Play is the Main Occupation of Children, Interview with Angela Hanscom

Ginny: Welcome to the 1000 Hours Outside Podcast. We have today a woman who changed my life literally and changed the lives of our children. Angela Hanscom, founder of Timbernook, author of Balanced and Barefoot, How Unrestricted Outdoor Play, makes for Strong, Confident and Capable Children. Thanks for being here. 

Angela: Thanks for having me. 

Ginny: I love when we've already connected because then I'm less nervous. We're already friends. We've already done a couple things online together, and I know in our Facebook group, our 1000 Hours Outside Facebook group, people are always thrilled that you're in there. 

You have changed my life with this book, and I always tell people this is a must read for parents. So I want to tell about my story, how we ended up with your book, but I’ll read your bio first. 

Angela Hanscom is a pediatric occupational therapist and founder of Timbernook, which focuses on nature center developmental programming in New England. But you also have Timbernook programs all over. 

Angela holds a Master's Degree in occupational therapy and undergraduate in kinesiology, the study of movement with a concentration in health fitness. She specializes in vestibular balance and sensory integration. She is also the author of the book Balanced and Barefoot, How Unrestricted Outdoor Play Makes for Strong, Competent and Capable Children, which discusses the effects of restricted movement and lack of outdoor playtime and overall sensory development in children. I love that you just really are impacting families and impacting kids. So tell me real quick about how many Timbernook programs there are. 

Angela: OK, so we have about, I would say, 40 locations and we're in four countries. So we have four or five sites in Australia and then we have one one in London. So at least I have one in Europe. And then we have about five or six sites in Canada and then the rest are in America.

Ginny: I can't wait to talk more about it. Your book was sort of the foundation for when my kids were little, you know, like under three. There were three of them and I was drowning as a mom. And I know we've talked about this story with your Timbernook staff before but I was drowning as a mom and a friend had told me about Charlotte Mason who was an educational philosopher in the 1800s, and she talked about kids being outside for four to six hours a day whenever the weather was tolerable. And that just sounded absurd and off the wall. But we tried it, and it's been a decade at this point. 

We tried it. We went to a local park for four hours from 9:00 in the morning to 1:00 in the afternoon, and we had such a good day. It was the first day I think I had hope as a mom that I was going to survive. You know, the early childhood years because they're so draining and young kids have so many needs and sometimes it feels just insurmountable. 

And so we had such a good day that we continued to incorporate these long days outside, and I was only doing it for myself. I mean, it's like survival mode. But I noticed real quickly, actually, that our kids were starting to thrive and they weren't getting sick. And, you know, they were able to do more complex things. They were happier. They were sleeping better. And I came across your book and it put all the pieces into place for me as to what was really happening. 

And you just go through in detail, but in an interesting way, all of these benefits that kids are getting when they just play outside. And so this is win-win. So you talk about the occupational therapy clinics and how they often have waitlists that go out for a year. Tell us about your path to writing Balanced and Barefoot.

Angela: Sure. So yeah, I worked in a number of different settings, so I worked with preemies when they first came home and I worked in the hospital settings and I've worked in schools but most of my experience was outpatient therapy clinics, and they're often called sensory gyms. 

The one I worked in the most was very brightly colored and had a lot of primary colors. They had a big ball pit, kind of like Chuck E. Cheese, you know, with the plastic balls and swings hanging from the ceiling. And I remember bringing my daughter in one day and the environment alone was overwhelming to her, and I thought that was really interesting as an occupational therapist. We're supposed to be sensory experts. And I thought it was interesting that this environment was putting her in an overarousal state. 

And so just a series of events happen in my life. I just started picking up on that. We had a huge wait list, that was one of them. So a lot of times if you talk to an occupational therapist, they have huge, a huge caseload right now, a very big demand. And many of them can't keep up with it and they can't quite give children what they need. It's very interesting. A half an hour a week is not enough for the children to be able to regulate themselves and be able to strengthen their muscles, all that kind of thing. 

So in one clinic I was working at, they kept hiring more and more occupational therapists and we were all crowded and we had to share rooms and we would go through the book and the people were waiting about a year to get in to see us too, so we couldn't again meet the demand. 

Then I saw a child come in to see me. It was a boy, and I remember he didn't like wind in his face. And I remember thinking, how do I treat this inside a clinic setting? Because often we're found indoors, occupational therapists and we work on indoor play. You know,  our swings are inside. We bring a little box of sand indoors. And I kept thinking, what do I do? Get a fan? Do I blow the fan on his face?  You know how to treat this?

