Spend the day at Centro Ybor, a former cigar manufacturing plant that now
houses a variety of gift stores, eclectic restaurants, and sponsors
events along the nightclub scene downtown. The magnificence of the ship was the real
adventure that first day and evening.

1. What do you think are the most important barriers to children spending more time outdoors?
I see the biggest barrier as parents’ (and adults in general) attitudes and these seem to be the most stifling to children’s approach to being outdoors. In particular it could be the lack of encouragement and acknowledgement of the things children find to do for themselves. The small, dirty discoveries are more often than not frowned on (an arrangement of old snail shells and feather etc. too dirty to be brought indoors, that kind of thing). Parents often seem to find it hard to empathise with a young person’s delight or wonder for a thing and then this kind of investigative, exploratory play is not encouraged. I feel that children are often left feeling disappointed by adults reactions to the things they have discovered or achieved.
Contrary to some opinions I do not think that the lack of “quality greenspace” is really a factor, I see it as rather an excuse, good work can be done on even the tiniest scraggy patch of weeds. The outdoors is everywhere and all environments can provide good opportunities to children. Parks are probably safer and potentially can offer a greater variety of plants, animals and interactions, which is to be championed, but equally the front door step can lead to an excellent collection of gravel and spiders.

2. What can individuals and families – including grandparents and godparents, as well as the parents themselves – do to help their children engage with nature?
Families could learn to see the value in ‘joining in” rather than supervising. It’s lonely doing things on your own and better to share with the people you are closest to. Skilled facilitators can work well to supplement this but an enthusiastic park ranger is no substitute for a parent who can connect this twig castle to the twig castle with a leaf roof made last week at a different site. Adults could try to cultivate their own sense of wonder and drive for investigation, be happy to learn with their children and not feel embarrassed about a lack of knowledge (“I don’t know, let’s look that up together when we get home”)

3. How can community groups, local and national organisations support families in getting outdoors and closer to nature?
I think the most important thing could be to work to an ideal to get families learning together, to make the change from ‘children’s activities’ to ‘family activities’, this way adults might be able to feel a greater sense of the worth of such provision. Also, it may be possible for activities provided by organisations to be more ‘open’ in terms of outcomes. With less focus on a product (acorn planted in a pot) and more on investigation and self led discovery (some planted an acorn, some made acorn necklace, some collected as many acorns as possible etc) adults and children could practise a more full and satisfying engagement with the outdoors. Also being prepared to discuss the issues that extend from activities aimed to include young people in an adult context (how does this work connect to wider issues) in order to be non-limiting to adults.

4. What policy changes are needed ensure that every child has the opportunity to develop a personal connection with the natural world?
As Andy mentions above I think Risk Assessing could be seen as problematic but I don’t believe it’s the legislation in itself that causes an issue, more it’s interpretation. A stronger focus on risk-benefit assessing could be championed. Guidance to those who have been restricting opportunities sighting H&S might be useful (I have no experience of activities being restricted so not able to fully comment on this).
Leading from above, a genuine appreciation of the outdoors in all it’s often ugly, messy and challenging glory should be championed. Teaching provision seems to vary depending on if a particular class teacher and their TA’s have a feel for going outside or an aversion to it. Professionals should be able to stand above personal taste and do what is required for the children in their care, headteachers should be addressing this.
There should be a greater focus on the value of habitats (parks, openspaces etc) as collections of useful ‘loose parts’ for use by families. Sites are often sanitised of their natural vibrancy through over zealous maintenance in the name of tidiness (or visual statement that you tax money is being spent well). This means leaves are often cleared before games can be played, shrubs are not big enough for hide and seek and opportunities are reduced. Over maintenance/mis-directed maintenance also undermines work that can be done by engagement/play staff and directs funding away from positive, active work. Parks need to be seen as vibrant active spaces that are different from neat, ‘grown up’ work areas in order to encourage a more full engagement. This needs genuine support from department heads, civil servants and government.

I’m quickly answering this off the top of my head but would be very interested to see others views on how positive change can be brought about.

What do you think are the most important barriers to children spending more time outdoors?
- Adults not seen spending time outdoors themselves
- Not simply being sent ‘out to play’ due to disproportionate fear from parents (this a media-created problem)
- Unrestricted TV and video games. There is research that video games in particular cause a dopamine cascade ‘reward’ that other activities can’t match, resulting in loss of interest in everything else unless use is sensibly restricted.
- Living in areas with no green space

What can individuals and families – including grandparents and godparents, as well as the parents themselves – do to help their children engage with nature?
- Get outside yourself. Garden, join a community farm, select outdoor hobbies, etc. Just instituting a regular weekly walk in a natural environment, and allowing the children to run free would be a big step forward.

How can community groups, local and national organisations support families in getting outdoors and closer to nature?
-Reclaim and plant up all unused plots of land
-Help families to get started growing some of their own food, whether in the soil or in windowboxes
-We park and ride to shops. Why not park and ride to outdoor activity centres and forest parks?

What policy changes are needed ensure that every child has the opportunity to develop a personal connection with the natural world?
-Health and Safety legislation has had the unintended consequence of making everyone risk-averse. The legislation needs to be revisited to make it obvious that the aim is not to reduce the scope of activities, but to make them safer. The outcome of finding that an activity retains an element of risk shouldn’t be to stop doing it – but just to make users aware of the risks!
-Implement a series of measures to ‘green up’ towns and cities
-Review planning laws to stop the grabbing of green spaces for housing development