Episode 200 with Angela Hanscom
Children Today are Under Relentless Supervision
SHOW NOTES:
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Watch the Laconia Christian Academy's powerful testimony of the impact of TimberNook on their school culture here >>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9jEZbkmhYg
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RELATED EPISODES:
1KHO 29: We Must Reinsert Movement Into Childhood | Carla Hannaford, Ph.D.
1KHO 20: Play is the Main Occupation of Children | Angela Hanscom, Balanced and Barefoot
SHOW TRANSCRIPT:
200 ANGELA HANSCOM
Ginny Yurich Welcome to the 1000 Hours Outside Podcast. This is a 200th episode. What a journey it's been. It's been so incredible to talk with authors and leaders who have really impacted my own mothering. But here we are with really, for me, the woman I talk about the most, the very, very, very, very most. Angela Hanscom, author of Balanced and Barefoot and founder of Timber Nook. Welcome.
Angela Hanscom Thank you so much for having me. And wow, 200 episodes. That's incredible.
Ginny Yurich That's exciting. And you were on right near the very beginning. And I would say, Angela, that when I talk to other people, if I'm on another interview or some other situation like that, you're the name that comes up the most this balanced and barefoot book. I mean, when I talk about other authors here and there, but yours is every time, pretty much every time is Angela Hanscom. This book Balanced and Barefoot. I tell everyone it is a book that every parent and every educator should read. It's comprehensive, but it's an easy read, too. It's interesting. It's fascinating. And so I've gone back to it so many times over the past years. But in preparation for this interview, because this is the second time we've talked, I actually read it twice, so I read it again. And there is so I mean, I read it for the first time from the perspective of a parent. I just picked up your book. I wasn't doing 1000 hours Outside. I wasn't doing any of this. I just picked your book up and it was so validating to me. I learned so much from it. And now I'm reading it from the perspective of preparing for an interview. And I really cannot sing its praises enough and the work that you've done to help children. So thank you so much for this and for taking the time to be with us. What a treat. I know I never went, but I got to meet you now a couple of times. So what a cool thing. I love to focus on this one. And I don't know, I think it's hard sometimes to talk about the negative things, but also I think it's important. And I talked to someone recently, Angela, a young man who's 20 years old, and he talks basically about the social wasteland of his childhood. Very grieved, very grieved about his childhood, No one to play with, so excited to play. But everyone's on their screens and you go through in your book a lot of issues that have arisen, a lot of common problems. Then you give hope. You say for a lot of them, just small changes. Spending more time outside can help. But I think it's important to know that some of these struggles that children are having are newer, that they're very pervasive and they didn't used to be. So can we start there? Can you talk about what is going on with childhood today? What is what's happening there? Needing services. They have developmental delays. Can you just hit a couple of the bigger ones that you've seen that have changed over the past few decades?
Angela Hanscom Yeah, absolutely. It really it's just plain deprivation. Like not having enough playtime is really affecting kids in all different ways, I guess, in ways that we never expected. It's really sad if you think about it. But it's it is important to recognize because, you know, as a health care professional, I was always taught my ethics classes to do no harm and that we're at the point where our environment has changed so much and that it's actually affecting harm to children and causing problems that maybe when a peer, if they were getting plenty of outdoor playtime like we did years past. So, I mean, one that is really kind of a core issue and I talk about a lot is that even just moving is being restricted, that they're constantly in an upright position. The most recent research is that kids are sitting in a chair 9 hours a day. That's a lot of sitting. What happens is certain muscles will shorten that shouldn't be shortened and certain muscles will link them. That shouldn't be. And so it will affect gait and it will affect their posture, but also because they're in this upright position, they're not moving and vigorous ways. And really our bodies were designed to move a lot, spine in circles, go upside down and do all these things that might make adults fearful or afraid. But those are the things that actually need to happen for children to have a really good sense of body awareness and to be able to navigate their environment safely. So ironically, like out of fear, we're trying to restrict them, but we really need to allow them to even just roll down the hill, helps them to know where their body is in space when navigating. That's just one thing. So there's the physical side of things and we can dive into that if you want. But then there's also the social piece you mentioned. So I have two teenage girls now and now experiencing some of the like social awkwardness that some children are presenting and, you know, a lot of kids just spending time on screens and then feeling I think the pandemic made it worse, like hiding behind masks and being separated from their children just took it to a whole different level. And so these kids are preferring to be alone and then feeling even more lonely and separated. And so that that takes courage and practice to be in real situations with other children in order to overcome those fears. But if we keep allowing them to stay in a screen or stay away from other kids, it becomes harder to take those risks, those emotional risks, and connect with other children.
Ginny Yurich That people pick up your book, you realize that there is so much going on here because you talk about, I think, a lot of common problems. I hear moms say a lot of times like, Oh, my child is getting in trouble in school. They're fidgeting, they are not paying attention. And we do a lot of these different types of behavioral management things, But it's not helping you, Right? Maybe you're and these are the things that people talk about. You're getting report that you're sweet and considerate. Child is starting to push with too much force. Your child is clumsy, your child can't wear these different clothes. Your child is easily upset in a new situation. So all of these things are happening. But what you do is you bridge it back. You help parents and teachers understand that these aren't really isolated things. A lot of them go hand in hand with this play deprivation. So can we just take one of those? Let's talk about one example, which would be the clumsy and that goes back to the physical that kids are running into walls, they're falling out of their chairs. They can't hold themselves upright. This is affecting their academic work because they're having to put so much attention in sitting in the seat. How does that relate back with in the fidgeting? How does that relate back with lack of movement and lack of play?