A lot of kids not wanting to get dirty or messy fingers, but the number one issue was that kids were starting to be more and more clumsy. So falling out of their chairs at school is what teachers are starting to report. You know, running into each other, running into the walls, even, you know falling off playground equipment. 

So that was, you know, just very interesting information, and I just kept filing it away, filing it away. Finally, I decided to stay home with my children. I was all done working. I had no plans to be a manager of anything. 

It's funny with colleagues I talk to, they're like you're running an international company because it's really a small business and it's an international one because I don't even want to be. I just wanted to be an occupational therapist. And that was my dream and raise my children. So I had no plans to work. So when I took time off, I joined a moms group because that was kind of the thing to do at the time. And I overscheduled my own daughter. She was signed up for a million different things, and she was getting very overwhelmed by her schedule. 

I had nightmares of going into the woods. I was scared to go in the woods because at the time I lived in New Hampshire, ticks were becoming a big thing and I thought, you know, just going to get Lyme disease, so I had a lot of fears to overcome as well. So it was a very interesting process for me. 

Then a lot of my daughter's friends needed occupational therapy a lot. I just noticed again, 

“Why this rise and this need for therapy? What is going on with children?”

At the same time, I noticed there weren't a lot of kids playing outside. We take a shortcut through a neighborhood to get to our property. We live on about 12 acres of land, woodland and then 50 acres at conservation. And just one day I was cutting through the neighborhood going where the kids, you know, I know they live in those houses, but they're never outside. So I thought, I’m going to do something to get kids outdoors. I thought it was going to be in the form of nature classes, and so I started with that and I ran one and I had a mom come up to me with her son in hand and ask me, “Can you tell my son why the leaves change color?”

And I looked at her and I'm like, “OK, I'm not a teacher, I'm not an environmentalist.” And really, at the time, those were the professions that were running nature type programming. So it really helped me to reflect on what occupational therapy has anything to do with outdoor programming in general? 

And I really have come to realize even recently, really, it's just really become clear this past year and a half that my mission in life is to bring back the occupation of outdoor play because it's a really important occupation for children. And that's what my job is. 

My job is to use the occupation of a child to enhance development, and a lot of us again, we’re indoors. We weren't thinking about the outdoors. 

But the occupation of outdoor play is a really important occupation for children, and it's really at risk in ways I never even realized. And so that's kind of been a journey for me, but that's how this program started. 

Then we started doing summer camps because I had a friend in marketing say, “I think you'll find parents want to drop their children off more than come with their children.” So it was like, “OK, I'll do one camp.” And she goes, “No, you have to do at least three to be marketable.” And I was just going to do it for one summer, and I went to the University of New Hampshire and asked occupational therapy students if they wanted to help me because I thought, what a great opportunity for students to kind of see the outdoors for its therapeutic value. 

So I took four volunteers that first summer. I had no idea what I was getting into because typically we work one-on-one with the children. When we treat a child or we work in a very small group of kids, we're not used to managing large groups of children. So I didn't know how much work it was. I didn't realize I was starting a business. I was going to do it one summer, so I ran it. It was successful. But after the three weeks, I was like, I'm all done. I'm not doing that. You know, I was so tired. It was like putting on a giant event for three weeks in a row. So what happened was those students went back to the university and told other students, and then I had 14 people ask if they could volunteer at a program for the next school at your program. That wasn't even a program. 

And then I had two teachers reach out that heard about the program. And one was an elementary teacher and the other one was a middle school education teacher. He still works with us today, which is interesting. 

One of the teachers said, “Wouldn't it be fun if we did stories out in the woods like three little pigs?” And she said we could sit at tables and build a little house, said, Hey, a little house out of bricks and a little house out of sticks, and then we can reenact that story. And I, as a therapist, I was thinking, “Wait, what if we brought real bricks into the woods and they can pick them up and engage the muscles and senses and real sticks and bales of hay?” So they're living and breathing the story.

And so that shifted that first year. I was really entertaining them. I had an adult directed activity outside for them every like every 30 - 45 minutes and changed it to be more experimental, experiential play opportunities. So really, the environment is staged to inspire play, but the adults kind of fade into the backdrop and allow the kids to take the lead.

Ginny: It's good because I think actually a lot of people might relate to your story and being on the same journey. 

Angela: So yeah, I'll keep going. OK, so basically every year I said I'd do it one more year and be all done. But basically my life journey is learning to let go because in the past, I was always focused on what I was going to do. 

