Research Finds Decline In Outdoor Play
by Dr. Rhonda Clements

With summer approaching, many New York City parents can recall childhood memories involving stickball, sidewalk chalk, handball, jump rope, and a variety of child-created games. Some might even recall when kids in every neighborhood of every borough in New York played stoopball, hopscotch, and tag. One could assume that the current generation of children will have similar memories of outdoor experiences. However, new research indicates that only 33% of today’s kids participate in hopscotch, jump rope, and a variety of street games compared to 85% of their moms when they were children.

Mothers find that outdoor play, reduces their child’s stress (97%), and allows opportunities for children to be expressive and noisy (93%). Moving vigorously in the outdoors also positively impacts their physical skills (93%). Sixty-seven percent also identified outdoor play as a means for children to interact with children from other cultures. The latter benefit of outdoor play directly reflects increasingly important neighborhood and community goals in New York City.

Has outdoor play decreased? The results indicate that 85% of the mothers agreed that their child or children played outdoors less often than a generation ago. In fact, 70% of the mothers played outdoors daily, compared with only 31% of their children today. Furthermore, when the mothers did play outdoors, 56% of them remained outdoors for three or more hours, compared with only 22% of today’s children who play three or more hours outside. This is a major change in just one generation.

Researchers, parents and educators alike know that the benefits of outdoor active play are many. Children can relieve stress, develop leadership skills within varied peer groups, create games and form memories with siblings, increase physical strength, form greater awareness of their surroundings, and start to grow an appreciation of nature to last a lifetime.

Of no surprise, obstacles that prevent today’s children from spending more time outdoors include the child’s large dependency on television viewing (85%) and computer games (81%). In addition, 82% of the mothers identified safety concerns and crime as limiting factors, and 77% of the parents indicated that they now lack adequate time to be outdoors with their children. These obstacles to outdoor play, in New York City and the rest of the United States, do influence the child’s healthy growth and development.

To assist parents in insuring that all children experience the joys of outdoor play, The American Association for the Child’s Right To Play will hold a play park event at the Bronx Zoo, June 20–22 which is designed to inspire a child’s imagination and encourage cognitive, physical and social development. #

Dr. Rhonda Clements is the President of the American Association for the Child’s Right to Play.

Name:- E-mail: City: State: Comments:

Education Update, Inc., P.O. Box 20005, New York, NY 10001.
Tel: (212) 481-5519. Fax: (212) 481-3919.Email: ednews1@aol.com.
All material is copyrighted and may not be printed without express consent of the publisher. © 2003.