Angela Hanscom Yeah. Okay, so we'll go a little deeper. So it goes back to kids just not moving enough, basically. Right? So what really needs to happen is kids need to move in vigorous ways, right? We talked about that. So spinning in circles, going upside down, rolling down the hill. And the reason why is because in the inner ear, our little hair cells and there's fluid in there. And when we move in vigorous ways, it stimulates those hair cells and develops what we call the vestibular sense. And that sense is key to all of the other senses. It's actually the unifying sense for what we call sensory integration, which is organization of the brain, so kids can learn and pay attention in class. And so a couple of things that does is the first thing having plenty of movement does is it helps a child to know where their body is in space to get from point A to point B safely, stay in your seat without falling out, you know, be able to get on and off playground equipment effectively. And the way we treat that as occupational therapists in a clinic setting is we'll put them on a swing and we'll actually position in all different directions and we spin them. And so that really helps them again, to know where their body is in space. And we actually have created this thing called an astronaut board and developed this training in conjunction with Nassar, because when astronauts, before they go on outer space, they get in this big machine and they move in all different directions. So when they go into an anti gravity environment, they really know where their body is in space. And so we do the same thing as occupational therapists. We use the swings and also those boards. So sometimes I'll see an adult say, don't spin because you're going to get dizzy or get down from that tree because you're going to get hurt. But when we constantly keep them from moving in those different ways, then we become the barrier to that neurological development and they become actually unsafe in their environment. So I've worked one on the child way back before. Two were around the time when cartoon work started. I was doing odd outdoors. I completely abandoned that, by the way, because I felt like timber could work on stuff. I could not replicate one on one with the child. The other children aspired to play in ways I couldn't as an adult. But anyway, it was working with a child on the swing and I said, I want you to stand on the swing, you know? And she's like, You, That is so dangerous. And I'm like, okay, that's interesting that she said that. But then I said, When you go to school, I want you to spin because again, that helps you know where your body is in space. She went to school and the next week she came back and she said, They won't allow me to spin on the swings. She said, you know, it's a new rule at recess time. So I talked to the recess monitor and she said it's true or not, allowing kids to even, you know, not they're not allowed to stand on it. They're not allowed to spin and they're not even allowed to in their bellies. I found that really ironic because as occupational therapists, we try to get them out of that upright position into different positions, antigravity position to challenge the senses in order to advance and get more organized. Right. And so here we are trying to keep them safe, but a world of occupational therapy and health care. And we purposely do those things to make those children more capable in their environments. So I felt that the educational system and the. Health care system really need to work together in order to provide healthy environments for children.
Ginny Yurich Mm hmm. What's fascinating when you read your book and you think about recess, so I remember having long recess. I remember having all sorts of play equipment. And I really wonder I wonder what the history is of playgrounds, because the original playground equipment, it's like for some reason they really understood children. Yeah, they really understood the needs of children like to have this risky play to climb high, to hang upside down. I mean, that's what we did as kids and I wasn't even very athletic, so I would hang. But I remember hanging upside down on the monkey bars, letting go of my arms and flipping my legs and landing on my feet. I remember all that stuff. And I wasn't in my friends who were in gymnastics. They were way better at it, but I could still do a lot of that stuff. And I remember just hanging upside down and swinging back and forth with my legs crossed. And so this is an interesting thing to think this isn't allowed anymore. And so what's happening in the playground and with the recess time, that's really starting to affect our children in their development.
Angela Hanscom Yeah, Yeah. It's funny you mentioned the playgrounds because I wrote an article for the Playground magazine. This was maybe five or six years ago, but they were developed in maybe the early eighties for safety. And she's like, We're just as frustrated as everybody else. You know, you can write whatever you want. And I talked about the vestibular system and how when we, you know, we've gone and changed our playgrounds, right? We shortened slides, we've shortened swings, and it's really just basic physics. You're going to get less sensory input, you're less likely to create change in the child. That was really interesting that even the playgrounds were saying, we've gone too far with safety. The other thing that's interesting is they've taken a lot of things away, like the merry go round, right? The merry go round, the teeter totter as And one day again I was treating a child outside with a swing. We use a lot swings. So we were I was spinning this child and now I'm in the center. So I'm the one spinning and they're on the outside, so their head is away from me. And what that does, if you look in our old books, is it creates a centrifugal force in the inner ear and bends the hair cells in one direction. And that and I wrote books, works on grounding and sustained attention. And I was like, oh my gosh, this is like the merry go round where you're on the outside holding on for dear life and you're getting that centrifugal force, which happens to be the most powerful vestibular input you can give a child. So like we're trained to be really mindful of using that technique because it can has a lasting effect on kids who really need to determine what they're ready for. But it was I thought it was interesting. It worked on grounding and sustained attention. And it's so powerful. But yet we've taken away due to fear.