I'm, you know, very hyper focused. And then I realized it wasn't about me and that I needed to get out of the way and just say “yes” to whatever God was leading me to do. And so that's really a huge part of my journey. And so what happened next was three years down the road after I said “yes” three more years we released our programs in February at 9:00 and at 9:02 we had waitlists for all four weeks and I had parents calling and I couldn't keep up with it. The demand was so high and “Hey, my kid got into your program last year and didn't get in this year. What are you going to do about that?” And I was like, “I don't know,” because I wanted my summers for my children. I didn't want to work. Remember, it wasn't part of my plan. 

So I also had an occupational therapist and a physical therapist reach out at that time and ask, “This is really unique what you're doing for our profession. Do you mind if we replicate? Do you offer some kind of training? Can we replicate your program?” And that's when I realized that this was a gift that I needed to share. 

And so I decided to meet with business mentors because I didn't have business experience and I started getting mentoring. And now we license this program and we train providers from around the world to offer this philosophy in this program for children. It's often in the woods, but not always. It's in nature that's away from buildings, and it's different outdoor play experiences that really get kids playing on a higher level. It's very deep. There's a lot of layers to the benefits of this kind of programming, but I didn't really realize until I saw it in action over the years and started seeing kids change in front of our eyes. 

Ginny: Yeah, and change quickly. Yeah, it really does something for them. I love what you said about bringing back the occupation of outdoor play. It's almost like, you know, you were in sort of a box, right? Which is like dealing one on one in small groups indoors as an occupational therapist. And it's like if you open that and your view of the world and your purpose in your occupational therapy has spread across the globe. And that's really an inspiring story. At what point did you write the book? 

Angela: OK, so that's the next story. So basically around that time, you know, there were certain things that were really bothering me. So at the time, I was still doing private treatment outdoors too. So I was running my camps. But I also saw children privately outside, so I took my swings outside and brought everything out. 

And I remember working with a child and I was like, I want you to spin on this swing. And she said, “That's dangerous, Miss Angie.” And I'm like, “Huh?” And then I'm like, “I want you to spin on your swing when you get to school.” And she said, “OK.” So she came back the next week and she said, “They won't let me spin on my swing at school. They've outlawed that basically.” And I'm like, “Huh?” 

So I asked the teacher, one of the recess monitors and said, “Is it true that the kids can't spin anymore and swings?” And she said, “No, they're not allowed to.” In fact, she goes, “They can't go on their belly anymore, and they have to stay in this upright position.”

And I was thinking, well, as a therapist, what we do is when we treat a child, we try to get them in an anti-gravity position. We want them to go on their bellies, we want them to go on their side, and we actually want to spin them in all different ways because there's hair cells in the inner ear and we want those to be stimulated. We want the fluid to move back and forth. And that's actually how to help a child know where their body is in space and become more and more safe in their environment. 

So I was really shocked because here we are as therapists helping children to be safer by moving in all different ways but in the school they're keeping them upright and we're having issues because of that. And so those kinds of things kept coming up. There was all sorts of stuff like playgrounds were changing and all the things that we do as therapists or would add were being taken away.

The other thing is my daughter turned five and she went to kindergarten and the teacher met with us ahead of time and said, 

“This is not kindergarten like you remember growing up.” 

She said. “This is really like first grade.” 

She said, “We won't have time to teach your children how to cut with scissors. My husband will precut everything at nighttime, so we don't have to worry about that skill.

If they can't tie their shoes. Please put elastic laces on because we don't have time to teach them how to tie their shoes. 

Five minutes for snacks”, she said. 

“But if that gets in the way of the curriculum, it will be a working snack.” 

And then, she said, “15 minutes for recess” but when it snows here in New England, (there's snow most of the school year), she said it will be an indoor recess because we don't have time to get your children to change. 

So this whole theme of “We have no time for developmental skills” kept coming up. And so I ended up homeschooling my own children for a couple of years and really being immersed in the programming I started. I wrote an article called, “Why Kids Fidget and What We Can Do About It.” 

It was again, it was just bothering me, and I had no idea that would go viral. But it did on my blog and it got over a thousand comments. And that's how the concept went international pretty quickly. It got picked up by The Washington Post and then that went viral, and they sold world rights and that's how I was a TED talk for Johnson and Johnson on their main stage. And that's where the book came about. The whole message of “we're overly restricting children in ways that they're not designed to be, and it's affecting development in all sorts of different ways.” 

Ginny: This book, it's so interesting but it's also an easy read. I think that's a hard combination to find. It's light and it's encouraging, but you just get so much out of it. Can we talk about a couple of the things that are in the book?

Angela: Absolutely.

