There's No Such Thing as Bad Weather: A Scandinavian Mom's Secrets for Raising Healthy, Resilient, and Confident Kids (from Friluftsliv to Hygge)

by Linda Åkeson McGurk

Older children don’t fare much better, with digital entertainment on average now eating up nearly fifty-three hours of their time every week. By the time they reach their teens, only 10 percent of American children report spending time outside every day, according to the Nature Conservancy.

In Sweden, friluftsliv is generally defined as “physical activity outdoors to get a change of scenery and experience nature, with no pressure to achieve or compete.”

There’s an old Danish proverb that claims that “fresh air impoverishes the doctor.”

In Finland, formal teaching of reading doesn’t start until the child begins first grade, at age seven, and in the Finnish equivalent of kindergarten, which children enroll in the year they turn six, teachers will only teach reading if a child is showing an interest in it. Despite this lack of emphasis on early literacy, Finland is considered the most literate country in the world, with Norway coming in second, and Iceland, Denmark, and Sweden rounding out the top five, according to a 2016 study by Central Connecticut State University. John Miller, who conducted the study, noted that the five Nordic countries scored so well because “their monolithic culture values reading.” They have something else in common: their commitment to play in the early years.

“all children and young people need to play. The impulse to play is innate. Play is a biological, psychological and social necessity, and is fundamental to the healthy development and well-being of individuals and communities.”

there is no scientific evidence that teaching children to read early will help them be better readers in the long run. A study that compared two groups of children in New Zealand who started their formal literacy lessons at ages five and seven, respectively, showed no significant difference in reading ability by the time they were eleven years old. But the children who had started at five had developed a less positive attitude to reading and had worse text comprehension than the children who had started when they were seven.

As a parent, a great way to support them is simply to spend a lot of time outside, ask open-ended questions, and encourage your child’s innate curiosity and willingness to investigate.

“When your child comes to you and says he’s so ‘booored,’ give him a hug and tell him, ‘Good luck, my friend! I look forward to seeing what you get up to.’”

In reality, our modern, sanitized lifestyle has wiped out a lot of beneficial microbes in our gut that help us stay healthy. Being exposed to certain microbes in the womb and early childhood can actually strengthen our immune systems and protect us from illnesses later on. When the immune system is not challenged enough, it might start looking for stuff to do, like overreacting to things that are not really dangerous, like pollen and peanuts. This is believed to cause allergies, asthma, eczema, childhood diabetes, and inflammation later in life.

studies have found that Amish children have remarkably low rates of asthma and allergies. The reason? Likely what European scientists call the “farm effect.” Breathing in the microbes found in manure from cattle and other farm animals every day is beneficial to the immune system and could explain why only 7.2 percent of the Amish children in one study had an increased risk for allergies, compared to 50 percent of the general population. The Amish kids also had more siblings among whom to pass around the germs, which means they build more immunity. And the earlier we are exposed, the better the protection.

When Sandseter reviewed several studies on risky play, she found that children who played unsupervised or had independent mobility are more physically active and have better social skills than their peers. They’re also better at judging risk, which can help them later in life, when they’re no longer monitored by adults. Sandseter argues that the overall positive health effects of risky outdoor play are greater than those associated with avoiding it. She also notes that risky play makes children better able to master peril. When adults restrict children’s risky play, it hampers their ability to seek out the challenges and stimulation that they need for normal physical and mental development.

According to a 2010 study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, the average American eight- to eighteen-year-old racks up over seven and a half hours of recreational media use per day, not including texting. That’s nearly fifty-three hours per week—more time than they spend going to school. Younger kids are not that far behind. A 2009 survey by Nielsen showed that American children age two to five years spend over four and a half hours per day in front of a TV screen, not counting time spent playing video games. And this was at a time when smartphones were still a novelty and the iPad had yet to be released. In comparison, preschoolers in Scandinavian countries spent just one to one and a half hours watching TV every day in 2014.