Out! Vamoose! Scram! Go Outside!

When I was growing up, my friends and I regularly heard our parents say, "Go outside and play!" - sometimes not in an altogether friendly, encouraging way. When we'd complain that we didn't have anything to do outside, the moms sometimes said, "Go watch the cars go by." It took me years to appreciate the sense of humor of a 1960s housewife.

But we did go outside. We built things out of sticks, played catch with the crabapples from the schoolyard trees, played kickball, built forts and rolled down hills. When all else failed we watched the cars go by.

We didn't know it at the time, but we may have been the last generation to spend more leisure time outdoors than inside. We had TV, but without cable or satellite it wasn't compelling enough to keep us inside for long. And of course, we had no computers, VCRs, DVD players or video games.

Richard Louv's book Last Child in the Woods warns that we're raising a generation of children who are spending less and less time with nature and fewer hours in free, unstructured play. The result is a serious disconnect between people and the earth, Louv says.

Sometimes it's as simple as opening the back door and taking your children outside for a few hours every day, in spite of the weather or time constraints. Take a walk with your kids, play catch, collect rocks, blow bubbles, draw with sidewalk chalk. Or better yet just let them play whatever they want. Just being outside will help them reconnect with the outdoors.