Get your children playing outside!

A research team at University of Exeter has identified some cognitive benefits of playing outdoors. 

They report, in a study published in Child Psychiatry and Human Development, that “children who spend more time playing outside had fewer ‘internalising problems’ – characterised as anxiety and depression. Those children were also more positive during the first lockdown. . . . results were consistent even after researchers factored in a wide range of demographic variables including child sex, age, parent employment status etc. and parent mental health.  The study in the Great Britain group also found that the effect was more pronounced in children from lower income families than those growing up in higher income households.”

“Children Who Play Adventurously Have Better Mental Health, Research Finds.”  2022.  Press release, University of Exeter, https://www.exeter.ac.uk/news/research/title_912650_en.html