The many health benefits of outdoor play for children are well-documented. In fact, family physicians or nurse practitioners who have completed the MSN FNP online course will advise you that outdoor play is critical to a child’s health and development of multiple abilities, including physical, mental, emotional, and social abilities.
If you are a parent who wants to prioritize your children’s health, the most important thing is to encourage them to get outdoors, get essential fresh air and vitamin D, and most importantly, move their bodies in a healthy way.
Here’s why.
The physical benefits of children playing outdoors
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you might agree to get out always Make you feel better – mentally and physically. It could be fresh air, greenery, or it could be vitamin D. In fact, the vitamin D our bodies absorb from the sun when we’re outdoors can help us feel healthier and stronger. Conversely, anyone who has ever been deficient in vitamin D will know that it can cause them to feel weak and lethargic.
Especially for children, playing outside has many physical benefits, and it goes beyond absorbing essential vitamin D and fresh air. Some of these benefits include:
- Maintain a healthy weight and low body mass index through outdoor running.
- Better motor skills, depth perception and spatial awareness.
- Enhance immune function and improve the ability to prevent disease.
These benefits can support children’s physical health and, just as importantly, reduce their risk of becoming a statistic in America’s rapidly growing childhood obesity epidemic. On that note, recent research shows that the more children play outside, the less likely they are to be obese — 42 percent less likely to be obese.
The mental and emotional benefits of outdoor play for children
Going outside can improve our mood. For children, fresh air can help lift their spirits, teach them to feel connected to nature, and perhaps most importantly, regulate their moods.
Outdoor activities are all about grounding. Encourage your children to walk barefoot on the grass or dig their toes into the sand at the beach. Also known as a “grounding” practice, doing this can bring us back to our original roots. Some of the benefits of grounding are said to include:
- Fatigue levels are reduced.
- Reduce chronic pain.
- Minimize cardiovascular diseases such as high blood pressure.
- Improved mood and reduced risk of anxiety or depression.
For children, developing grounded habits from an early age can help them maintain positive mental and emotional health throughout their lives and achieve a better quality of life.
Benefits of outdoor play for children’s social development
Finally, outdoor play also contributes to a child’s social development. how? By encouraging children to play together outdoors, they learn to share, connect and interact with others. This is essential for developing their interpersonal skills and their ability to develop intimate relationships.
It goes without saying that social interaction is key to children being able to enjoy happy, fulfilling lives. The importance of socialization in early childhood is well documented. Some of its advantages include:
- Learn how to interact with other children and adults in appropriate and socially acceptable ways.
- Learn how to share, collaborate and collaborate with others to achieve common goals.
- Develop language, interpersonal and communication skills.
- Develop social awareness, empathy and compassion for others.
But why is it important? Every child should develop these basic interpersonal skills if parents want them to be able to navigate and manage social relationships later in life.
As discussed today, the benefits of outdoor play for children are many. Playing outdoors has many benefits, and not just in terms of your child’s physical health. Still, a reduced risk of childhood obesity is arguably one of the most important motivations for parents to let their children play outside.
But beyond that, outdoor play can also help support children’s mental and emotional health. It also helps children develop relationship-building, communication and interaction skills, thereby promoting their social development and socialization with others.
But perhaps the most important factor? Playing outdoors makes children happy.
