While we were in Sweden, the girls got a glimpse of that village as well. Not only were they surrounded by people who saw outdoor play and hands-on experiences in nature as a necessary part of a good childhood, but—thanks to allemansrätten—they experienced the meaning of playing in the woods as if it were their own, and both parks and wild places were plentiful, even in the big cities. At preschool, Nora played outside every day, regardless of the weather, and those of her classmates who didn’t get out much at home were still able to forge a meaningful connection with nature through visits to the school forest and beyond. Maya was introduced to environmental education and got a taste of what it was like to get around on her own in a place where seeing unsupervised children on foot was still considered normal, and the cities were walkable and safe. Finally, keeping the nature connection alive at home was easy through the tradition of friluftsliv, a way of life that centers around exploring and enjoying nature.
In the US we need to build up our villages. While some states have a rich and strong outdoor culture comparable to Scandinavia’s, others have a longer way to go. Even in states where the outdoors is a central part of life, children’s access to nature often depends on the financial means and interest of the parents.
There are plenty of ideas for strengthening the connection between children and nature in the US, and as vast and diverse as this country is, we’re more likely to see a patchwork of solutions than universal ones. Richard Louv, one of the most prominent visionaries for the children and nature movement in North America, thinks that embracing the “hybrid mind”—the result of marrying nature and technology, direct and digital experiences—will be key to this effort. The hybrid mind, he hypothesizes, will “increase our intelligence, creative thinking and productivity” and could lead to the creation of communities that aren’t just sustainable but “nature-rich.” In Louv’s vision of a nature-rich community, schools reward teachers who get their students outside to learn on a regular basis, pediatricians prescribe outdoor exercise to combat obesity, and citizens, businesses, and local governments work together to increase green spaces and make neighborhoods more walkable.
For this to happen, and for the children-and-nature movement to prevail, he believes that the growing public awareness of the need for nature in children’s lives must be paired with action at the individual, family, community, and government levels. “Government or large institutions alone cannot create a nature-rich civilization,” he says. “A long-lived movement requires the rapid contagion of small actions taken daily by individuals, families, churches, schools, grandparents, and many others—actions encouraged by, but not dependent on, organizations, programs, public policies, and experts.”
Louv is seeing many encouraging signs and calls 2015 a “banner year for the new nature movement.” For example, he mentions that the controversial No Child Left Behind was replaced by the Every Student Succeeds Act, which, unlike NCLB, supports field studies and learning about the environment and conservation. Louv also notes that more physicians started prescribing nature time to get people outside and exercising, and that corporations and government agencies added millions of dollars in funding for initiatives that aim to connect children with nature. The same year, over 1.4 million people heeded outdoor retailer REI’s call to #OptOutside on Black Friday instead of hitting the mall.
Forest schools, which were unheard-of when I moved to the US, and other nature-based education initiatives are starting to pop up not only where you would expect them to—in the outdoorsy Pacific Northwest—but in the rural Midwest and the South. Since Erin Kenny cofounded the US’s first forest kindergarten in 2006, the number of nature-based preschools in North America grew to over two hundred by 2017, according to the Natural Start Alliance. That’s still a long way from being available to everybody, and onerous government regulations, a litigious culture, and the fact that many new parents don’t recognize the benefits of playing outside for hours on end remain major hurdles for the movement, in Kenny’s opinion. Still, it’s a move in the right direction. “There’s definitely a backlash in this country against the intense academic expectations for three- and four-year-olds, and that’s given rise to these forest programs,” she says. “Many parents still feel pressured, but others are saying, ‘This is not right; I can just feel it.’”
Several parts of the country have also seen a backlash against schools’ poor recess policies and excessive use of high-stakes standardized testing. In Florida, parents picketed school district headquarters and lobbied the state government for their children’s right to recess, and across the country the parents of nearly seven hundred thousand students chose to let them opt out of or boycott standardized tests in 2015, according to the advocacy group FairTest.
Meanwhile, dedicated educators are blazing a trail for nature-smart schools. In Vermont, public school teacher Eliza Minnucci started taking her kindergarten class to the forest all day every Monday, rain or shine. In Fort Worth, Texas, Eagle Mountain Elementary School was inspired by the Finnish model and tripled recess for kindergarten and first-grade students. Both teachers and parents immediately saw positive results. In Oregon, which has a long tradition of outdoor learning, lawmakers voted nearly unanimously to make a weeklong, overnight outdoor school available for every fifth- or sixth-grade student in the state. And south of Atlanta, at the Chattahoochee Hills Charter School, inspired by Louv’s book Last Child in the Woods, 350 kindergarten through sixth-grade students from mostly low-income families learn outdoors for a third of the school day, which has so far resulted in fewer sick days and improved test scores. “Something magical happens when kids connect with nature. I think it allows them to think in a broader sense,” the school’s principal, Walter Buttler, told CBS News.
