Natural Playground Part II:I Didn't Know Kids Still Climbed Trees

A while back, a lady walked by and saw our children sitting in a tree. She stopped and watched them play for a short bit. "I didn't know kids still climbed trees", she said.

There is a new "disorder". I don't like all of the labels we smack on children, but this one is interesting. It is called "Nature Deficit Disorder"

Richard Louv first introduced this new disorder in his book, "Last Child in the Woods". He says,"Nature Deficit Disorder describes the human costs of alienation from nature, among them: diminished use of the senses, attention difficulties, and higher rates of physical and emotional illnesses."

He also writes, "Not too many years ago, a child's experience was limited by how far he or she could ride a bicycle or by the physical boundaries that parents set. Today ... the real boundaries of a child's life are set more by the number of available cable channels and videotapes, by the simulated reality of videogames, by the number of megabytes of memory in the home computer. Now kids can go anywhere, as long as they stay inside the electronic bubble."

You already know how I feel about children being exposed to too much technology, so I won't get on my soapbox about that again. Being a nature lover, I could go on and on about the joys of being outdoors and the importance of children having unstructured playtime outside.

As I wrote a few days ago, we are working to create a natural playground in our backyard. It is a project that has taken on a life of it's own and I can't wait until it is finished!

Our backyard is being transformed. What once was a land of plastic and metal is becoming a natural play space for our family. There are still plenty of man-made toys, but we are trying to incorporate more natural elements.

The swing set is gone. I had nothing against that wonderful play structure, but it was getting dangerous, rusty, and was taking up too much space. There was no room for a trampoline, so we decided to go another direction.

We now have a butterfly garden, or at least a raised bed full of tiny seedlings, ready to grow into plants that attract butterflies. There is a new raised bed for vegatables and a rock garden.

The sandbox went the way of the swing set. Why? Well, because, as Zack says, "You can't dig up worms in a sandbox. What I really want is dirt." He now has a beautiful, raised, "Dirt Box"; a designated spot for him to dig a hole to China.

We found a beautiful log that is being used as a balance beam and a huge tub of water for floating, splashing, and filling cups to take over the the "Dirt/Mud Box".

The treehouse is still a favorite with it's pulley bucket. It is getting a new rock wall and birdfeeders to hang from the side.

Our backyard is far from perfect and far from finished, but we are enjoying it. As Zack says, "I wish we had done this years ago."