How many programs does it take to get kids to play outside?

Time will tell as leaders from local and federal governments, businesses and nature advocacy groups bend over backward to come up with ways to get today’s overstimulated, overscheduled and frequently plugged-in youths to rediscover the lost art of just being outside.

The movement is not about promoting playground visits or organized sports, of which there is no apparent shortage. Instead, it’s pushing the idea that time in nature can provide crucial physical, psychological and spiritual benefits.

Getting young people outside almost seems like an attempt to turn back the clock to a time before video games and instant messaging, when kids spent carefree hours exploring streams, navigating back roads on their bikes, building tree houses or catching fireflies. It was also, coincidentally, a time when obesity and diabetes were not at epidemic proportions among young people.

A new book with an antique-style cover also waxes nostalgic for days gone by in nature. The Dangerous Book for Boys, published this summer in the United States, provides step-by-step instructions for building go-carts and tying rope knots, but not one insider tip on how to win video games.

Similarly, the National Wildlife Federation encourages parents to get their children to spend at least 60 minutes outside daily through its “green hour” promotion.
Several states have also jumped on the outdoor bandwagon. They include Connecticut with its “No Child Left Inside” programs, Texas with its “Life’s Better Outside” initiative and Washington’s state-sponsored study of how outdoor education affects academics and personal skills.

In early July, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a proclamation supporting the California Children’s Outdoor Bill of Rights, which includes 10 things that every child should experience such as playing in a safe place, camping, swimming, hiking and fishing.

U.S. Rep. John Sarbanes, D-Md., has introduced a bill titled “No Child Left Inside,” referred to the House Committee on Education and Labor. It would promote environmental education for children, including time spent outside the classroom and in nature.

The “out in nature” issue made its way to a Capitol Hill hearing this spring before two subcommittees of the House Natural Resources Committee. A representative from the Children & Nature Network spoke on behalf of Richard Louv, chairman of the group’s board of directors and one of the leading voices for getting kids back to nature.

Louv, the author of Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder, argues that outside play not only helps kids stay fit, but it also connects them with the environment and helps them develop a sense of stewardship for it. He also mentions something that does not always come up in the discussion of kids in nature — the spiritual aspect.

In Louv’s written testimony, he said support for reconnecting children with the outdoors comes not only from environmental groups but also from a wide range of religious leaders “who understand that all spiritual life begins with a sense of wonder, and that one of the first windows to wonder is the natural world.”

The concept of the spiritual benefits of time spent outdoors is no surprise to John Lionberger, author of Renewal in the Wilderness: A Spiritual Guide to Connecting With God in the Natural World, published this year. Lionberger said he has seen young people, including his own children, grasp a “sense of spirituality” from time outdoors, particularly through coping with challenges “that being at home in a contained environment doesn’t give them.”

Angi Sullivan, assistant director at CYO Camp Rancho Framasa in Nashville, Ind., has likewise seen children understand that the world is something “larger than their air-conditioned living rooms” when they spend time in the 200-acre, wooded camp.

She said that lessons about being stewards of God’s creation are a natural tie-in during the nine weeks of camp for 7- to 17-year-olds and the outdoor education programs during the year.

Sullivan, who spent summers at Camp Rancho Framasa as a kid, also remembers “finding it easier to connect with prayer” at the camp just from the quiet time in nature. That’s the reasoning behind the camp’s no electronics or iPods rule. Sullivan said the hope is “to open campers and staff to conversation and also to hearing what’s going on around them.”