Balanced and Barefoot: How Unrestricted Outdoor Play Makes for Strong, Confident, and Capable Children, by Angela Hanscom

One of my all-time favorite TV shows as a child was Reading Rainbow.  The show, hosted by LeVar Burton on PBS, promoted the importance of reading and featured children reviewing their favorite books. As a kiddo, I dreamed about being on Reading Rainbow and telling everyone about MY favorite book. Thanks to the US Play Coalition, and their commitment to advance and promote play for people of all ages, I get the chance as a playful adult to provide a review of my favorite playful books! Angela Hanscom wrote the first book that I’ll review – Balanced and Barefoot: How Unrestricted Outdoor Play Makes for Strong, Confident, and Capable Children (New Harbinger Publications 2016).

Angela Hanscom, a pediatric occupational therapist and founder of Timbernook, a nature-based developmental program for children, was inspired to write her book because of the interactions she had with the children and families in her practice. She noticed that kiddos were having problems with balance and coordination that were not typical for children their age. Due to her training and observations, she discovered that children’s opportunities for free play has been removed from children’s everyday lives.

Hanscom’s book advocates for unstructured outdoors play and promotes it as the most optimal way for children to development healthy bodies, minds, and social skills. 

In each chapter, Hanscom describes the benefits of play by addressing questions that many parents have about their children’s development such as “Why can’t my child sit still?”, “When is my baby ready to play outside?” and “Why is my child so emotional?” Hanscom wrote this book primarily for parents.  As a parent myself, I fully appreciated the reasons she provided for the crucial role that play has for children’s development of physical, emotional, social and cognitive skills. However, this book is also important for individuals who do not have children or, more likely, have many children, such as educators, principals, superintendents, leaders at childcare centers, and child advocacy groups. Hanscom provides insight, examples and additional resources to show that playing outdoors can address and minimize behaviors like inattentiveness, lack of creativity, fidgeting, and aggression.

The book also outlines in detail the ways that children benefit from outdoor play particularly to support and build upper body strength, endurance, core strength, fine motor skills, gross motor skills, proprioceptive skills (i.e. awareness of the position and movement of the body), auditory senses, and sensory integration skills (i.e. allows us to make sense of stimuli). Hanscom is particularly interested in understanding sensory processing disorders; this occurs when children have difficulty making sense of external stimuli and using it to create a larger understanding of their world. Children’s senses are most aware when they are outdoors in nature, crunching leaves, feeling mud, dirt, or sand and smelling fragrant breezes. Hanscom fully makes the case that anything that can be done indoors can be moved outdoors.

Caregivers and educators may identify with information from the chapters depending on the age of the children in their lives. Personally, the sections devoted to school-age kiddos and the risk for their overuse of technology, limited opportunities for free play due to increased structured organizations, and many schools’ dwindling time devoted for recess stand out as significant. In Chapter 3, Hanscom makes suggestions about ways to allow children to be active outdoors without a lot of adult interference.  Adults, as we know, can suck the fun out of play! Hanscom spends considerable time addressing how decreased recess, in favor of increased classroom seat time, has negatively affected children’s cognitive development. The resources she provides in the book provides a guide for key points that any recess advocate would bring to a school board meeting and discuss why recess is essential to support children’s cognitive and academic development.

Hanscom is at her best when she helps parents address their fears about outdoor play. She takes a no-nonsense approach, addressing the ways in which parents create too many rules and overschedule their children’s lives to the point that kiddos do not experience the wonder of boredom and have few opportunities to daydream. She makes suggestions about ways to get outside as a family and get “back to the basics and focus on simplicity for the sake of creativity.”

Hanscom’s book should be on the bookshelf of every parent, grandparent, caregiver, educator, or administrator who values children’s time outdoors and wish to promote all the ways that play can affect children’s growth and development.

Heather Von Bank, PhD, is Chair and Associate Professor of Family Consumer Science at Minnesota State University-Mankato.  She teaches and advises in the Child Development and Family Studies area. Her specialty areas include research on parent–child relations during the stage of adolescence and family life issues. Dr. Von Bank is co-author of the book “The Power of Playful Learning” and a member of the US Play Coalition’s Steering Committee.

After teaching the “Benefits of Play in Child Development” course for the last 10 years, I have read this opening line in students’ reflection paper many times. This year my thoughts about play have also changed. I used to think that play was something I could teach my students but now I think that play is something we need to experience to be understood. The focus of my teaching has always been to help college students understand the benefits of unstructured play by helping me organize a Play Day; a community event where families play with used and recyclable materials. The students create the games or activities for the Play Day but this summer I changed the theme to an Adventure Playground. For those of you reading this, and have just crawled out from under a pre-fab playground set, an Adventure Playground provides children with loose parts and encourages them to engage in freely-chosen, child-directed play.

But…before I could host my first Adventure Playground Play Day, I had to rethink my own thoughts about what an unstructured Play Day would look like. Then I had to convince my students that an adventure playground was the way to go, and finally I had to pull it all together, and get the community to show up.