Ginny: One of the things that you talk about is that risky play in general and kids getting out of the upright position makes them safer in the long run. And so we're kind of headed in the wrong direction, right? And maybe that's a little counterintuitive. That risky play makes us safer in the long run.

So you say in your book, 

“In Nature, children learn to take risks, overcome fears, make new friends, regulate emotions and create imaginary worlds.”

And I know those are just some of the very few benefits. If you were to talk to parents, or teachers, or caregivers, what are some of the top, you know, two, three, or four benefits that parents may not know of just about going outside to play?

Angela: Sure. So I think one of the big eye-opener ones was something I kind of touched on. But basically, when we overly restrict children, when we keep them in an upright position for most of their day, which is what's happening, right? They're sitting off and being driven from one event to the next. They're sitting in chairs for a majority of the day. They might have sports, but they're still kind of upright. A lot of times you're playing soccer, you're getting some movement, but you're still kind of in this upright position. And really, we do want kids to move in ways that make adults gasp.

So we want them to go upside down. We want them to spin in vigorous ways, kind of like when we were growing up right, we would spin until we got dizzy and we'd get up and do it again. Roll down the hill, climb trees and we want that head moving all different ways again because we want the fluid to move back and forth to stimulate those hair cells. 

And what that develops is called your vestibular sense. And what a lot of people don't realize is that vestibular sense is key to all the other senses. If that is underdeveloped, let's say kids are sitting - only moving once a week. They're just not getting enough vestibular stimulation. So a lot of kids are walking around with underdeveloped vestibular sense, and that helps with knowing where your body is in space. As we talked about before, to walk from point A to Point B safely, get on and off playground equipment, efficiently stay in your chair without falling to the ground. 

But the other thing it does is it helps support all six eye muscles to be able to work as a team. So you might go to the nurse's office and read a visual eye chart just fine. And so you might have good visual acuity, but it doesn't mean that you have good visual skills. It doesn't mean that your muscles can work as a team. And that's really important for scanning, for reading and for writing so think of that vestibular system also supports the eyes. It's like a tripod to control the eye muscles. 

Another thing it does is it helps with being able to pay attention. So that's why sometimes you'll see kids fidgeting as they're trying to ignite that vestibular sense so they can pay attention and tune in to the teacher. And they just need plenty of movement so that they can be able to pay attention for long periods of time. 

Ginny: I mean, I remember this. I remember tipping back on my chair. I loved that, right? And so actually, kids that are doing these things are smart. Their bodies are driving them to do a certain thing to help wake up their brain, you know, to help them to pay better attention. And then, like you said, I remember at school, we loved those parallel bars and we'd hang upside down and swing upside down, you know, and then flip over, you know, all those things. And I didn't do gymnastics, but my friends did gymnastics. But I found that most of the kids could still do that movement. 

So I think as a parent, you know that these things that kids are naturally drawn to, no one tells you to do those things right. No one tells you to swing on a tire swing, and no one tells you to hang upside down or a cartwheel. Kids are instinctively drawn to these movements that are helping them pay attention, you know, that are helping them develop their vestibular sense. And then also, like you said, their vestibular sense is helping their eyesight. It's miraculous. 

Angela: Yeah, it's amazing. The body is amazing. And if you think about it, you're right, the neurological system is designed to seek out what kind of sensory input they need at any given time. So if a child's spinning in circles is because they're trying to organize their brain. So it's only when we keep them from always doing that… If we're like, “Stop spinning, you're going to get dizzy,” because those are things I hear all the time. Or, you know, “get down from that rock, you're going to get hurt.” It's when we keep doing that, that we're not allowing that neurological system to do its work. 

Angela:Yeah. And this is just one piece of the puzzle. I mean, when I read your book, I'm learning about the rods and cones of the eyes. I'm learning about ligaments. The kids are stretching their ligaments in different ways than if they're just walking across carpet. And so they're less prone to injuries in the long term. There's so many amazing benefits read about in your book that parents and caregivers should know. We can gain more and do less, but just by going outside. 

Angela: Yeah, that is a good thing to know. 

Ginny: Your book starts with the risks and you say compromised sensory and motor development can lead to a slew of problems and are quickly becoming an epidemic of grave concern. So it would seem that staying inside would be the safer route. But tell us why it's actually riskier to stay inside. 

Angela: Yeah, it goes back to, you know, if we constantly keep kids from taking those challenges, then they are not... we call it the “just right challenge.” So we don't talk much about risky play in the world of occupational therapy. We have a different term for it. So we call it the “just right challenge.” 