Ginny Yurich Due to litigation, sometimes.
Angela Hanscom Litigation, always fear.
Ginny Yurich Well, what's so interesting, this is the most interesting thing about it to me, all of these things you talk about this is in the Otis book, and now we know about this centrifugal force and that ears and we know these things, but kids, they do it on their own without without being told, without the knowledge that this is so good for my development. They do all of those things naturally. Yes. And it's almost like we as adults were starting to try and catch up like, oh, you know, we don't want this litigation. But now we're thinking like, oh, no, we need to work our way back to these things that helped our kids with their development that they just do all on their own. And you talk about that a lot in your book, this sort of innate ness of it. Children have an innate curiosity. They have a desire to move. You say children know what they need. How can that possibly be true?
Angela Hanscom Yeah, it's part of our training to us as therapists like we are supposed to. Again, if I'm going to clinic setting, we're supposed to follow the lead of the child because their sensory systems are designed to seek out what they need at any given time. We have to be very mindful of that. So like if I'm taking a kid and sticking them on something they're not ready for and spinning them, they can feel they're going to throw up. They're going to be overwhelmed or, you know, some kids are very, very sensitive and they can't even tolerate is when we have to really let the child lead. And I think when we get in trouble is not providing any opportunity with this to be able to seek what they need when they need it. The environments are off.
Ginny Yurich Mhm. Well you're right, it can be risky for an adult to control how much sensory input a child gets. And you and I are in the same spot. We have teenagers now too, so our oldest is just starting to drive. And so this is when I say I went back and I read the book a second time. I've always been going back to it for little bits here and there, but when I read it through a second time, there were things that jumped out at me. Now that I have teens, like, I read it when I had young kids and now we've got teenagers. So one of the things you talk about is that we can become barriers to healthy child development. You said that earlier. We're restricting or restricting. And you wrote later, when the children are older and get behind the wheel of a car, they may not have the skills necessary to safely navigate the roads.
Angela Hanscom Yeah.
Ginny Yurich So you're going to get there at some point. You know, if you've got little children at some point, that's where we're at. We're behind the wheel of a car. And so you want your kids to be able to have these quick brains and you want them to be able to react quickly and all of those things. And that's starting from when they're kids, little kids.
Angela Hanscom Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I believe it's not. Yeah, physical is really important, but I believe also the mental health piece and the social and all that, like having plenty of practice in situations with other children and playing with other kids is like fundamental to interpersonal skills. Like, it is really hard to not get that. And then also, like, have the skills you need if you're also out in the real world.
Ginny Yurich Mm hmm. Yeah. So there's a lot here that's going on for our kids that we need to think about. So one of the ones as well is just their immune system. And there's also an increase of asthma and allergies and eczema that didn't exist. And so you talk about just our immune response. So can you explain why going outside helps both for that and also this lymphatic system? So we're in back to school time. A lot of kids get sick. Maybe a lot of that is because they're sitting for 9 hours.
Angela Hanscom Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the movement just in general will help the fluid move in the lymphatic system, and it's just healthier to keep moving when you're sick. But, you know, taking in the dirt and being outside and exposed to different textures, all that, it's just it's healthier. It makes for a more robust children. I remember it like it was really interesting because, like, we went kind of we went back again, right, with over sterilizing everything. And one thing I was so thankful for with our program is that we didn't have to worry about that. We didn't have to sanitize the dirt. We didn't have to like, you know, like so we were able to protect that for children because that's how you boost your immune system as being outdoors.
Ginny Yurich And all that movement. Can you explain to people what what you do at Timber Neck? What does a day look like with timber?
Angela Hanscom Yeah, Yeah. So really, first of all, the mission of the monarch is to restore the occupation of outdoor play and to make it as rich as possible and as authentic as possible. Because outdoor play is a really important occupation that really is at risk, as we know. Right? And so there is all these techniques that we use in order to make sure as as authentic as possible, we provide, yeah, different play experiences, basically. And the environment is just designed to inspire a higher level of play. The adults actually have to step back, which is really, really a critical component of that. And I think we can maybe we can talk about this later, but it's one of the hardest things for adults to do is being like, okay, like stepping back, but also tuning and observing and knowing when to go in and when not to in different place scenarios and why that's really important. A simple example of a play experience might be that they hear the story Three Little Pigs, and then there'd be real bales of hay out there, real bricks, real sticks, maybe wolf masks and pulleys. And so then they have the opportunity to play and build their own three little pig homes. Or they might not they might decide to like make traps, rolls. But it's really just an inspiration because because a lot of children are not giving enough practice, initiating a play idea and then executing that play. They're needing some sort of inspiration to launch them. The other really cool factor is that it's like true neighborhood places, a big mixture of ages, and Peter Gray talks about this a lot, but having that is a huge strength. There's children of all different abilities out there too. So have a child with special needs, different needs, different challenges and strengths out there, and they help each other, inspire each other to do things that they might not normally do in other situations. So that's also a really beautiful thing. For instance, like if I because I'm an occupational therapist, sometimes people will get confused and think, Oh, is this for our kids? Just with special needs? But I feel like the real world is children of all different abilities. Like you wouldn't take all the kids that have trouble social skills and make a group around it because you're in a lot more adult interaction. But if you have a child that might have trouble social skills and they have children with more advanced language skills, model that for Jill and bring them into higher levels of play, that is so powerful. And the research states that that peer modeling is way more effective than an adult going in and directing.
