Nature Play: Reducing Crime Through Early Child Development Programs

This report examines the benefits of nature play, or outdoor play involving natural elements, as a healthcare intervention for children's development and its potential impact on reducing crime. It discusses the applicability of nature play for both children and adults, highlighting improvements in coordination and motor skills in children, and enhanced creativity, social-emotional intelligence, and mood upliftment in adults. The strengths of nature play include promoting physical, social, and emotional development, reducing child morbidity, improving executive functioning and motor skills, enhancing socialization, and boosting immunity. Weaknesses include societal risk aversion and inapplicability to children with pre-existing medical conditions, as well as ambiguous study methodologies. Recommendations include developing standardized evaluation tools and universal definitions for nature play environments, alongside responsible adult supervision. The report concludes that nature play fosters physical fitness, cognitive ability, coordination, and environmental responsibility, potentially leading to a reduction in crime rates by balancing negative emotions and promoting well-being.

RUNNING HEAD: Healthcare 0
NATURE PLAY

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................1
Applicability...............................................................................................................................1
Strengths.....................................................................................................................................2
Weaknesses................................................................................................................................2
Recommendations......................................................................................................................3
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................3

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Introduction
In recent years concerns have been drawn to identify best health and development
intervention programs for children. This paper is to study the benefits of one of such
intervention i.e outdoor play and the role of nature play in early development of child. The
focus of the paper is to study the benefits and weaknesses and how best it can provide the
structure to that leads to lesser crime.
Nature play or outdoor play includes traditional playing techniques where children
engage in playing with the available natural substances like rock, sand, trees and plants.
Applicability
This intervention is equally applicable on kids as well as adults. Thought the result
would vary in kids and adults. The results found in kids were better coordination and motor
skills. In adults it helped in building more creativity, social and emotional intelligence, and
complex thinking skills. It also leads to greater happiness and is beneficial for people
suffering from depression and it has helped in uplifting mood disorders in adults. Interacting
with nature and getting more involved in nature is the new age self-improvement tool now
used by the doctors. Though it has not been studied how outdoor play have such a positive
mental effect on people but it has been found that people engaging more in outdoor
excursions had lower activity in the prefontal cortex- that part of brain which produces
repetitive thoughts focusing more on negative emotions, anxiety stress and depression
(Harward, 2018).

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Strengths
The evidence collected from the studies conducted on this form of intervention shows
that nature play contributes to physical, social and emotional development of a child. The
benefits that nature play results include (but not limited to):
 Reduces child morbidity and promotes physical development (Christopher,
2020). With the increasing concern regarding child obesity, children in todays
era need to be more physically active from their early childhood and this
programme provides them the required activity.
 Improved executive functioning: since children play in green outdoor
environment, it promotes greater level of attention and well-being.
 Enhanced motor skill development: as the children try and test their physical
skills by through the challenges posed by nature.
 Enhanced socialisation: isolation and feeling left alone is faced by a large
number of children nowadays. In outdoor play children play with others and
develop negotiation skill, develop friendships and build a healthy emotional
and social atmosphere (Donna, 2017).
 Better immunity: playing outside and getting exposed to sunlight, air and
natural elements contributes to bone development and greater immunity.
Weaknesses
The shortcomings faced in outdoor play in today’s time are that societies have
become more sedentary and avoid risks at every level. Nature play poses unforeseeable risks
which societies and parents are unwilling to bear. The children who have pre-existing
medical condition, outdoor play is not conducive to their condition. Thus only healthy
children can participate in this kind of play (Dankiw, 2020). The other drawbacks are that the

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studies conducted and the methods used in this intervention programme were ambiguous as it
did not show whether the children on whom the studies were conducted were all healthy or
had pre-existing medical conditions.
Recommendations
In this kind of intervention two key issues need to be addressed, firstly there needs to
be developed a standardised tool that evaluates and observes children’s play behaviour as it
would further bring consistency in the findings (Brussoni, 2017). Secondly, the ambiguity
regarding the nature play environment should be cleared and a universal definition should be
developed to assist future studies. In outdoor play there has to be a responsible adult
accompanying the children at all times, an adult who helps in enhancing the interaction
between the children and supporting them in learning more about environment (Bento, 2017).
Conclusion
The study establishes a relation between playing outdoor in natural environment and
impact on children’s physical fitness, cognitive ability, coordination ability, developing quick
reflexes and adopting a helpful attitude not only towards fellow children but also towards
environment which in the present times is a pressing need. These competencies help develop
a child into a responsible adult.
Nature play teaches to be more responsible towards each other and towards nature, it
also teaches to be more helpful and less hurtful. It has shown positive effects on kids as well
as adults which could also help in reducing crime rates as it balances the negative emotions
and produces feelings of happiness and well-being among the people.

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Bibliography
Bento, G. &. (2017). The importance of outdoor play for young children's healthy
development. Porto Biomedical Journal, 157-160.
Brussoni, M. I. (2017). Landscapes for play: Effects of an intervention to promote nature-
based risky play in early childhood centres. Journal of Environmental Psychology,
139-150.
Christopher, B. (2020, February). Psychology today. Retrieved April 05, 2020, from
psychologytoday.com:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-athletes-way/202002/playing-freely-
in-nature-may-be-really-good-kids
Dankiw, K. T. (2020). The impacts of unstructured nature play on health in early childhood
development: A systematic review. Plos one.
Donna, L. (2017). natural play. Retrieved April 05, 2020, from natureplayqld.org:
https://www.natureplayqld.org.au/library/3/file/Nature%20Play%20Discussion
%20Paper%202017.pdf
Harward. (2018). Harward health publishing. Retrieved April 05, 2020, from
health.harward.edu: https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/sour-mood-
getting-you-down-get-back-to-nature