Let's say their baseline is here. Their balance is, you know, they're at this level. We want them to reach the next level. So we want them to constantly challenge that, to get to the next developmental level. So if you think of walking indoors, everything's flat. It's really not challenging after a while. You kind of adapt to that and you don't think about it. But when you're walking outdoors, it's constantly uneven. You're constantly adjusting your muscles and your balance, your vestibular sense and everything. So we want that kind of environment. We want novel stimuli constantly, you know, gently coming at the child so that they can organize that and make new connections in the brain.

Ginny: I like that terminology. I think “high-risk” is a turnoff, as there are things that are risky and some have higher risk. Risk assessment is an instantaneous assessment of how dangerous something is in combination with how likely it is to happen. And so, you know, like for young children, you're not going to let them play by water unsupervised - it’s very dangerous AND also very likely for something to happen. 

But when we're talking about risky play for children, we're talking about, you know, if they jump off the log, they fall over and they slip. Well, how likely is it to happen? Maybe. But how risky is it all? It's not that dire. And so I like this. And I think that's really good terminology.

You talk about when children don't experience enough movement opportunities to challenge and strengthen their bones. The load bearing capacity of bones significantly. That's another risk. I had Katy Bowman from Nutritious Movement and she just said recently that osteoporosis is a pediatric disease. 

Angela: Oh, really?

Ginny: Wasn't that interesting? 

Angela: That is interesting. That's one of the risks we talk about.

Ginny: Let's talk about load bearing activities. My midwife used to talk about this and I thought about it when you talked about bringing in the bricks or the pig's house.

Angela: I would look at the proprioceptive input that it is giving to the child. 

So when they're picking up heavy bricks or big logs, they're getting a nice sense as to the joints and the muscles, which is something that they need to be able to know where their limbs are in relation to each other, but also to be able to use how much force to use when playing games with other children, for instance, like when playing games like Tag. What's happening is a lot of kids are now hitting with too much force. And some schools are actually banning tag saying, fine, you know, they're getting too aggressive. Let's take away tag without really understanding what's why that is happening in the first place. 

And the way we treat that for children is a lot of heavy work. And so we will recommend a lot of push pull activities or, you know, like farm chores, you know, picking up bales of hay, all of digging in the dirt for hours. All of that again helps stimulate the joints and the muscles in it. 

It also helps with stuff like being able to pick up a baby check and not squeeze it or being able to write with a pencil without breaking the lead over and over. But that's a sense that again and a lot of people aren't necessarily thinking of. 

Ginny: It's called the proprioception sense. 

Angela: So we do want to provide plenty of outdoor play, so they're getting enough proprioceptive input to develop those senses properly. 

I'm very concerned actually with the state of childhood in general right now, and I guess I didn't really understand how bad it was until I started observing. Like, I'm actually volunteering for a health class right now at a school. And it's just like during the I think the pandemic in some ways made things even worse because a lot of these kids are on screens and for the majority of the day. And I remember asking them to do one screen free day and you thought like, I would have taken away their lives. They're like, “What? I can't. I can't do that.”

But if you think about it, they're on electronics. Most of the time they're just pushing buttons with their thumbs or texting, you know, they're not getting that heavy work that they need. And so that sense is bound to be affected. And we're about to see kids grow up and be more aggressive when they play with other children and tackle them and not not know their own strength, not be able to regulate that force as well. 

Ginny: I actually had never heard other senses before I learned them from your book. I only knew of the five that I learned, and I didn't know that there were these other ones. And so it's something that I thought about over the years since we've been outside is that nature through the seasons provides these different opportunities for heavy work. 

So, you know, for example, in the winter and we're in Michigan, so we get snow like you do. I mean, these kids are pushing these huge snowballs and making the snowman right? And they're pushing these huge things of snow. Then they're lifting it up onto the next one and then they lift one up there. And you know, this is something that young children love to do. 

And then here it's fall, right as we're recording this, and so I've got kids, you know, we go to the pumpkin patch and they want to try and lift up the heaviest pumpkin. So once again, it's this theme that we don't even have to instruct them to do these things and find the opportunities. 

One of the things you wrote in your book was, 

“as academic demands increase many children are asked to take a seat, they aren't sitting for just a brief period, followed by lots of opportunities to learn through hands-on experiences. On the contrary, the majority of children are expected to sit for hours. Every day the lack of movement, combined with an unrelenting sitting routine, is wreaking havoc on children's minds and bodies.” 

And that's a huge statement. 

You talk about stamina. You talk about the immune system. You talk about posture. You talk about the eyesight. 

Angela: Yeah - Another thing that we see is a really big issue that has that's related to that is that children are they're so used to being restricted body wise, but they're also restricted with ideas because they're used to adult directed activities. Everything's always done for them.