Ginny Yurich So I've seen some of the pictures at Timber and Oak. It makes you want to become. Do you have locations worldwide?
Angela Hanscom Yeah.
Ginny Yurich How many locations?
Angela Hanscom I want to say at least 50 and then at least ten schools, I think.
Ginny Yurich To all sorts of locations. And parents will drop their child off for X amount of hours. This is a long period of time. So I like what you said just a second ago. This is for every kid because a lot of it is preventative. Yes. And you talk about that in your book as well, that we're going down this path where kids are really struggling. You get that sense from your book struggling. And this was written in 2016. So, you know, we're seven years later here and we are seeing the struggles, like you said, a mental health anxiety worry. The clothes that we wear, the foods that we can eat, all these different things. And this outdoor play, starting at a young age, can be something that helps kids to maybe not have some of these different problems. So they come for a long time. So how long might a child come and be at at a timber location or do it through the schools?
Angela Hanscom Well, we usually recommend at least 2 hours for school. So typically schools will do a two hour time block during the school day for timber night and for like private programing or community programing, it's usually at least 3 hours. You know, just because it takes time to figure out who am I going to play with? What am I going to play? And then to dive deep into that play scheme and work on all the stuff that we really want them to work on, the social, emotional and, you know, higher level thinking skills and that kind of stuff.
Ginny Yurich They need the time for it. Tell us real quick, because I know you had a video that just came out about a school that is doing the Timber Neck program and how is that turned out? It's a real cool story.
Angela Hanscom Yeah. So Laconia Christian Academy is a certified timber school that is about 45 minutes from us, and they've been doing timber for five years. And last year they spoke for at our timber conference and had such a powerful testimony. So we decided to record their testimony and share it with everyone because it's so interesting, because so many schools are in the process of taking away recess or cutting the amount of playtime at school, and the school has completely done the opposite. So they've taken timber knocking, They had 2 hours of timber a week for every single grade from pre-K through fifth grade and year two. They loved it so much that they increased it to 5 hours of timber time a week, which is a lot. This is a very academic oriented school too. It's and so they're going to do 5 hours of timber night during the school week for each grade was a huge testimony and they said they looked at the data and that it had in their test scores did not decrease. If anything, it increased and that the kids were healthier, happier, full of joy. And you can listen to the testimonies from the teachers like some teachers got won over. They were doubtful about it. There's physical therapists talking about how it was working on all these different skills that, again, it's hard pressed to replicate in a clinical setting. Yeah, so definitely watch that if you get a chance. I think it's so funny because a lot of schools will, out of fear, take away recess. And the school did the opposite. And not only did they protect their timber at time, like if they have a field trip, they keep their timber time and have a field trip that week and they increase recess from half an hour to a full hour every single day on top of timber nook.
Ginny Yurich I've got chills, changes happening, changes happening. And you know what I have to say this. I was a teacher. That is a hard job. There is an exhausting job You have to be on from the moment the kids come to the moment the kids leave, and then afterward the parents are emailing you. You're having to plan for the next day. It never stops. It's like a train that is barreling forward. And so here is this thing that is helping the children. All that timber and that time, 5 hours plus their hour recess. And also it's giving the teachers a chance to catch their breath, which I think is really important too. So it's doing something for everyone. So people want to find out more about that. That's going to be in the YouTube video. People can go to Timber nook dot com and find out how to become a timber next school, but this component of it needs to be a long period of time. And you and I relate like you wrote in this book and I don't know I have this is the most notes I've ever had on a book. I've got 15 pages here.
Angela Hanscom So like.
Ginny Yurich Is it really kind of counterintuitive? It's not working out well for me. But you had written in it in this book and Balanced and Barefoot. You and I kind of parent did the same way at the beginning. Oh, I found it. You said when my daughter was a young toddler, I constantly chased after her trying to make sure she was safe. We got busy, really busy, driving to preschool, gymnastics, soccer, music class and a moms group. I don't recall taking my daughter outside to play that much. In my mind, we were too busy to sacrifice our precious time in nature. And I think that's the sentiment of most parents. That was my sentiment. It was always a last thing like, Oh, if we've got a half hour, we'll swing by the playground. But we have completely changed the way that we do childhood. Why are we misled when we think we're too busy for outdoor time?
Angela Hanscom I, I think it's really interesting that you mention that, because not only as parents do we say we're too busy, the teachers are you know, the schools are saying the same thing. Right. Think about it like they're saying. We're too busy to sacrifice academics for this. But what's actually the truth is that this time for children has so much worse and endless potential. And I think that sometimes maybe it sounds like it's too good to be true or, you know, well, it's just play, but there's incredible value in it. And I think we need to get our priorities in order. And so we need to bring that back up and make sure that we protect it.
