Outdoor-Free Play

Introduction

Play is recognized as a central occupation for children and is fundamental to their social, emotional, cognitive and physical development (Cooper, 2000; Milteer et al., 2012; Waldman-Levi & Bundy, 2016). Outdoor free play promotes increased development of adaptive behaviours, decision-making skills, social competence, as well as combats issues of increasing rates of childhood obesity in children (Clements, 2004). For the purpose of this paper, outdoor free play is defined as an unscheduled, spontaneous, and pleasurable activity directed by the participants in an outdoor environment (Gray, 2011; Chudacoff, 2007; Missiuna & Pollock, 1991). A child’s ability to participate in an occupation is dependent on multiple factors that determine

Larson and Verma (1999) discuss the evolution of how children spend their time in different cultures. In non-industrialized populations, youth do not attend school and time is devoted to household labour. In post industrialized populations, children’s time spent doing household labour is reduced because schools are established and technology eliminates the need for tasks previously completed by children. In an urban environment, academic achievement is highly valued by society and so, there is a substantial investment in a child’s education. A negative outcome of these societal expectations is observed in the decreased time participating in outdoor free play. Lynch and Moore (2016) discuss how by middle childhood, play is less central than learning and evolves into leisure pursuits that take place in the residual time between academic pursuits. The importance of school and academic achievement is seen in the film, Temple Grandin. Temple is focused on her academic achievements when she attends boarding school. There is a scene where she works through an entire night on an assigned project for her science teacher. Furthermore, her mother mentioned many times that Temple was going to go college even though there was hesitation and questioning by Temple herself. It was an expectation of her mother’s that Temple would attend college (Ferguson & Jackson, 2010). This example illustrates the socio-cultural expectation of academic success. Because academic achievement, and therefore taking the time to complete school work, is highly valued in an urban culture, children participate in outdoor free play less