Ginny: Everything is precut, like you said. 

Angela: Right, precut. Everything is too easy for them. And so it takes away that challenge that we were talking about, even for the mind. So a lot of kids are having trouble initiating a play idea and executing that play. 

And so one thing at Timbernook that we think about all the time is our job is not to give them ideas. It is to inspire. Everything is staged but they have to come up with a play idea.

So that's called the executive functioning skills, so a higher level thinking skill. They don't have the opportunity to do that besides recess, which is really short, often they don't have an ideal environment to practice different play schemes and dive deep into the play end and also have to be mentally flexible with other people's ideas. And, you know, regulate emotions when they deal with conflict.

Ginny: You know all the things that you said, they would translate to the boardroom, being assertive but not too assertive. How can you make sure that you own your voice, you have a voice, but that also that you can be flexible with others ideas?

And I mean, this has challenged me to take a step back and see what's really going on. And then really just being in awe of how children can enter into these experiences and come up with something out of nothing. I mean, how many of us can do that, right? I mean, this really, truly articulates what the kids can do. 

I know you say at Timbernook we are not in the business of entertaining children. Boredom is beneficial, right? 

Angela: Yeah. 

Ginny: Well, one of the things you say that I've actually talked to a lot of people about is you say it takes an average of forty five minutes for children to find out who they are going to play with, decide what they're going to play and finally come up with a play scheme. I think that 45 minutes is something that's really important to talk about, especially if recess is 15 minutes, right? 

Angela: Yeah. So it does. It just takes time to figure out, Yeah, what am I going to play? Who am I going to play with? And then actually dove into that play scheme in the beginning, when we first started doing it, it was almost clockwork. I remember going like, Oh, there's the forty five minute mark, and when we start a new Timbernook program, it's very similar. It just takes time because they're very novel at playing like that.

However, after many years, a lot of these kids come back and they already are very creative. They've had much experience, and so they are part of the environment for other kids, and they inspire those new children to play at a quicker level. So it's very interesting. 

Our Friday group this year is very new at playing. They're just very new. And so it took an hour and a half the first two weeks and I was like, Woo, this is really long which is fine. But it took an hour and a half. It was a lot of exploratory type play and they would keep checking in with adults, which is very interesting. Like, what do we do now? One little boy had a watch and he was going, What? You know, what time is it? My lunch time is at 12 o'clock, so he couldn't be flexible with the idea of time, which was really interesting. So ee recommended he don't bring a watch to Timbernook. They have no sense of time because we want them to be away from what's happening in the world. We want them to just dive into their play world and not worry about time. So that was really interesting

But yet in recesses, it's just not enough time if it's 15 20 minutes. You know, you're just figuring out who am I going to play with? And then the bell rings. So yeah, they get very frustrated. 

Ginny: And I think that 45 minutes is important to know because a lot of people message me and they say, my kid's not playing right. What do I do? And I mean, you just have to wait. And just have little things that you say, like, “I trust you'll find something to do.” Or, “You'll figure it out.”

In your book you say, “As adults, we may feel that we always know what is best for our children. A child's neurological system begs to differ. Building with healthy neurological systems naturally out of a sensory input they need on their own. They determine how much, how fast and how high works for them at any given time. They do this without even thinking about it.” 

Angela: Yeah, absolutely. 

Ginny: That can give parents a lot of confidence. I like that you said executive functioning. That's like a buzzword, right? Because you want their executive function to be top notch. 

You talk about gifts for our children. So you say, “I discovered that movement through active play, particularly in the outdoors, is absolutely the most beneficial gift we as parents, teachers and caregivers can bestow on our children to ensure healthy bodies, creative minds, academic success, emotional stability and strong social skills.”

And we're coming into the holiday season, coming into this season of gifts. Time is a gift and space. But let's talk about this. I mean, how long do these benefits of unsupervised, unrestricted play last? 

Angela: Oh, oh my gosh, that's yeah. It's such a loaded question. But I think that even just one experience, each experience adds on to the child's memories their, you know, their confidence with their bodies and playing with other children. I think it's invaluable.

Again, I know I keep saying this, but it's more important than ever that children do this. 

I have a quick story to tell you. Just recently we had a I actually brought my 16 year old daughter to the doctor's for her normal physical, and the doctor had two questions about joy. And she's like, “Do you find joy every day?” 

“Yes.”

And it was another question about joy, and I wish I remembered. 

But she looked at her and she said, “You're one of the only children that have answered yes to both those questions because children are struggling with the world right now.” 