Ginny Yurich Well, and that's what you've done. People are just they don't know. That's what you say in your book. Like we're coming at it from a spot of being well-intentioned or we don't want our kids to get hurt. We don't want them to fall. We don't want them to break an arm. We want to make sure that they're ready for maybe college or post-high school work. We're well-intentioned, but we're wrong.
Angela Hanscom Yeah.
Ginny Yurich We're wrong. And that's what your book does, I think so. Well, is it opens the eyes. I mean, I had no idea. I didn't know. You know, you think because everyone else is enrolling for this and enrolling for that, you think, Oh, well, yeah. I mean, this kid's got to be in French immersion class and we've got to make sure that we're doing Suzuki violin and all of these different things. But we we don't know that this outdoor play, free active play, is doing so much for all of their development and they need a long time. So time and time again, you see in this book daily, daily hours a day, even for older kids. So you talk about 3 hours a day. You have a whole chart in there. What do you say to parents who are like, Well, I don't have time for that, or schools who say, we don't have enough time for that. What do you what do you tell people?
Angela Hanscom Yeah, yeah. At least 3 hours a day. I would say that you might not understand it now, but it will be worth it in the long run. It's so interesting because like, even as a therapist, we do this, like, here we go. And we're like, I'm going to work on fine motor skills and we'll get out a little activity and work on just one component of the child. We compartmentalize things. Whereas if you go out and you watch a tune work experience or you watch kids at Recess, they're working on multiple things at once. Multiple senses are engaged. So much more is happening and it's in the context of the real world. And so that's going to generalize over into other real world federations and local example. That is, we had a little boy come to Tamarac one time that was really struggling with he didn't want to go to the pedals because he he didn't want to like, get barefoot and stuff. So he had classic welly boots on. He's like, I know we're going there. I'm not taking these off. And I'm like, That's fine. So we went down and what happened was kids were catching frogs and he got visibly excited. He was like, Oh, like, so he went right in and he ended up the water, went in his boots and he had socks on, which feels really gross. So he came back out and he's like, Can I please take this off? This is, you know, yucky. So he took off the shoes and socks, went right back in and started catching frogs. And it was interesting because we were videoing it and we talked to the mother later. We're like, he went barefoot, catching frogs. And she goes, And, you know, he had been working in the clinic, setting two years, trying to go barefoot on these plastic balance beams. Again, that's not, you know, real life, but unsuccessful. And here he is in giant mud puddles, catching frogs. And so what was interesting is then later on, because it's a real environment, he started going barefoot, camping and in generalizing over to other environments. Now, if I had said no, I think you should take those shoes off, you know, what do you think would have happened so often that when kids have sensory issues, there's anxiety tied to that. So it was a choice to play as a choice, right? And that was so motivating. That frog catching a frog was so motivating. It trumped his fear and he was able to overcome whatever challenges on his own. And again, he regulated when he was ready for it, but we allowed the opportunity to do so without putting extra pressure on him.
Ginny Yurich And that's what you say. There's just not the opportunity anymore. Yeah, that's what we've taken away. And they need a lot of time to be able to work into it. And that makes a lot of sense even for an adult. Sometimes when you're in a new situation, you need time, you need time to acclimate. And so you say in this book, 60 minutes of movement a day is not enough. Children need to move for hours every day. In order to reap the sensory, cognitive and health benefits. This is important for parents to know. It's a restructuring of how we do childhood. I say now childhood is not for homework because if you're already at school for six or 7 hours, that's enough. There are other components of the kids that need to be worked on that are so important. You just brought up the gross motor. I figured we get there for a second because you talk about, well, you have the fine motor and so you talk about my gross motor can sometimes precede the fine motor. And a lot of the gross motor things are happening outside the seasons. I love it. There's different seasons. If you live in a place where the seasons change, promote all this different type of work, of heavy work. So can you explain because you talked about the vestibular sense, but the proprioceptive sense, it has to deal with the push and pull in our joints. Can you explain why that's important and how that helps kids with their development?
Angela Hanscom Yeah, absolutely. So you'll hear occupational therapists prescribe heavy work for children a lot. And what that is, is push pull activities. Right. So it's interesting because one day I was thinking about this and I'm like, they're getting a lot of it when they're outdoors naturally, right? So like, I'll watch kids out in Timber nook and they'll pick up a giant pallet and they'll start lugging it because they want to build a floor. And so they're lugging it all the way across the woods. And when they pick up heavy things, they're getting nice resistance to the joints and muscles. And that's really important because it helps, you know, where your limbs are in relation to each other. But it also helps to know how much force to use when playing games like tag without hitting too hard, writing with a pencil without breaking the leg every time. Or maybe they're not writing hard enough holding a frog without squeezing the thing or a baby check. And it's funny because again, at school, a lot of schools are starting to ban tag because kids are hitting with so much force. And so I've heard many schools talk about implementing special rules like two finger touch rules when they play tag. One principal said they can hit with pull noodles, which I don't know how that helps with with that, but or banning it completely. And so instead of taking things away again and deeming them like, well, kids can't handle it, we really want to understand why is this happening? Why are all these kids presenting with issues that maybe you wouldn't have been presenting with these issues years past? And so, again, if you think about outdoor play, like digging in the dirt, getting that heavy work that does help with the joints and muscles. The other thing is touch. I don't know if you want to talk about that. Yeah, but like a lot of kids don't want to get glue on their fingers and they don't want to get dirty. And that is because, again, a lot of these kids aren't getting enough heavy wear. So sometimes if you if you just, you know, climbing a tree, you feel slap, it can feel gross But be that heavy work actually helps to override that light touch sense that can feel aversive when you're climbing a tree. If you feel snap, you're also getting deep pressure, which will help to integrate that light touch sense and override that for children. The same is true as if you're playing on the beach. You know those little sandboxes. I don't know if you ever seen those sensory boxes. So with that, they're just stimulating like touch. They're not digging deep to override that. Whereas on the beach it's different because you have a bigger space. And usually when you're building sandcastles, you're getting that light touch, but you're also getting resistance as you dig. And so the that the pressure helps override that like touch sense and integrate it so that they start being able to tolerate different textures over time. But they need to have that heavy work involved with it. Same with like building a support. Your hands might get dirty when you're building for it, but you're getting heavy work to integrate that like touch sense.
