Back In Time for Dinner

Ah yes, the lazy days of summer. For most of us in the adult world, those days are gone completely. Unfortunately, for most children, those days are gone completely as well. Unstructured outdoor playtime was the hallmark of summer, though not limited only to summer, and was when I really explored the world outside, made stuff up, built forts in the woods and hung out in them, developed strategies to contend with mosquitoes, sadistically plotted the mass destruction of the tent caterpillars that carpeted the street I lived on, and played soccer in the neighborhood with my friends until it was either too dark or one of our parents finally had had enough of our shenanigans. I didn't need a day planner and none of us even knew what a cellphone was. If our parents wanted to reach us, they had to yell very loudly, call someone else's house, or send out a search party. Nobody ever worried whether we were being properly supervised and we never were. Amazingly, as kids, as long as we were outside and it was summer, we were never bored even if we had nothing in particular to do. How cool was that!

As a ski instructor, I am a very big proponent of unstructured outdoor play time. Yes, when I am conducting all-day lessons for kids we do learn a bunch and I do use certain activities for their technical merit and with specific goals. But, as I often tell my students, it definitely is not "school". It is not unusual for parents to express dismay that their children were able to pay attention in their "class" for an entire day. What those parents fail to realize, and what I take great joy in explaining to them, is that there is no one thing to which their kids need to pay attention constantly throughout the day. The amount of sensory input and the variety and quantity of stimulus is incredible and, of yeah, it's a ton of fun, it's active and it's thought provoking. It's just like summer, only it's winter. Our skiing becomes a vehicle for all manner of exploration and, if I'm doing my job right, the day becomes much more than a mere ski lesson - for me and for the kids. Oh, and by the way, it's also true for adults, but don't tell my adult students that.

As a proponent of unstructured outdoor play time, it is at the core of my beliefs about childhood development that over-planned, over-structured, antiseptic, hyper-scrubbed, danger-free childhoods are actually bad for kids in ways physical, psychological and sociological, and that they are also bad for our society as a whole. Wait a minute, you may say, isn't this just about ski lessons? You're darn right it's about lessons, but it most certainly is not about skiing. We're not all winners, we're not likely to make the Olympics, there is sometimes scary stuff out there, falling hurts, skiing in the woods is dangerous, sub-zero weather stinks, rain is wet and nasty, and icy bumps are really a challenge. Sweet!

There are many facets to this way of thinking and many tangents I can explore which really get me up on my soapbox. Suffice it to say that there is a subtle and very interesting sociological movement afoot about child-rearing in the modern hyper-scheduled world. Thankfully, you don't have to take the word of a ski instructor who doesn't have his own children on this subject. In yesterday's New York Times Magazine, Lisa Belkin wrote a good piece which highlights some of the evolution in parenting over recent decades from this perspective ("Let the Kid Be", by Lisa Belkin, The New York Times Magazine, May 31, 2009, p. 19). Another good work on the subject that really got me thinking about my role as the pied piper of unstructured outdoor play time for kids (and adults) is Richard Louv's book Last Child Left in the Woods (Algonquin Books, 2005).

Regardless, in good times and bad, good weather and bad, summer, winter, morning, noon and night, the resilience and creativity of children never ceases to amaze me. It's a good lesson for all of us. So, go outside and don't come back until it's time for dinner. And make sure your little sister gets to play.