On the individual level, parents are fighting the fear of strangers that has crippled children’s freedom to play outside by actively working to increase the social trust in their communities. In California, tech entrepreneur Mike Lanza wanted his three children to live in the same kind of play-friendly neighborhood in which he himself had grown up, and essentially created it by inviting the neighbor kids to his front yard. His book Playborhood: Turn Your Neighborhood into a Place for Play is helping others do the same thing.
Aimie Stilling, the American filmmaker, was so inspired after visiting the Danish junk playground Rainbow that she decided to create a miniature version for her daughter, Bella, in the family’s backyard in Orlando, Florida. “I started to hang out in the front yard doing pop-up playground-type activities with loose parts to bait the neighborhood kids in. I left all kinds of crazy stuff for them to play with out on our front lawn, and that’s when our kid tribe began,” she says.
The friendships and the parents’ trust grew, and eventually Aimie could transition the “tribe” to the backyard. Here, out of sight from the homeowners’ association thanks to a green privacy screen, she gradually created a nature play area with trees, boulders, stumps, areas for digging, a mud kitchen, a water table, and an assortment of loose parts as well as some traditional playground equipment like swings, a zip line, and a geodesic climbing dome.
“When she turns nine, there will be saws, hammers, and nails,” Aimie says. “By no means is our backyard a showpiece; it’s an environment designed to meet the needs of our child, not our aesthetic. We’ve found that there is much more joy in watching the formation of a human.”
Over the past year, I, too, had tried to think of ways that I could encourage outdoor play in my hometown in Indiana, and eventually I found some like-minded people. The summer before we left for Sweden, I had joined a community effort to revamp the old and deteriorating city playground where I often spent time with the girls after school. When we invited local children to design their dream playground, I was not surprised to see that what most of them wanted was a simple, timeless staple of childhood: a tree house. And so it was decided that the playground would have a tree-house theme. It will also be a place where children can get in touch with nature.
In addition to traditional playground equipment like swings and slides, the final design features a sand and water play area, boulders to climb, a winding path through a butterfly garden featuring native plants, and a splash pad that is reminiscent of a creek bed. A new man-made mound that will double as a sledding hill will make the playground more appealing in the winter. Call us overly optimistic, but our hope is that if we build it, the kids will come.
It seems like the tide may finally be turning, not the least because more American parents seem to have noticed that their children don’t play outside as they did, nor do they have the same freedom. And many of them are starting to recognize that it’s a problem. I run into one of them at the local community pool one day, an acquaintance who has a young daughter. She works full-time and tells me that she’s concerned about her daughter being too sedentary over the summer.
“Kids need to be outside and move around, not sit in front of a TV all day long. We didn’t have cable when I was little; we were outside playing all the time,” she laments. She proceeds to tell me about children whom she has encountered through her work as a speech-language pathologist, who have spent so much time watching TV that they lack the vocabulary and imagination to come up with a simple story. “You know, I saw this video on Facebook the other day. It was about these preschools in Europe where the kids are outside all day. I think they were called forest schools. Have you heard about them?”
I can’t help but smile. I’ve known this mom for several years and never could have guessed that she was such a staunch fan of outdoor play.
“Yes, I have, actually. They do seem great, don’t they?”
We spend many hours at the pool during that hot summer after we return from Sweden. But as one lazy day after the other rolls by, I notice that, without their posse of Swedish friends, Maya and Nora are less likely to stay out and play for longer than half an hour by themselves. That means I’m inevitably back in the role of cheerleader-in-chief for outdoor play and activities. It seems to do the trick. Within a couple of weeks of our return, they have spent countless hours wrestling each other in the hammock in our backyard; accompanied me on several bike rides; climbed a few trees; caught and released at least three toads; gone hiking and waterskiing; camped out and grilled s’mores over an open fire; baked several mud pies; cared for, buried, and mourned a mouse that fell victim to our dog; and purposely touched poison ivy just to see if they were susceptible to it (they were). We even find a couple of public nature areas across the state line, in Illinois, where the girls can play in the water without facing repercussions.
Inspired by some of their Swedish friends, both girls recently stopped eating refined sugar. Maya now polices the grocery cart with zeal, giving me little choice but to quit too. I even give up my favorite breakfast cereal and surprise myself by finding a recipe for a paleo chocolate tart that doesn’t taste like cardboard. Apart from the poison ivy (and the unfortunate death of the mouse, bless its heart), it’s shaping up to be a good summer.
For my own peace of mind, and to make sure there are no gaps that we need to fill over the summer, I take the school up on its offer to screen Maya in English and math before she heads into third grade. After all, she used a different math curriculum and had virtually no English for a whole semester. As I had expected, she is right where she needs to be. Nora, meanwhile, missed kindergarten screening while we were in Sweden. When I ask if Nora needs to do it before registering for school, one of the administrators says, “Let’s not worry about it; I’m sure she’s just fine.” It’s a refreshing response.
Maya still loves her tablet, but after our time in Sweden it seems as if we’ve been able to keep a better balance and fight less over screen time. Maya’s interest in nature and compassion for animals seems to be stronger than ever. After successfully reuniting a fledgling baby bird with its parents when it fell out of its nest, she tells me that her dream is to become a veterinarian specializing in rescuing wildlife. She is currently working on her second book, which in an unconventional twist mixes a manifesto against eating candy and a guide for caring for your pets and nature. If being a wildlife vet doesn’t work out, I bet a writing career will.
