The impacts of unstructured nature play on health in early childhood development: A systematic review

Abstract

BackgroundNature play is growing in popularity as children's play spaces are transforming from traditional playgrounds into more nature-based play spaces with considerable financial and resource investment from government bodies. This has resulted in the re-development of children's play spaces to incorporate more natural elements such as trees, plants and rocks. Despite this, it is unclear whether there is empirical evidence to support claims that play in nature is beneficial for child health and development.

Adventurous Play as a Mechanism for Reducing Risk for Childhood Anxiety: A Conceptual Model

“…Chawla 2015 ; Gill 2014 ; Mygind et al 2019 ; Tillman et al 2018 ). More specifically, when outdoor spaces in childcare settings and schools are ‘greened’ (modified to improve biodiversity and increase affordances and access to natural elements), this improves mental health and well-being, reduces stress, and promotes social and emotional skills (Bell and Dyment 2008 ; Brussoni et al 2017 ; Chawla et al 2014 ; Dankiw et al 2020 ; van Dijk-Wesselius et al 2018 ). It is theorised that these benefits come from the restoration of attention (see Kaplan and Kaplan 1989 ; Kaplan 1995 ) or stress reduction (see Ulrich et al 1991 ) but it is also possible that some of this benefit comes from an increase in children’s adventurous play in these ‘greened’ spaces.…”

“…From a theoretical perspective, it will therefore be important for future research to tease apart the effects of adventurous play from any effects due to time spent playing outdoors and in nature (e.g. Dankiw et al 2020 ), of unstructured child-led play (e.g. Weikart 1998 ), of greater independent mobility (e.g.…”

Adventurous play as a mechanism for reducing risk for childhood anxiety: a conceptual model

“…Chawla 2015;Gill 2014;Mygind et al 2019;Tillman et al 2018). More specifically, when outdoor spaces in childcare settings and schools are 'greened' (modified to improve biodiversity and increase affordances and access to natural elements), this improves mental health and well-being, reduces stress, and promotes social and emotional skills (Bell and Dyment 2008;Brussoni et al 2017;Chawla et al 2014;Dankiw et al 2020;van Dijk-Wesselius et al 2018). It is theorised that these benefits come from the restoration of attention (see Kaplan and Kaplan 1989;Kaplan 1995) or stress reduction (see Ulrich et al 1991) but it is also possible that some of this benefit comes from an increase in children's adventurous play in these 'greened' spaces.…”

“…From a theoretical perspective, it will therefore be important for future research to tease apart the effects of adventurous play from any effects due to time spent playing outdoors and in nature (e.g. Dankiw et al 2020), of unstructured child-led play (e.g. Weikart 1998), of greater independent mobility (e.g.…”

The Effect of Environmental Contexts on Motor Proficiency and Social Maturity of Children: An Ecological Perspective

“…One of the spaces that provides this opportunity for children is nature schools or forest schools/kindergartens, an approach constructed by categorizing children’s play into a more specific and different play that is known for its unstructured and nature-based play [ 32 ]. Playing in such spaces is accompanied by an increase in the prevalence of physical movement, and growth of cognitive development and critical social skills had been reported [ 10 , 33 ]. While typical preschools provide structured classes for children, due to the different methods in nature schools, the main aim of this study was to investigate the effect of different environmental contexts, such as indoor (kindergartens) and outdoor (nature schools) spaces, on the motor proficiency and social maturity of preschool children.…”