Helping Your Child Develop a Healthy Love of the Outdoors

We all have fond memories of playing outdoors as children, whether these involved trips to the park, bike rides, beach days, or even camping trips with friends and family. Besides making it possible for children to have experiences that they can look back on later, developing a love of nature from an early age can benefit kids in a host of other ways. Spending time outdoors frequently enhances children’s physical and mental well-being, encourages a love of learning, and helps foster a sense of environmental responsibility.

By the time their kids reach early childhood, Singapore parents will doubtless be eager to introduce them to the outdoors. The wonderful thing is that the abundance of parks, gardens, and other natural attractions in the Lion City makes this easy to do. There’s also no end of nature-centered activities you can do with your child and even the rest of your family.

These 5 tips can help you start cultivating a healthy love of the natural world in your child:

Prioritize Outdoor Play

While the physical activity outdoor play provides is clearly good for children, the benefits of playing outdoors extend far beyond bodily health. Many studies have shown that getting to play outdoors every day drastically improves children’s mood, concentration, and the quality of their sleep. In public settings like parks and playgrounds, children also get opportunities to exercise their social skills and form friendships with peers in relatively unstructured environments. 

Experts generally prescribe about three hours of outdoor play each day for school-aged children. While this certainly seems like a big commitment, the physical and psychological benefits your child will gain make carving out the time well worth the effort. If you’re lucky enough to live in a house with a yard or garden, for instance, simply stepping outside is a practical, low-effort way for your child to get their much-needed outdoor time. You can also visit parks and other outdoor areas in your neighborhood during the week and save more involved excursions to farther-off places for the weekends.

It’s certainly recommended for children to get exposed to outdoor play from an early age. For starters, you should consider enrolling your child in an early childhood Singapore school that incorporates outdoor play as an integral part of childcare. In addition to indoor classrooms that feature sufficient sensory facilities, such schools typically also have attached outdoor play areas that serve as extended learning spaces, helping stimulate children’s curiosity and imagination. 

Demonstrate Your Own Love of Nature

Children naturally take cues from their parents and other people they’re close to, so one surefire way to help them fall in love with the outdoors is to show them your own love for it. When you show excitement, awe, and joy in response to even the most mundane encounters with nature, your child will see that and be moved to do likewise. Make a habit of stopping to examine beautiful flowers or unusual insects with genuine enthusiasm and you may just find your child taking a greater interest in these things as well. 

Try New Outdoor Activities Together

Childhood is the best time to learn new things, as children’s still-developing, flexible minds are primed to absorb new experiences and information like sponges. Children are also generally less self-conscious and inhibited than adults, which makes them much more open to trying new things. Take advantage of this by exposing your child to all sorts of outdoor activities while they’re still young, like biking, swimming, kayaking, and much more.

Teaching kids basic survival skills is one fun and practical use of their outdoor time. You might show your child how to prepare for different weather conditions, build a shelter, and prepare simple meals over a campfire. With these skills under their belt, they’ll feel much more confident and able to cope with the unpredictability of the outside world. 

Go Hiking

If you have access to child-friendly trails, taking a hike together is a wonderful opportunity for the whole family to bond. Your child will get to immerse themselves in the world outside their neighborhood, which will fuel their sense of adventure and deepen their growing connection to the environment. 

Do note that young children are likely to get tired, bored, or cranky on long trails if you don’t take concrete steps to keep them entertained the whole way through. Assigning tasks to your child, such as holding the map or handing out snacks, is one way to make sure they feel involved and engaged throughout the journey. You’ll also want to stop and show them any interesting plant and animal life you encounter on the way.

Read and Learn about Nature

Even if you can’t spend time outdoors as frequently as you’d like to, teaching your child as much as you can about the natural world from the comfort of your own home can help keep the spark alive. Reading stories that heavily feature plants, animals, the cycle of the seasons, and other natural phenomena can help stoke your child’s enthusiasm for the outdoors. You should also get your child to ask you questions about the creatures and phenomena that they learn about at school or encounter outside. If you don’t know the answers, you can research them together and be amazed by what you discover. 

When you encourage your children to fall in love with the outdoors, you’re giving them a great gift that they can enjoy forever. Being deeply connected to nature creates opportunities for learning, exploration, and discovery that will surely enrich any child’s life.