Hello there! I hope you all had a nice Mother's Day weekend. Our weekend was a good mix of busy and relaxing. On Friday night we had some close friends drop off "build your own pizza" kits for our Meal Train and the kids had a blast making their pizzas.
On Saturday we went to Bluey Live,
and now today, (Sunday as I write this) we are taking it easy!
Today I am sharing a little bit about our experience spending 1,000 hours outside as a family.
If you aren't aware, we spent June 2022-April 2023 working towards our goal of spending 1,000 hours outside. It turned out to be one of the best things we've ever done-- and I think it will impact many of the choices we make moving forward.
Last spring I re-read one of my all-time favorite books, Barefoot and Balanced. This book is written by a pediatric occupational therapist, and she stresses the many benefits of children getting unstructured outside play time. I wrote a blog post about it here, if you want to read further. We were already an outdoorsy family, so I was curious if we could actually make this work. Well, not only did we make it work, but we found that our family thrives when outdoors. I compiled a list of benefits I noticed while our family was spending time outdoors to share with you today, complete with some pictures of us outside over the past year. Let's have a look:
1. My children argue significantly less. I don't know why, but my kiddos seem to get on each others' nerves less when they are playing outside. When they are inside playing with play-doh, a board game, or with some other toy, they are more likely to argue over the toy. Maybe it's the change of scenery, maybe it's the lack of toys to fight over, but whatever the case-- it makes mom life easier!
2. It alleviates my mom anxiety. There have been many studies done linking time spent in nature to reducing stress and anxiety. I know we all get mom anxiety to a certain extent, and I have no problem saying mine can get pretty bad at times. Getting outside makes a noticeable difference to me, especially if we are on the water somewhere. If we are at a beach, kayaking on the river, or even just playing in the creek bed, I can feel a discernible difference in my anxiety levels.
3. The kids use their imaginations more. When the kids play inside with their toys, they seem to get stuck in a rut of what the toy is "supposed" to do. For example, when inside, Liam thinks his trains can only go on the train tracks that mommy builds (which then gets destroyed within 5 minutes anyway... sigh). But when we take those same trains outside, he drives all over the backyard with them. He takes them up on the swing set and pushes them down the slides. He plays independently with his trains for a lot longer outside than he does inside, meaning this momma may actually get to enjoy an entire cup of coffee while it's still hot. 👍
4. Our house stays cleaner since fewer toys are being pulled out. This is an obvious favorite-- fewer things being pulled out means fewer things to put away! Do they pull backyard toys out? Sometimes. But even when they do, they're quicker and easier to put away. Putting away a bow and arrow is faster than putting away 100 Legos.
5. The kids sleep better. Imagine you've been at the beach all day, and your kids have been playing hard, in the sun, in the ocean, running up and down the beach. Your kiddos are going to crash come bedtime, right? It doesn't always have to be a day at the beach, we noticed those same effects from going for a nice long bike ride, kayaking, paddle boarding, playing in the creek, etc.
Tips and Tricks
we learned this the hard way this year. Poor Liam burns very easily and there were a few times when I thought we wouldn't be out long, or it was cloudy, or we were in the shade, etc. only for him to have gotten sunburnt.
Wow! What a huge accomplishment and it was so fun to read your experiences and tips- thank you for sharing!
ReplyDeleteThis is really inspiring! I always felt the weather was never right to be outside - too hot, too cold, etc. And someone always has to go to the bathroom! lol.
ReplyDeleteWe like to be outside too, but we could do with some more unstructured play time. I totally agree that everyone seems to get on better when we are outside.
ReplyDeleteI found my kids ate a bit less too; I mean they still wanted snacks and things but I think a lot of that snacking from boredom was curbed and yes, they fought so much less! In fact whenever they were driving me nuts we headed outside (not always for unstructured play but still).
ReplyDeleteThis is so amazing! I think everyone is happier - kids and adults - when we get some time outside everyday.
ReplyDeleteYou had me at kids fighting less. We are restarting next month and being intentional more with getting outside. No more excuses. Thanks for sharing the books again.
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