Why 49% of preschoolers don't go outside to play | BabyCenter

Does your preschooler go outside to play at least once a day? Maybe not.

According to a new study published in the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine, about half of participating preschoolers didn?t go outside at least once per day with their parents.

The study, conducted by Dr. Pooja Tandon and colleagues, targeted almost 9000 children, a nationally representative sample of preschool-aged kids in the United States. Although 93% of the mothers in this sample said their neighborhood was safe, only 44% of mothers and 24% of fathers reported taking their children outside at least once a day.

As you might expect, kids with working mothers were slightly less likely to get outside. And the children of parents who exercise regularly got out more often.

There were also results that you might not have predicted. Despite those daycare playgrounds, kids in childcare were less likely to get outside each day. So were girls and children representing ethnic minorities. You can hear Dr. Tandon discuss the results of the study here:

As Pooja Tandon notes elswhere, this is all very worrying. ?Research shows that outdoor time is important for children?s physical activity and also beneficial for their motor skills, learning, vitamin D levels, vision, and mental health.?

But as a parent herself, she knows it can be difficult to find the time for supervised, outdoor play. The solution? She makes several suggestions:

? Find out if your child gets outside at school or in daycare, and advocate for the importance of daily outdoor play.

? Re-think your habits and see what family activities can be moved outside. Can you walk instead of drive? Turn indoor meals into outdoor picnics? Arrange play dates at your local park?

? Don?t let ?bad? weather keep you inside. That?s what raingear and winter clothing is for.

? Is it dark by the time you get home from work? Try going on family walk with flashlights.

These suggestions sound good to me. But as an anthropologist whose spent a lot of time thinking about the evolution of childhood, I?m struck by another point:

What really ensures that young children play outside is the presence of other kids.

It used to be a universal of childhood. Children living in hunter-gatherer bands or traditional agricultural villages didn?t live indoors. They spent their days outside, in mixed-aged playgroups, the older children looking after the younger ones.

Adults didn?t supervise or chaperone, though the children weren?t completely on their own, either. Somebody ? a parent or friendly neighbor ? was usually within earshot, and available should an emergency arise. Children played on what anthropologist David Lancy calls the ?mother ground,? a village green or commons.

And please note, in case you missed it:

Parents didn?t play with their children, or arrange play dates, or create toddler-friendly outdoor activities.

Adults were too busy ? and children too independent ? for that.

So I can?t help thinking. Surely it?s the loss of the ?mother ground? ? and the close-knit, family-oriented community that comes with it ? that explains why so many toddlers in Tandon?s study don?t get outside.

American parents ? and their counterparts in other countries ? aren?t lazy. It?s not as if we are shirking duties that our parents and grandparents performed. What?s changed is that parents are now expected to supervise their children whenever they go outside.

So there is a conflict ? a new conflict. Children?s outdoor time versus the parents? need to work indoors. Can we fix that problem? Are there tips for parents to re-create the sort of community where children play with other children ? outside ? on the mother ground? Perhaps so. But it will depend on lot of cooperation between adults. What we really need is a village.

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More reading

If this subject interests you, check out my post ?Kids outdoors: Beyond team sports and P.E.,? in which I talk about some of the most physically fit kids in the United States ? those living in traditional Amish and Mennonite communities.

For speculations about the link between children?s play and emotional health, see my post ?Lack of free play harms kids: The evidence.?

image of preschool kids from a photo by U.S. Navy seaman Justan Williams
image of Thai village children copyright Tevaprapas Makklay

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