Over the years, you may have noticed playgrounds have become more sterile, overprotected areas of parent-directed play. This may lead your child to become under-enthused, unimpressed, and not as active.
However, there's a movement to build playgrounds that challenge kids physically and socially, focusing the main point on putting kids in charge of their own play. Letting your children build whatever their imaginations dream up without critiquing every move may open and improve their mental capacity.
Author and designer, Rusty Keeler, joins Dr. Mike to discuss why playgrounds help expand your child's social, physical and mental health.
Selected Podcast
Do Playgrounds Make Healthier Kids?
Featured Speaker:
Rusty Keeler is an author, designer, and speaker who works to inspire and collaborate with communities to create beautiful outdoor environments for children.
He has designed and built natural play spaces around the world and is the author of the book, Natural Playscapes: Creating Outdoor Play Environments for the Soul (Exchange Press: 2008).
His favorite project in the world that he helped start is the "Hands-on-Nature" ANARCHY ZONE at the Ithaca Children's Garden... a place filled with loose parts and adult playworkers where kids are free to climb trees, dig in the dirt, build forts, cook over fires and more.
Rusty Keeler is an author, designer, and speaker who works to inspire and collaborate with communities to create beautiful outdoor environments for children.He has designed and built natural play spaces around the world and is the author of the book, Natural Playscapes: Creating Outdoor Play Environments for the Soul (Exchange Press: 2008).
His favorite project in the world that he helped start is the "Hands-on-Nature" ANARCHY ZONE at the Ithaca Children's Garden... a place filled with loose parts and adult playworkers where kids are free to climb trees, dig in the dirt, build forts, cook over fires and more.