Tip—Outdoor activities can be a lot more fun if Mom and Dad participate along with them.

I can still hear my parents’ plaintive cry in my mind’s ear, “Please put that book down and go outside!” I was, and still am, a voracious reader. Although an obsession with reading is far from a problem in itself, too much time spent in one activity can lead to imbalance. That was my parents’ concern. They wanted me to play outside, for at least some of the time, in nature and with other children. (Don’t tell my parents, but I often hid my book under my shirt and just went out and climbed a tree, perched on a sturdy branch, and continued reading, undisturbed.)

Today, parents’ concerns focus more on inside activities with screens—TV, video games, computer, I-pods—that suck up much of our children’s discretionary time. Technology is going to be an even bigger part of our children’s lives than it is for us—that’s just a given. The key, then, is to ensure that the opportunity for outside, traditional play is readily available and that our children take advantage of it. This is a personal concern for me—my ten-year-old daughter and two teenage sons all love their screens. Although I have lots of tolerance for the reading they do, I become worried when they consume more than an hour of screens per day.

Tools—Harriet Heath, Ph.D., psychologist and author of Using Your Values to Raise Your Child to Be an Adult You Admire, advocates deliberately integrating your values into your daily parenting. What would this look like in the case of balancing indoor and outdoor activities? Let’s use her step-by-step process for brainstorming a plan on this issue.

• Describe the situation in your family that needs attention. In my family, the children are spending more time than I think healthy on indoor entertainment pursuits involving screens. I am particularly concerned that they get enough outside time—both nature time and time with friends outside.

• Brainstorm ideas to address the problem. My husband and I sat down and came up with a list of ideas we thought would help. Here are only a few of them.

• Encourage bike riding each afternoon it doesn’t rain. Establish a once-a- week, family bike ride—perhaps on Sunday afternoons.
• Enforce screen limits for weekdays and weekends.
• Be willing to have friends over more often and have outdoor equipment available—like a badminton set, frisbees, slip-n-slides, and bikes.
• Rotate dog-walking responsibilities so that Mom is not the only one taking advantage of this outside time.
• Mom can invite kids to hike with her in the greenbelt areas surrounding the neighborhood.
• Check with Grandad to see if he is willing to help Dad and the boys build a treehouse in his big, maple tree.
• Organize park visits with friends and frisbees along.
• Plan 2-4 weekend camping trips. Choose locations with hiking trails.
• Include the kids in gardening and harvesting tasks in Grandad’s vegetable garden.
• Schedule a day trip to the rainforest on the coast.

• Make a plan, using ideas from your list that support your values. We actually liked all the ideas we generated, but decided to start with weekly family bike rides, screen limits, and to involve the kids in planning camping trips. We resolved to try and think of pursuits in nature first when we have a free afternoon for a family activity instead of heading to the movie theater.

You’ll find more practical tips you can use right now in Using Your Values to Raise Your Child to Be an Adult You Admire by Harriet Heath, Ph.D.

E-mail this page to a friend