Your Parenting Mojo - Respectful, Research-based Parenting Ideas To Help Kids Thrive

If you’ve been following the show for a while now, you’ll know that my daughter and I LOVE to spend time outside.  I looked at the research on the https://yourparentingmojo.com/outdoor/ (benefits of outdoor play for young children), and in my https://yourparentingmojo.com/wildchild/ (interview with Dr. Scott Sampson on his book How to Raise a Wild Child), so I am already convinced of its benefits for young children. So doesn’t it go without saying that these benefits will continue for older children, and that if we allowed school-aged children to spend more time outside then all kinds of improved learning outcomes would follow? When I started digging into the research I was shocked by what I found.  Studies employing poor-quality methodology abound.  I’m not sure a control group exists in the whole lot of them.  And “results” are measured in terms of how much students like the program, or how much their self-esteem has improved (as subjectively measured by a teacher’