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Nature adventures can support kids health

If you want your kids and yourself to be healthier and more peaceful, develop keener observation skills and improved mental health practices, get outdoors.

Obvious benefits to kids' physical health include increased heart pumping (aerobic exercise). Outdoor activities support coordination and balance in ways that repetitive exercise such as soccer may not.

Being in the sun helps our bodies produce Vitamin D needed for stronger bones. Many other direct health benefits have been researched for decades.

This article, however, focuses on mental health and wellness benefits.

Being in nature fosters curiosity for all ages and independence for smaller kids. Can your child feel safe enough to walk alone around a bend in the trail?

Research is still in the early stages of documenting the negative impacts of extensive screen time (especially time spent on social media), such as negative effects on kids' self-concepts and mood. Outdoor activities support healthier alternatives which can also build cherished family connections.

Here are a few activities that involve taking only a notebook and pen on a hike.

Have your child write down on different pages all the types of bugs, flowers, trees, wildflowers, moths and butterflies observed. Use the app INaturalist (or many others) to identify what was observed -- just by taking a picture. Each time you go into the woods, add new specimens to your child's lists.

Another woodsy activity might involve gathering different shapes of leaves and then, at home, having your child draw the outlines of the leaves prior to identifying them. Please remember that however tempting, picking wildflowers or taking bugs home is not a good idea because some of their populations are very fragile. Your child can, however, stop on the trail and sketch pictures which capture the minute differences amongst observed wildflowers. Doing so builds observational skills.

Such activities also help develop mental health skills.

Most may have heard of nature baths where people go deeply into a wooded area or meadow, find the perfect place to sit and then practice just being present to what is happening. Focus on slow, even breathing to quiet yourself or your children.

Then have each person just observe: What colors and textures do I see? What is moving? What never moves? What do I hear, smell, feel? Close your eyes and repeat the same questions again. You and your child may be amazed to find how many different sounds you can hear, including the sound of complete quiet.

Stay in this quiet place for at least 30 minutes although you might need to start with less time. Recently I did such an activity for more than an hour and the time just flew. This practice builds capacity to calm oneself and then tune into feelings -- a key skill in the field of emotional intelligence.

The profundity of the silence might even feel more spiritual than going to church. Might you feel something mysterious, like being connected to a higher power?

Try it and see what you discover.