The benefit of being outdoors for children

Nature's bounty holds plenty of rewards for those who explore it

Studies Show That Outdoor Adventures & Activities Are Linked To A Greater Enjoyment For Life
Institutions like Harvard, the Child Mind Institute and many others have conducted numerous studies that suggest outdoor activity and adventure have incredible benefits for children. Out of those benefits, the most important comes in the form of helping kids develop both mentally and physically. 

In addition to the many benefits that nature can provide growing children, you also have the enhanced probabilities of future health and wellness.

​

The modern generation is currently going through an overload of device usage. On average, a young child spends 2 hours and 19 minutes using a device. At Nature Dreams, we want to balance and decrease this time to minimum to maintain a balanced lifestyle that promotes positive development.

​

Here are another five powerful benefits that outdoor kids activities can bring:

​

Builds Physically Healthy Children 
Childhood obesity and childhood health issues related to weight are no laughing matter. Because your child's body is still developing, any major problems they face as a child will certainly impact their lives as an adult. Nature Dreams Forest After School Program is the perfect way to ensure your child has enough activity to balance out their daily needs. According to the National Institute of Health, combating childhood obesity starts with outdoor play.  

​

Kids deserve the chance to be a kid. By nature, children are naturally intrigued by new surroundings. This means that exposing your child to an entirely outdoors after school program at an early age will help them understand how large, complex and interconnected the world is. 

​

Helps Children Develop Cognitively & Emotionally 
Cognitive development in children can be enhanced by external stimuli. Everything from the chirping of the birds to the colors of plants helps entice the brain of a child to ask questions. Based on the research conducted by Annie Walin of Informal Science, nature play is an essential part of the cognitive development of young learners. She states that outdoor play offers children the opportunity to “classify, observe, explore, and interpret the phenomena around them”. When children are allowed to follow this process while exploring, they experience an overall enhancement in academic performance, concentration, and other cognitive functions. 

The emotional development of a child helps them to mentally deal with situations that involve anger, disappointment, sadness and other human emotions we experience. Through outdoor play, a child can experience a gauntlet of emotions from frustration to excitement and beyond. Exposing your child to various emotions in a safe outdoor environment will help them grow into an adult that has total control over their feelings, emotions, and mood. This can begin at a very young age and will impact other areas of your child's future life like work & personal relationships, personal motivation, inspiration and many other factors of life. 

​

Rapidly Develops Sensory Skills 
Your child's sensory skills will automatically develop as they age. However, with a regular schedule of outdoor adventure and activities, those sensory skills can develop stronger and at a faster rate. Have you ever wondered why some have an extremely sensitive nose while others fail to smell things right in front of them? This can be related to genetics, but most often it is related to how adept a person's senses have been allowed to develop. 

A child that engages in an outdoor after school program is constantly utilizing all their senses to undergo child-led investigations into their surroundings. This can be anything from the smell of a skunk to the whistling noise of blowing wind. Every time your child uses their senses in the wild, they are working towards developing a finely tuned set of senses they can benefit from in the future. 

​

Helps Your Child Boost Immunity 
There is something special about fresh air. When the fresh cold air hits your face, it brings a rejuvenating embrace not just for adults, but kids also. A newsletter written by the University of Pennsylvania suggests that children in rural areas who have an active outdoor life experience the best overall health out of all children in the Nation. 

This is because fresh air is dramatically more beneficial than recycled indoor air. You will find that germs and bacteria thrive in higher numbers indoors when compared to outdoors. For your child, this means that running and playing outside will serve to limit their exposure to germs and bacteria from indoors. Additionally, fresh air carries trace amounts of healthy bacteria that will help build your child's autoimmunity and resistance to allergies. 

​

Improves Attention Span 
One of the most respected medical journals published By Stanford University has recently released a publication that states, outdoor kids activities can help improve attention span in children. The paper essentially suggests that kids who enjoy the outdoors more often are self-motivated to explore their environment. By being self-directed, they are likely to stick with a task from beginning to end. This incredible evidence tells us that by enrolling your child in an outdoor after school program, they can learn how to overcome any attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.