And so for me, this has become more than just a physical piece. But that children just need space away from what's happening in the world, and they need to be children, they need to play. It's a layer of protection around them, almost like a refuge.

We need to allow them to be joyful and to just, you know, have fun and to laugh and to not worry about anything. So I think it's a huge gift right now to make sure that your children have some time to play every day. It's really important for mental health right now. 

So like, I feel like we're looking at the hierarchy of needs and like, we're kind of here like, this is a lifeline for kids. But then you're getting all the other benefits we talked about on top of that.

Ginny: My journey was that, you know, our time outside started out because I was drowning. I needed help and it helped me help me present, and it helped me be hopeful and it helped me love my life and and just to cope, you know?

But then, you know, then I learned, OK, well, no one's getting sick. You know, this is good. So then I picked up your book and you talked about the enhancement of cognitive development. And, you just go through and then you talk about, like you said, joy and the emotional state and wonder and imagination. And so this just really goes on and on and on from something that's so simple, right? 

But it is hard too because it's hard to carve the time for it. It's hard to go against the grain of more and more and more adult directed activity. That's what we were doing. The same thing as you. 

I think it is hard to go against that culture when, you know, maybe the other kid is in French class and tuba lessons and swim and gymnastics and activities and tutoring. And then you don't do anything. You know what is going to go on like, you know, it feels irresponsible.

Angela: We kind of make a mess of things by over complicating it. And we just need to let go and allow it to be more simple because it's the answer. It takes a process of letting go of our expectations, letting go of our fears, letting go of all of that and just allowing that time and space to happen and just kind of prioritizing that. 

Ginny: You know, it's humbling. 

Let me tell you a story. Well, we're homeschooling. And so, you know, we we have a lot of time. We have extra time for play, which is one of the benefits, you have more time. 

And so the schoolwork does not take up that much time. A couple of hours, you know, depending on the day. But my kids, they complain about it. So one day I was like, “Here's the deal. We're going to do a full school day.” I'm going to pretend like that's the bus ride. We're going to do work. I'm going to give you your 15 minute recess. You know, we're going to do that. You like how you know, how our school seems to be structured these days. 

And you know, of course, the kids didn't really like it, but it was really eye-opening to me because by noon… so we're only a couple of hours in, they kept starting to say, “What do we do next?” They lost their sense of autonomy. So this was eye opening because I saw that the gift of unfilled time helps them to learn how to manage their own time, yes, manage their own lives and to find the things that bring them joy and make them tick. Yes. So it's funny. Sometimes we try and give lessons to our kids and we're the ones that get the lessons.

OK, let's talk about time. How much active play is enough? And look, my book actually opens to this page right there. I had heard it from Charlotte Mason from the 1800s, but hadn't heard it again until your book, and now I'm seeing it pop up other places. 

But you say, “Children should be getting daily movement experiences throughout the day in order to develop strong and healthy musculo-skeletal systems. Musculoskeletal and sensory systems lay the groundwork for higher level mental and physical skills as children age. Ideally kids of all ages should get at least three hours of free play outdoors a day.” 

And then you have this chart. 

“Infants should be playing throughout the day. Toddlers could benefit from five to eight hours worth of active play, preferably outdoors. Preschoolers, five to eight hours. School age, which is ages five to 13, four to five hours of physical activity and outdoor play. and adolescence….” 

This is a big deal because people ask me about teens all the time, but you're still saying three to four hours a day they could benefit from physical activity. 

And so, what would you say is the majority of people who, including myself at the beginning, would think that this amount of time to move around freely is kind of absurd or outlandish? 

Angela: Good question. So the first thing I do when I speak to an audience is usually ask them, I don't tell them that they need to spend three hours outdoors. I ask them to think about their childhood and think about a typical elementary day. You know, how much time do you feel like you spend outside playing, not in sports? Think about... Did you walk to school? Did you walk home from school? How long was your recess session and then how long did you have to play afterwards.

Ginny: [I'm going to do it. I walked a mile. So what? That took 30 minutes? A mile to and from. And then we had a morning recess, which was at least 45 minutes to an hour. Because I remember we would really play. We had lunch recess, which was also long and afternoon recess and we walked home. And then when my dad got home from work, he always played ball with us in the street by catch. And so I would say four.

Angela: Yeah, yeah. So the typical response I get is about four to five hours of outdoor play. They got, you know, digging in the dirt, building dams, you know, and then I ask them, now, think of a child, you know, today it could be a child, your child. It could be a child you work with and think about, do they walk to school or do they walk home from school? You know, how long is their recess? How long do they have afterwards? Give me a total amount of outdoor play time, not counting sports, and the average response is about forty five minutes to an hour and a half. The research was like about forty minutes. I think it's less now. 

