibular input, but activities that encourage children out of an upright position provide rapid input to the inner ear. In other words, children will benefit immensely by going upside down, spinning, tumbling, and swinging. Most vestibular input can be gained through ordinary play experiences, such as going upside down on the monkey bars, rolling down hills, and dancing until their little hearts are content.

The more exposure your child has to sensory experiences throughout the day, the more integrated and organized the brain, senses, and body become.

When children are deprived of both child-led and play experiences, they may struggle with higher-level thinking skills, such as coming up with their own ideas, problem solving, and other forms of creative expression. It is important that we allow plenty of independent play experiences, in which children have ample time and space to explore, create, and play with friends. It is then, and only then, that they will be able to practice the complex cognitive skills needed for a successful academic career and to reach their intellectual capabilities.

Ideally, kids of all ages should get at least three hours of free play outdoors a day.

The outdoors offers a perfectly balanced sensory experience. The outdoors inspires the mind. The outdoors is an ideal setting for evaluating risks and accepting challenges.