8 Oct 2008
Green Hour's campaign manager Bethe Almeras reflects on her own childhood, which was full of free time playing in the outdoors. Bethe reminds parents of the importance of unstructured play-time outside.
My favorite kinds of games growing up were...
Anything that I could play outside! If there were enough kids around, I loved to play Kick the Can and Hide and Seek -- anything fun and social. But, I also was never at a loss to make up my own games. I could spend hours playing in and around the little creek by my house, looking for critters or racing boats made out of leaves and twigs. I liked to build forts and to pretend I was shipwrecked on an island or play detective and look for clues to solve some imaginary crime. I could make a crown of daisies with the best of them, although I still have yet to master the fine art of skipping a stone. Please note that I am not ruling out developing this skill -- I will never give up!
The most important life lesson I learned from free play-time was...
I guess self-reliance was the most important thing -- that I had everything I needed, no need to add a thing. My imagination was my only limit, and as a child, it seemed my imagination had no limits. I didn't need things to make me happy. There was no reason to be bored or cranky. I simply needed to make-up a game, go dig a hole or make a chalk mural on the driveway. Instant joy. My favorite games never came out of a box. My favorite places were right outside my backdoor. Free play taught me to think, to be creative and to find joy in the everyday.
When I look at how rapidly the 21st century has changed our lives, the thing I miss most is...
Being disconnected. Don't get me wrong, technology is great and serves its purpose, but it also tends to make us its slave. How in-touch do we need to be -- ALL the time? That sense of quiet -- of not always being connected is something I think we all miss, whether we know it or not. Whether its time alone walking through a park or working in your garden, or perhaps visiting a museum or playing a game of pick-up basketball in your neighborhood. Anything that doesn’t require a device -- that can allow you to just be. For me, the only thing that gets me connected to me and my world, is taking time to get disconnected.
I hope that makes sense -- you've got to disconnect to connect. Go outside. Leave your cell phone and PDA behind. Enjoy the breeze on your face, the colors -- everything that Mother Nature has to offer. Repeat daily.
My favorite snack as a kid was...
Peanut butter on celery -- just hold the raisins, please. We called it Bumps on a Log, but I was a "log-only" kind of girl. To this day, I still love my "logs" and still skip the bumps! I guess some things never change. (My apologies to raisin-lovers world-wide.)
On winter days I liked to play...
If we were lucky enough to have snow, then we were out on the sledding hills in town. I got braver as I got older, finally working up the nerve to tackle the BIG ONE. Really, in my family you were nobody until you had tackled that hill. Oh the stories we would tell. Did you SEE her fall off the sled?! Man, he was going SO fast! Childhood glory was cemented the day you finally tackled the big hill.
I also loved to draw and paint. I would often sit in the window overlooking the back porch, sketching trees and birds and other things, both real and imagined. Somehow, the world seemed so easy to capture with my box of 64 crayons.
My opinion of Tech-Play is...
While I understand its appeal to kids and parents alike, I can't help but think it’s missing the mark. Kids spend enough time on computers and in front of screens at school and doing homework without it being how they spend their free time. In fact, a Kaiser Family Foundation study found that the average American child spends 44 hours per week (more than 6 hours a day!) staring at some kind of electronic screen. You only get one childhood. Shouldn't it be spent exploring the world hands-on, versus merely watching it, or even worse, engaged in some alternate reality?
Can you imagine who you would be had you not ever caught fire flies, waded in a creek, made mud pies, gone fishing, planted a flower, played a game of kickball or the countless other fun activities that can be found in your backyard and community? Do you really want your kids not to know these simple joys?
By stepping outside -- trading screen time for green time -- you are opening up your kids to a wonderful world of discovery. Let them relax, take a breath, and explore the world around them, and remind you about that world too. When is the last time you felt sand between your toes, watched a butterfly flit to and fro, or tried to whistle with a blade of grass? It's all still there. Nature is still the best teacher and therapist any of us will ever have.
Interview questions prepared by Michell Muldoon, and first appeared on Fun Play Dates.
 Bethe Almeras is the Senior Manager for Family and Educator Programs for the National Wildlife Federation and Campaign Manager for Green Hour. |