Ginny: I read that in Scott Samson’s book, How to Raise a Wild Child. And it's from the National Wildlife Federation where it says four to seven minutes. It is for outdoor free play. So I think what's happening is that maybe kids are getting a half hour or 45 minutes once a week to really have their own time outside. You know, that's not directed by someone else. 

Angela: Four to seven minutes. Holy cow. That's a huge change in the amount of engagement they're getting in the movement of their body, engagement senses all of that. And so as it's bound to affect child development, and that's what we're seeing. I mean, we're again, we're seeing a rise in therapies. We're seeing all sorts of issues. 

And so we're at the point where I was taught as a health care provider to do no harm. We're at the point where if we do nothing, we're going to do harm. And so we really do need to prioritize restoring. 

I remember people saying, “Are you a progressive because you're doing something so innovative?” I'm like, “No, if you really think about it, I'm not. I'm just restoring and protecting their right for outdoor play. I'm just moving backwards.”

Ginny: Yeah. 

Angela: What we did in the past is restoration of outdoor play of something that we had but we've lost really. And if so, if we realize that we're at the point we're doing harm and that's pretty powerful and we need to do something. 

Ginny: One of the practical ideas you have in your book that I hadn't read other places I've not read, you say to schedule all day play dates allow for plenty of time to have meals together, explore, imagine and create new play opportunities. So I thought that was a real take away that parents could do. Let them go play all day and experience all the different parts of childhood. 

Let's end with this principle of simplicity. You were just talking about that. “Simply moving about in a sensory rich, soothing environment is more than adequate for developing muscles naturally.” And we talk about the fact that there's no need for formal exercises beyond what children do on their own. “Ordinary play experiences give them the vestibular input that they need by going upside down in the monkey bars, rolling down hills, dancing until their little hearts are content.” How can such a simple thing be so impactful? 

Angela: It's so interesting because I think I had the perspective of working in a clinic. And again, we're o the senses, but I was given like a little box of sand, and then I started watching kids in giant mud puddles and as a therapist, we are trained to analyze the therapeutic benefits. You know, we go down everything, everything from every single muscle, the hand to balance to eye everything. And I was like in the mud puddles, like, it's just so much richer. So they're both considered a sensory experience, right? But if we truly want to provide a sensory experience that's designed to actually create change in the child, I always I always ask, well, which one's going to better meet that need? And everyone always says the mud puddles because it's a full body engagement. 

You know you're walking on uneven ground. You got the smells. You've got the wind. You've got real frogs that you can catch versus maybe plastic frogs in a little sandbox. It's a meaningful child-directed experience. 

You know, there's choice. The child can choose who they're going to play with, what they're going to do. And that reduces anxiety levels for kids who have sensory issues, and it's just a real environment. So if they actually gain skill in that environment, it's more likely to generalize into another real environment versus this plastic environment where it might not necessarily generalize over. 

Ginny: I don't need to sit in order to learn. I am not exaggerating when I say your book changed my life and I say, if there was one book that parents should read it’s this one: Barefoot and Balanced.

If people are wanting to find out more about you and about your book and about Timberook, they're interested in joining or starting one. Where can people go to find information?

Angela: Timbernook.com There's an email on there as well, and a phone if they want to call us. But yeah, they can watch us on the website. There's all different locations so they can push on location to see if there's one near them as well. The other thing is on Facebook, if they want to follow us to kind of hear the connections between outdoor play and the neuroscience behind it. Any research that's the latest research is usually on there. 

Ginny: And your book is on Amazon, your book is everywhere. So definitely one that's worth reading and worth giving as a gift. 

Can we end with a favorite outdoor childhood memory of yours?

Angela: Oh, yes. So I remember, I had my best friend lived right behind me. So we lived in this kind of interesting neighborhood where we had a fence and I would pull the string to get to her house. But we'd go on different adventures. And I remember one time we went to a yard sale and bought old curtains and silverware and cups and plates and stuff. And then we biked to the park, which was a couple of miles away and brought food and we made a picnic and had our own picnic lunch. That was kind of a sweet moment. 

Ginny: That's really special. And it was all on your own and autonomous. And oh, I mean, you can see what a joy that would be even for adults.

I really appreciate your time so much. Thanks for all you're doing by your parents and teachers and caregivers to roll it back a little bit and really to find the joy and the benefits of all the simple things. 

Angela: Yeah, thank you for having me.