Ginny Yurich And this is happening throughout the seasons. Like I always think about it in the winter with the snow shoveling and I think about it with building a snowman that they're having to lift those huge and they're pushing, you know, they're making these huge balls of snow and they're pushing and they're heaving this shovel full of snow and it's heavy and it's wet and it's just enticing. It's like you don't have to ask a kid to make a snowman yet. They love it. Little ones. I mean, they want the shovel. So it's just a fascinating thing, isn't it, Angie, that these kids, they know it's innately in them. And I just love reading about the really like you're reading about the brilliance of a child when you read your book because you're like, Oh, you know, my kid already does that. My kid already does these different things. Naturally. I don't even have to tell them. They already know This is really encouraging. So people can read more in your book about the vestibular system, the Proprioceptive, what are the other things that's happening is that kids are having trouble using their eyes. So myopia is on the rise, but also this thought of using the eyes in unison for. Reading and tracking what's happening with that.
Angela Hanscom Yeah, and that actually has a lot to do again, with the similar sense. So because we're all really restricting their ability to move, that sense also supports all six muscles to work as a team. And so it acts kind of like a tripod for a camera and stabilizes the eyes. And so if kids are not getting enough movement opportunities throughout the day, those eyes really need that additional support. I had a child come in to see me one time that was he was holding one eye me in school. I think he was like seven. Mm hmm. But it was really trouble having trouble reading. He could read the snell an eye chart just fine, you know, in the nurse's office with the letters know, which really just means he has good visual acuity, but doesn't mean that his eye muscles can work as a team. So he came up for treatment. I had him on that astronaut board. We were talking about where I was spinning him, and then I had him look at between two like pens from point A to point B and to see if he could track the cross. And every time he got to the middle, his eyes would lose control and loop like a rollercoaster. So I was like, how can you imagine, like trying to read in your eyes? Once you got to the middle of your body, your eyes would lose control. So I did. Um, I think it was about two weeks of a similar treatment with him and he was able to then track and it wasn't long before he was able to read. So it's really important to remember that just plenty of movement opportunities will again support the eyes for reading and also for writing. You know, crossing the Midline Behavioral optometrist will work really closely with occupational therapists, and they're huge advocates of movement. I've been on podcasts with them and if you go in their office, you'll see same thing. Trampolines swinging from the ceiling because they know that movement helps with visual skills as well.
Ginny Yurich Wow. So much there. Also, there's more you talk about just stamina.
Angela Hanscom Yeah. Yeah.
Ginny Yurich No one's got stamina. These kids don't have stamina anymore, especially in comparison to decades back. And so what happens when we have decreased stamina?
Angela Hanscom Yeah, it just is really interesting. And even watching my children and they have friends come over in the beginning, they're like, Oh no, we're going to the Hanscom house because I'm like, Go outside. Like, even as teenagers, like, you know, Joel has had friends that, like, they're just they're endurance, isn't they're It's so fascinating. The more they hang out with us in senior year, their endurance increase. But it just takes practice. It's really just more exposure to outdoor physical activity and getting your endurance up.
Ginny Yurich Mm hmm. Right. And then you say there's a lot of ramifications if kids don't have stamina, they can't play as long. And so it just becomes a snowball type thing. You've even talked about a timber and how the kids wouldn't even want to walk. The couple, you know, it's uphill for a couple of minutes and they just don't have the stamina for that. But then they grow into it. Let's lean on the teens for just a minute because we both have them. And I am just saying because people ask a lot of times, what about teens? And you start to think that, well, when they hit 14, 15, like they should just be hitting the books. And I've been so encouraged because your book talks about, no, this 3 hours, this is for all of childhood, maybe ideally for all of life. We should be making sure that we're getting outdoors and enhancing our life. But for me, with teens, this has just become a whirlwind of fun because they can do so many cool things. So what would you say to parents who are afraid and thinking, We've got to take this whole high school career and turn it into this academic preparation time? How would you convince them to lighten up a little bit?