Nora doesn’t know what she wants to be yet, but I can tell that her experience with the Swedish Scouts has made an impression. She still wants an iPhone for Christmas, but it’s no longer at the top of her list: a whittling knife is. While waiting for Santa, she spends some of her birthday money on a Swiss Army knife, which she uses to saw through wood for our campfire with impressive precision and grit for a five-year-old. A week after our return to the US following six months of attending a preschool with no formal academics, she declares that she wants to learn how to read and starts spelling out her first Swedish words on some cards from a board game. Soon, she starts writing new words as well. Every night, she makes me read the short farewell note that the staff at her Swedish preschool gave her on her last day, until she knows it by heart.
As for myself, I’m still trying to navigate this mysterious thing called parenthood. The range of feelings that I go through on a daily basis now make my volatile teen years seem like pure Zen in comparison. Exhilarating and exasperating, emotional and exhausting—sometimes all at once—parenting is like no other experience I’ve ever had. Throughout this crazy journey, the outdoors have helped keep me sane, and not only because I sometimes (okay, often) send the kids outside to play on their own when I want to cook dinner without refereeing sibling quibbles, or simply because I need a moment to myself, but also because we often go outside together. Experiencing nature with my daughters—whether hiking and camping or just planting flowers and digging for earthworms together in the backyard—has brought us closer in a way nothing else has. It hasn’t always been easy, and some of our outdoor adventures still end with faked injuries (theirs), crushed expectations (mine), and tears (could go either way). But those are the exceptions. No matter how lousy a day starts out, we can almost always turn it around by going outside and enjoying nature together. I still throw out the phrase “There’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes” on a regular basis, fully aware that the girls at some point likely will come to find it extremely annoying. That’s okay. One day, I hope they’ll understand that I didn’t just do it because I find it incredibly catchy, but because I know how valuable spending time outdoors is to their physical and spiritual health and well-being. It’s therapeutic to me too. I would go as far as calling it a primal need.
What will happen once summer is over and school is back in session? I don’t know. With any luck, Nora will thrive in kindergarten, and Maya will be in high school before I hear “I hate school” again. Regardless, I believe that their experience abroad has affected them profoundly in more than one way. When they get older, maybe even have kids of their own, and they start reflecting on the places that made their childhoods special, I’m pretty sure a few of them will be in Sweden. Maybe they’ll even carry these places in their hearts for the rest of their lives.
A few years ago, we sold our home in town and built a house on a quiet hill with some acreage in the country. The very first evening that we spent in the new house, a herd of deer quietly made its way through the backyard as a pink sun was setting over the frost-covered stubble in the adjacent cornfields. I remember thinking to myself that this was a place I could call home.
After we moved, my walks around town became more and more uncommon. Getting both the kids, a good-size jogging stroller, and Barney and Ralphie, our black Labs, into my vehicle wasn’t even possible. Instead, we mostly stayed on the country roads that meander through the area or explored the lush woods and open meadows behind our house, where a motley repertoire of wildlife—deer, coyotes, turtles, snakes, wild turkeys, vultures, rabbits, toads, owls, raccoons, possums—have continued to grace us with their presence.
More than a few people noticed that my curious entourage and I somehow had gone missing from the cityscape. But every once in a while, they can still catch a glimpse
of us. Not too long ago, on an overcast but comfortable day, the girls and I put on our boots and rain gear and ventured into town for a walk. It had been storming off and on for days and we desperately needed to get out of the house, breathe the damp air, and watch the birds in the sky without the silencing filter of a window.
Barney and Ralphie had died a while ago, but Elsa—a decidedly worse-behaved yet somehow lovable hound mix that we ended up rescuing from a shelter when the house became too quiet—came with us. As we walked down tranquil, tree-lined streets with names reminiscent of American history—Washington, Jefferson, Harrison—a gentle rain started to fall. As it picked up strength, I stopped to zip up my jacket and tighten the girls’ hoods. Suddenly, a woman stuck out her head from a small white house with a covered porch on our left. She was in her fifties or sixties, and she was looking our way.
“Would you like to get out of the rain, hon?” the woman shouted. “You can come onto my porch and wait it out here if you want.”
“We’re fine. We’ve got our rain gear on. Thank you, though!” I shouted back.
“Are you sure? That rain is really coming down.”
“I’m positive.”
Scandinavian Parenting Tip #8
Help build a village of support for outdoor play in your child’s life by seeking out like-minded people—for example, by joining a local hiking group for parents with young children or by starting a nature-based homeschooling co-op. If homeschooling or forest schooling aren’t an option, find ways to encourage your child’s day care, preschool, or school to find more time for outdoor play and learning.
Suggested reading: Vitamin N: The Essential Guide to a Nature-Rich Life, by Richard Louv. Algonquin Books, 2016.
There’s No Such Thing as Bad Weather Page 25
