The benefits of outdoor play:
- Develops children’s self-confidence and resilience
- Helps children learn to make friends and get along with people
- Develops children’s common sense, understanding of the world and how it works
- Important for physical fitness
- Teaches them lessons they can't learn at school.
Professionals can encourage outdoor play through:
- Teaching children road safety from an early age
- Explaining what to do if someone approaches them, and where it's safe to go
- Setting firm boundaries, and teach them to be well-mannered to adults
- Promote traffic calming measures in residential areas
- Set up ‘Home Zones' where people (especially children) come before cars
- Commission a public information campaign about the importance of play
- Send out information through the schools to help parents reinstate outdoor play
- Start ‘greening' our urban environments so they're more fun to play in.
