Raising emotionally healthy children who will live their BEST life..
“I don’t understand my math problems at all and now my day is ruined!”.
My 10-year-old daughter tends to be a bit of a ‘black and white’ thinker.
In her quickly moving mind, most situations are deemed either all good or all bad within a matter of seconds, and she struggles to see the grey possibilities that exist in-between.
My 9-year-old client sits down on the couch in my therapy office and I can tell already by his slumped shoulders and downward gaze that he is having a rough week.
“How’s your week been bud? Should we start with the highs or the lows?”
“I hate school and I never want to go back again”. [Read more…]
Inside: Learn how to proceed when your angry child refuses coping strategies.
“What do I do when my child refuses the coping strategies I offer?”
Inside: These science-backed calm down strategies for kids are easy, engaging and will help your child develop strong emotional regulation skills.
When it comes to children’s emotional development you’re going to be hard-pressed to find another skill as important (and as predictive of future success) as emotional regulation.
Inside: Time kids spend outdoors in nature play has been steadily declining for decades and it’s costing them enormously when it comes to their physical and mental health.
I feel my shoulders relax.
My lungs open up and I breathe.
I just feel… lighter.
And all I have done is to simply step out my own front door.
THIS is the power of being in nature. After only a brief few moments in nature, I can literally feel the onslaught of positive changes in my mind and body.
I can understand why nature is one of the best calm down strategies for kids (and adults alike).
There is something incredibly powerful that nature and nature only is capable of doing to our minds and bodies. Since the beginning of time, humans have been closely connected to the natural environment.
We lived off the land and often used natural spaces as a natural extension of our homes. Many cultures remain close to the natural world and as a result, reap profound benefits to both their physical and psychological health.
In our Western modern culture, however, our kids are growing evermore disconnected from their natural environment and researchers have gone far enough to call this phenomenon ‘Nature deficit disorder’.
Studies show that while screentime and indoor time have increased for children, time spent outdoors in nature play has dramatically decreased.
It’s been hard to say exactly what the direct impacts of decreased green time on children were, but we now have the first epidemiological studies that show an association between less contact with the natural world in childhood and worse mental health in adulthood.
“Collecting data from nearly 3,600 individuals in four different European countries, researchers at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health have found that these childhood experiences are associated with feelings of nervousness and depression in adulthood.
“The results show that participants who scored lower on the mental health tests also had less exposure to nature in childhood, and this was true regardless of how much time they spent in nature as adults. What’s more, these participants didn’t seem to place as much significance on natural spaces in general.” (International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health)
This is just one of several studies now showing causation between more time spent playing in nature during childhood and mental health in adulthood.
Another recent study found that children who grow up in natural surroundings have up to a 55 percent lower risk of developing a mental disorder as an adult.
The studies author Kristine Engemann reported further that “the protective effect grows stronger with more years spent living near nature. We found that association was stronger when we calculated a cumulative measure of green space from birth to age 10 compared to measuring green space at one single year, this indicates that the positive association builds up over time and that being exposed to green space throughout childhood is important.” (Study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)
The positive effects of nature play for children go far beyond psychological. Nature has been proven important to children’s development in every major way—intellectually, emotionally, socially, spiritually and physically (Kellert, 2005).
There’s no denying we have some work to do when it comes to getting our kids outside. For both their mental and physical health and well-being, we now know for a fact that getting back to our nature roots plays a powerful role in combating mental health conditions and serves as an enormous protective factor for our children.
What are you child’s favorite types of nature play?
This post comes with a free printable list of the benefits of outdoor play for kids! (Keeping them close by will remind you to get those kiddos off their screens…and back outside!)
Here’s a peek at it…
More articles you’d like:
Inside: If you’re raising an angry child, learning the underlying causes of your child’s anger is the first step in anger management for kids.
Anger loves to trick us.
In childhood, the anger of others made me feel like I wasn’t good enough. In adolescence, my own anger enabled me to feel powerful and strong and in parenthood anger allows me to feel a sense of control amidst the chaos.
The benefits of mindfulness with kids are many (increased focus, self-control, better mood, better sleep, lower anxiety, etc etc to the MOON) but parents often wonder, how the heck do you actually do mindfulness with children?
I was already sold on the magic of mindfulness with kids.
I’ve been a mental health practitioner for 15 years now and have steadily seen and heard more and more about the ability for mindfulness to effectively address mental health concerns in childhood.
We call it the beast.
It used to appear at least a couple of times a week, wreaking havoc on our household but was invisible to the naked eye.
As a child and family therapist, I hear the following statements often.
“My daughter seems to have separation anxiety still even though she’s 6 now, and won’t even let me leave the room in our own house unless she knows where I am at all times.” [Read more…]