Thinking Playful Thoughts

Although it was not difficult to image what an adventure playground could look like, kids playing with ‘junk’, it took me some time to accept the idea that an unstructured Play Day could work. At the time I was reading a book about playful intelligence; in fact I had the pleasure of meeting the author at the US Play Coalition Conference in Clemson SC last April. I serendipitously pre-ordered the book by Anthony DeBenedet titled Playful Intelligence: The Power of Living Lightly in a Serious World, and discovered after getting home from the conference, and finding the book on my doorstep, that I had met the author at the conference.  Anthony’s book helped me to look at play from a different perspective, the adult point of view. As a university professor, I teach students about children development from a play perspective. My students will one day work with children as a teacher, counselor, occupational therapist, or child life specialist. I am also the parent of two kiddos who love to pretend that they are puppies. I am so steeped in teaching and advocating for children’s play that I forgot to consider adult play! Some of the key points in Anthony’s book helped me to realize that I needed to change things with my play class. That I can use my sense of wonder to rediscover and embrace my imagination; to think about a Play Day that could be different. I knew that play is for all people; I just had to remember that I also needed play.

I think she might be crazy?!

While the students were curious to learn more about adventure playgrounds, they were not sold on the idea, yet. One student thought I was a bit crazy to bring junk to a nature center and let kids play with boxes, pallets, and tubes. After reading parts of Penny Wilson’s Playwork Primer and talking with Morgan Leichter-Saxby co-founder of Pop-up Adventure Playground, the students were beginning to think of themselves as play workers instead of event planners. The role of the play worker is to provide the loose parts and allow children opportunities for risk and child-directed. However, moving to the play worker mindset takes some practice. The students who worked at daycare centers and summer youth programs, had a “safety first” mentality. Students realized they did not have to rush to help children at the Play Day; that in fact they should think of themselves as a resource and not as a remedy. Students appreciated our conversation with Morgan, and were fascinated at the scenes from the documentary “The Land.” They were completely surprised at the level of trust the play workers had with the children as we watched the kiddos use knives, build fires, and scale trees. One student reflected, “Now I know that by telling a child to be careful in the middle of their play, it restricts their play, and I’m not going to do that.”

If you build an adventure playground, they will come?

When I first started hosting Play Days I would make a flyer, post them around town at different businesses and childcare facilities, and hope for the best. Within the last 5 years, I have noticed that the more social networking sites that I posted my event to, it has increased the attendance at the Play Day. I always contact local media outlets to promote the event, however, even after I tell my students about my efforts, and encourage them to post to their social media pages, they are still unsure if anyone would show up. However, it always works! About 60 people came to the Adventure Playground Play Day. Not only was the kiddy-pool filled with mud a favorite, the children were eager to paint their toes, legs, and faces. The parents appreciated the chance for their children to get messy without having to worry about cleaning up the space, that was our responsibility.

The students were concerned about the mess afterwards, however they noted that it was a mess worth cleaning up. They suggested that for “next time” I should warn students about the mess. Although I do plan to give the future student a heads-up, I also want them to experience the Play Day in their own way. If someone had told me, 15 years ago, after I helped my colleagues Joyce Hemphill and Laura Scheinholtz arrange a Play Day, that play would be the focus of my research, advocacy, and teaching philosophy I would never have believed it. You cannot warn people about some things in life, you just have to let them experience it for themselves.

About the Author

Heather Von Bank, PhD, is Chair and Associate Professor of Family Consumer Science at Minnesota State University-Mankato.  She teaches and advises in the Child Development and Family Studies area. Her specialty areas include research on parent–child relations during the stage of adolescence and family life issues. Dr. Von Bank is co-author of the book “The Power of Playful Learning.”

The Story of How the Midwest Play Conference Came to Be

I love my job. Not many people can say that with a straight face, but I can. After my 6^th year of working as a professor at Minnesota State University – Mankato, the opportunity came to apply for my first sabbatical.  When asked about my sabbatical plans a question mark seemed to loom over my head.  I love teaching and working with students, but what else could I possibly do that would provide me with the same rewards that I get while being in the classroom? Then my lightbulb moment occurred.  

I wanted my sabbatical project to be meaningful for my own research and academic interests, but I also wanted the project make an impact on my community. I’ve been attending the US Play Coalition Value of Play Conference every year for 5 years. I’ve had the opportunity to meet playful passionate people, learn about national and international efforts to promote play and found countless ways to improve my teaching and scholarship through professional development practices. I wanted to replicate the formula and create a regional conference in partnership with the US Play Coalition, to bring the message about the importance of play to individuals in the Midwest.  Why the Midwest?  Besides the fact that I live here, there are so many educators and professionals who are passionate about play but were not familiar with the US Play Coalition, particularly in this region.

So…the first ever regional US Play Coalition conference will be held June 25th in Mankato, Minnesota. The Midwest Play Conference will feature Lisa Murphy, a motivational speaker who has years of experience working in early childhood settings, who encourages teachers, parents, and community members to be messy and playful in working with children. The conference will also feature 20 presenters who will be speaking on a variety of topics like nature play, play in early childhood classrooms, ideas for bringing nature inside, and ways to support teachers and their professional development with playful methods. The Midwest Play Conference was designed to reach out to caregivers, parents, community members, and recreation, parks and leisure services professionals, but will be beneficial for anyone who values and supports play.  By attending the conference, attendees will gain a greater appreciation and understanding of local and regional efforts to support play. Who knows, maybe it will be your chance to create a regional conference next!