Angela Hanscom Oh, man. Oh yeah. I think it's so important to have a balance in life. You know, even as adults and teens especially, it's such a critical age. First of all, one thing I want to say and I get asked this a lot during when I speak, I get asked a lot like, is there any hope for my teenager who has been kind of, you know, sedentary for so long and Absolutely. So you can create change for the senses for teenagers. It just takes a little bit longer. But, you know, I think when you start young, it just is it's just so much easier because they get exposed to outdoors. It becomes part of who they are. But I would I would argue that it's really important to protect the time for kids to be outdoors. It just might look different. The play might look different for a teenager than it does with children. I mean, we do have a lot of 13, 14 year olds that will play. They're not done with tomorrow night because, like they're creating cultures and societies out in the woods and they become leaders. And even we've had high schoolers like they say, we want timber look like we we want to play like that. And I think when other kids are playing like that, they they get right into it. I've seen adults do capture the flag and you still force and just completely forget we've had Merrell Shoe Company, their design team, come and do a Tim work experience and they and you forget you you get immersed in. That world of play. But there's also like from my own children, like the playing just looks different. Like they'll go off with a group of kids and go snowmobiling 50 miles. They're independent now and they, you know, are they'll go dirt biking and like, you know, take their own truck and, you know, like or ice fishing. And I think it's just really important to have that because they connect most often. It brings great joy, like great joy. They are like, this is the best. You know, taking full advantage of what that outdoors can offer is is really good. And I think it kind of keeps them out of trouble, too, to be honest. Like to have that outlet and connections outdoors.
Ginny Yurich Yeah, well, what you said was so interesting, too, about the multi-age, like the adults coming from Merrell or the high schoolers coming. I think a lot of times we can really envision in a multi-age environment, which is is one of the huge things that Peter great advocates for and free to learn and just in all of his work. But you can think, okay, well you could see how having an older child would really benefit a younger child, the younger child looking up, they want to try these different things. They're challenged. But what the younger kids do is they keep us all playing. That's what they do for the older kids. And we've seen it, too. And I think we can get togethers. All you need is another family or two that when you go outside and you just have a few other people and the kids don't have to be the same age, that there is so much value in getting together and playing. And as your kids get older, they do like what you say. They go ice fishing, you know, they're playing basketball, they're doing tricks on their bike, they're skateboarding. They're still having that risky play and those vigorous play experiences that are enhancing the quality of their life and helping in that whole child development. So it's fun. I think if you've got little kids, you've got a lot to look forward to and there is a huge payoff. That's what I'm seeing. We're doing really fun things. We're going whitewater rafting. I mean, Andy, this is fun. Oh, and it's it's because their foundation was laid and it's just a side benefit is that your life will be enhanced all the way throughout their childhood if you take the time when they're younger. To add in these play experiences. This got brought up near the beginning and I like to circle back on it because it's something that I think permeates society. And you just talked about it. Your kids are going off and doing these different things. They're snowmobiling 50 miles. You wrote in this book, Children today are under relentless supervision, relentless. To some people that might think and to myself included, I think, well, yeah, sure, this is a great idea that supervised relentlessly. And you were talking about it's really hard for adults to take a step back. Why do we need to do that, though?
Angela Hanscom It's a great question. So what I learned over the years is that if we're too close, that adult presence is so high that let's say up timber next, like if I if kids are building it for and I'm standing right next to them, what happens over and over again is they start turning to the adult to seek constant reassurance. Is this okay? Should I do this next? Which you can probably see how this relates to life in general, right? Like, can you tell me what to do next? You know, they become very dependent on the adult to give them ideas of what to play to solve the problems for them. So what we've learned over the years is if we backed up and reduced the adult presence out a timber neck and we get down low and find a seat, so we're hidden, but we're watching so we can still supervise them and go. And if necessary, the kids will start turning to each other to come up with their own play ideas, execute this place games, but also solve their own problems, like if there's conflict. And so learning conflict resolution and becoming there was a lot less paddling as well. So they become more independent. I think it's so critical to do that because like we want our children to fly the coop, We do want them to be successful in life and if they don't have practice, they're going to really struggle and rely on the adult to do it for them.
Ginny Yurich I love you have a it's a subtitle in the book where it says Safety first equals child development later. Yeah. So this overemphasis on safety is really harming our kids for the long run. And it's really important to know. So you just talk about how to deal with fear and how to deal with being okay with taking a step back. And I think you learn that in time. That's why if your kids are young, start now like you have a whole part about they get your babies outside their first year of life because what you learn is you learn little by little to let go. I think that's part of childhood is that the child is learning how to take risks and to move forward in the world little by little. And we as parents are little by little, I mean because I think a parent would be freaked out to say, well, my kid's going to go snowmobiling 50 miles, no way. But you can do that because you've had the experiences when they're seven, eight, nine and ten. And to to learn that they're capable and competent. And then it. Enhances everyone's life. Can we end with just nature in general, like the outdoors? And you talk about how this is just such an ideal environment, really for so many reasons. One is just the variability of it. So you talk about pond hockey, I think is such a good example. Pond hockey versus an indoor ice skating rink. Why choose nature instead of an indoor substitute?
