Editor’s Note: “Over a Beer” is a regular column written by Greg Heil. While Greg is the Editor in Chief for Singletracks.com, any opinions expressed in this column are his alone and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Singletracks.com.
I am not a father. I have no children. However, at one point I was myself a child (as most of us were), and it’s interesting to me to observe the kids and teens that I interact with, to see how their environment has changed in the relatively short amount of time since my own childhood. Despite the fact that I don’t have kids myself, I think it’s important to sit down and attempt to answer the question: “What if kids stop playing outside?”
Here’s a video to jumpstart your mental processes:
As a non-parent, this column isn’t intended to proclaim the decline of our civilization, philosopher king-style. Rather, it’s an invitation to pause and think about this question.
Briefly, here are three potential outcomes that I can personally envision if kids stop playing outside:
1. Kids won’t develop a true understanding of natural consequences.
This was highlighted superbly in the video above, but I think it’s a critical point to reiterate. I’ve personally observed an ever-increasing disregard for consequences in the world around us. Whether it’s a politician that breaks the law and keeps their job, a frat boy who commits a rape and gets away with a slap on the wrist, or a driver who rolls their car while trying to drive 100mph on a curvy road, many humans that share our air have a poor concept of consequences, and they try to avoid them at all costs when things do go wrong.
When you plant your front wheel in a rut instead of riding up and over the root in front of you, you flip over the handlebars. The consequences are immediate and absolute. There is no argument to be made–you immediately suffer the repercussions of your actions.
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2. Kids won’t acquire the grit and perseverance that challenging themselves in a truly visceral way provides.
If we constantly ask for easy, we’ll get soft, weak human beings in return, instead of hardy men and women shaped by challenge and adversity.
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3. Kids will lose touch with the environment and other life on the planet around them.
I know of no better way to be in tune with the environment, the changing of the seasons, the movements of animals through their natural habitat, than to spend time under the big blue expanse of open sky. Sometimes I can personally go three or four days at a time without leaving my house, especially if its nasty and unpleasant outside. If the fridge is stocked, I don’t even need to put my shoes on for my commute from the bedroom to the kitchen to my office.
However, I’ve noticed that if I go so much as one day without stepping outdoors, I lose touch with what the weather is doing. I lose touch with the fluctuations in temperature, the budding of the trees in the spring, the changing of the leaves in the fall, the melting of the snow on the ground. We can completely miss out on these rhythms of life and change in our world that our ancestors were intimately familiar with. This lack of connection can lead to comments like “climate change is a hoax,” as we stare out through our windows with the air conditioning roaring. Yet people who have stayed intimately connected to our environment, who haven’t shuttered themselves away, stand witness to our world changing around us.
Now It’s Your Turn
As I mentioned above, this column an invitation to sit and think about this question, and what it means for our kids and our world. So I turn it over to you, especially all of the parents out there: what do you think will happen if kids stop playing outside? Share your thoughts, ideas, and concerns in the comments section below…
16 Comments
Mar 9, 2017
By the way, I have a teen and a pre-teen and so far they're turning out ok.
Mar 10, 2017
Mar 8, 2017
Mar 10, 2017
Seriously though as an uncle nine times over, the kids will be aight. The adults are the ones I'm more worried about.
Mar 9, 2017
Mar 9, 2017
Mar 8, 2017
If a child was denied access to the outdoors, or if they had no interest in it when they were young, they would experience it when they are older. There are some kids who grow up into adults, who function fine in this world, and don't like the outdoors. They understand consequences. I personally come to this site and I see young men riding trails at break neck speeds all for an adrenaline rush. I watch them go over the bars, some of them seriously injured. I have no desire to do that, does not mean that I am weak or there is something wrong with me because I don't want to do that. I raced motocross when I was younger, I only left with mostly minor injuries, though my ankle was shattered and now I have to live everyday not being able to walk as well and always being in pain.
The real question is risk management. How do you handle it? It is quite different when you are young. As a parent, what risks do you allow your children to take? Do you allow them to play outside, in the street, sports at school, race bicycles or motorcycles, snow or water ski, scuba dive, jump out of a plane?
How about back to your point. If your child does not like the outdoors, do you force them to go outside? Do you force them to take risks like play on the play ground or ride a bicycle? What about the dads who played a sport, force/manipulate their children to do that sport and yell and scream at them when they don't perform (I have seen this in baseball, football, motocross and some other sports) What happens when the opposite happens, your child sees on tv the x-games and says he wants to do back flips on a bicycle/motorcycle, or race, fly in a flying squirrel suit after jumping out of a plane, things that if your child makes a mistake, they could end up very broken, a quadriplegic or dead. That is a realistic possibility unlike all children not wanting to play outside.
I will say my bigger concern is drugs. While a child can rebound from not going outdoors as a child and experiencing it as an adult, many children who get involved in drugs don't come back or are locked into drugs through adulthood. They may truly never have any aspiration for the outdoors, only that they are forced to live there, under a bridge because of their addiction.
Mar 8, 2017
Mar 9, 2017
Mar 8, 2017
Mar 9, 2017
Also, many of these persons I am referring to do not know how to paint a wall or check their own oil. So there is something to what Greg is saying imo, and I would add to it. Dads should require their kids to also do work around the house and show them how to do it and show them how to do some basic mechanic work. Things like this.
So all in all, maybe it's not applicable in the US just yet, but Greg's point does apply to other places in the world today, especially heavily populated, well developed nations. And if we ever hit a great depression again, I think we will see how inapt many Americans are today, adult Americans, in basic life skills. For example, can they plant a basic garden? Some can. Many cannot.
Mar 8, 2017
Mar 9, 2017
I've been involved with coaching youth sports and youth volunteer organizations for over 20 years. I have five kids. Things are different, kids are different, but from what I've seen the kids will figure it out.
Mar 9, 2017
Mar 10, 2017
Mar 10, 2017
This is an old one, but I'll share it anyway: "An old man used to walk on the beach every morning. One morning he he walked after a powerful storm and found the beach covered with starfish as far as the eye could see. As he walked he came across a boy picking up starfish and throwing them back in the water. He said to the boy "May I ask what you are doing?", the boy replied "The starfish can't make it back to the ocean on their own and if they are still on the beach when the sun gets high in the sky, they will die". The old man replied "Son, I'm sorry to tell you that there are thousands of starfish, you can't make much of a difference". The boy stared blankly at the old man, slowly picked up another starfish and threw it in the water. He looked at the old man and said "It made a big difference to that one...". You can't fix everything but you don't fix anything only worrying about it.