Angela Hanscom Yeah, that's a great question. Well, yeah, when you step outdoors, you know, multiple synapses are firing in the brain, right? So you have all the senses. You know, you have wind, you have, you know, the sun might be beating down on you. So right away you're starting to organize and take in different senses and make sense of that in your body. But it's also more challenging if you're indoors. Like even an ice arena is a good example. Like everything's flat and it's predictable when you go on the pond, like it's it's going to very essential is definitely more challenging. Same with walking outside. It's, you know, the train is not even I want to think about babies like you even just crawling indoors. It's the same. You're putting the same input and the same parts of the body. Every time you put them outside, they're constantly going to be stimulating different parts of the body and challenging themselves more. The other thing is we just talked about pressure helps override that light touch sense. So they're walking on the dirt and they're also getting that pressure to integrate that light touch stance. So now they're going to tolerate getting dirty from an early age. So there's so many benefits and they're is scanning their environment. You've got depth perception, right? They're looking at different things further indoors. There's only so far you can see. So there's there's so much more challenge and it is calming. The other nice thing about being outdoors is calming colors. The bird sounds and nature sounds is very calming, and the ideal state for sensory integration happens to be in a calm but alert state of mind. So you're in this calm state of mind, but you're still alert. Right. Because you might see an animal run by you know, you're looking around your environment and that happens to be ideal for for sensory integration.
Ginny Yurich It is interesting to think about the colors. There's less. We've mostly got the blues, the greens, the Browns and a little flit here and there, a flower or bird. But a lot of these indoor play areas have a lot of bright colors. Even you talk about some of the offices like for occupational therapy as or school classrooms, there's bulletins and bright colors and red and yellow and blue and all these different things. That's coming from a sense of trying to serve the kid, but really it can be overwhelming.
Angela Hanscom Yeah. So a lot of those environments, like, you know, thinking about what percentage of time are children in an environment like we just talk about nature that's conducive to the organization of the brain, then what percentage are they in an environment that could be disorganized, right, or dis regulating. And that's exactly what you just mentioned as bright colors or maybe even just being so close to other children. Like sometimes like they're you're so close and that can be overstimulating to other children. The other problem is to make transitions, right? So a lot of school days are like switch, switch, switch. And when there's kids with sensory issues, they really have a hard time with constantly transitioning like that. So that time is important. That space we talk about is important and opportunity, you know, like just allowing for space to get away from other children having a tough time in that nature. Yeah, that nature piece is really important to Wow.
Ginny Yurich You talk about how therapeutic it is for kids to be outside. It's just really exceptional how much it does for our kids and for us. And so this book just continues to be one. I go back to time and time again. What's changed? I mean, you wrote it probably if it came out seven years ago, you probably wrote it eight years ago. And what has changed? I mean, what's interesting is it just continues to be a book that's more and more valuable. Yeah, that's sort of what I see. Is that what you see?
Angela Hanscom Yeah, I think it's one of those books that it's just it's right. It's still relevant. It's very relevant. I think it's very is still very, very timely. And we have a long way to go. And I think there is more stuff I'm learning that that weren't in the book, you know, especially the social piece is really fascinating to me because I have teenagers and it's like I'm starting to see the repercussions of that. I think that I think it's very relevant stuff.
Ginny Yurich Like it becomes even more relevant. I think year after year you're starting to see like you talk about and if people pick this book up and like I said, the first time I read it, we weren't needing occupational therapy services. Our kids were still fairly young. And, you know, I skimmed through some of that piece of it because I was reading it from the frame of a parent and looking for the information that applied. The time. But if you look at it just from the I guess, the perspective of society, you see these declines and and they just have become more and more like you were talking about back in 2016. You're having a wait list of one year procrastinate occupational services. And now, you know, you're just hearing all about the anxiety and and kids that are very young. Yeah. Three, four years old. They're prescribing medications and different types of things. So I think a book like this just becomes more and more relevant year after year because of the way that society has changed. It's called Balanced and Barefoot. I love the subtitle How Unrestricted Outdoor Play Makes for strong, Competent and Capable Children. Teens to and all the way throughout childhood is one of the best books I've ever read. I always recommend like this is when you give it a baby shower so someone can read it because you have a whole chapter on babies like this. First year of life is critical for them to get outside. There's so much in here. Angie. I guess you're going barefoot. The first year of life is one of the most critical times to get your kids outdoors. It's a whole chapter on babies. There's all about creativity. We don't even talk about creativity. This is important in a world that's changing. We need to have creative kids in their cognition. So much is happening. So, Angela, thank you. Thank you for writing a book that changed our lives. I mean, it changed our lives, the lives of my children, my own life, and one that I just I talk about literally every time I go out getting outside. This is the book I talk about balance and barefoot and one that, you know, every household should have a copy of it so that we can remind ourselves. I think it's hard to hold the line.
Angela Hanscom Yeah.
Ginny Yurich Even when you know, all the stuff, like I know all the stuff and I still am like, cool, maybe we should be doing that foreign language program, or maybe it's hard to hold the line. So I just want to say thank you. Thank you for your time here, and thank you for the influence that you've had on so, so many families.
Angela Hanscom Yeah. Thank you so much, Ginny. And thank you for the work you're doing, too. And, you know, just making it so simple for families to to do something and come together and support each other, It's invaluable.
