When we lecture about or discuss Natural Playgrounds, the one question we always get? "What about maintenance?" - asked in a challenging manner, and as though nothing else requires it....  

...and as though that question should stop us in our tracks, make us reconsider this foolish idea of bringing nature closer to children so they'll get healthier, be more well- adjusted, be happier, be able to learn more, be good stewards of the earth.

I don't know if people asking really want to know the answer, so they can plan long range, or if they're looking for ways to derail others from pursuing this "foolishness."

"What's the difference?" I want to say. "If you think it's best for your children, as all the research suggests, then it doesn't matter, does it? Because if it’s that important (and it is!), you'll find a way to take care of it!"

Instead we patiently explain that Natural Playgrounds are living, breathing things. They're natural environments, and like your garden at home, they need looking after.

An earlier generation of kids may have spent all their free time playing in the woods, but in today’s world of helicopter parenting and stranger danger, letting their children do the same is unthinkable for many parents.

Now, park designers and officials as well as school boards are trying to reacquaint kids with nature, not by sending them into the forest, but by creating what are called natural playgrounds.

This week, the Toronto District School Board rejected a plan to sell off playground land to help pay for capital projects, reaffirming the importance of wide-open spaces to children’s development.

The movement to swap swings, slides and monkey bars for boulders, grassy hills and trees is gaining ground across Canada, the United States and other countries. Advocates say natural playgrounds prompt much more imaginative free play, foster social interaction and cut down on bullying, and encourage the sort of risk-taking some experts say overcautious parenting has been unintentionally blocking.

Their emergence can be traced back to the 2005 book Last Child in the Woods, by journalist Richard Louv. He coined the phrase “nature deficit disorder,” cautioning that cutting children off from nature was linked to rising rates of obesity, depression and attention deficit disorder.

At this time of year, Dawn Miller from the Charleston Gazette would rather be outside watching BB-sized tomatoes emerge on her West Virginia garden, so she used her smart phone to attend a Congressional hearing in Washington called “No Child Left Inside.”

If you despair that your children, grandchildren or other young people you care about are completely isolated from the natural world, you’re in good company.

“Today’s children are in danger of losing their connection, or never getting a connection to nature,” Gina McCarthy, commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection, told members of Congress.

Society as a whole, as well as individual children, will suffer if this connection is lost, she said. They will grow up not understanding and even fearful of the natural world. Speaking to two subcommittees of the House Committee on Natural Resources, McCarthy warned that children who never get the chance to discover the wonder of the natural world will grow into taxpayers and voters who won’t care about forests, parks or the value of biodiversity.

Various panelists reported that national parks and forests are drawing fewer visitors, many of the nation’s locally run urban parks are crumbling, and after years of increasing enthusiasm for fishing, there’s a sag in interest. Children are less likely to play outside in their own yards or in their neighborhoods, to the detriment of their own health and fitness.

Mary Burnette for the National Wildlife Federation

Recent research at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, reports that children with ADHD have fewer symptoms after outdoor activities in natural environments. College students do better on cognitive tests when their dorm windows view natural settings. Elderly adults tend to live longer if their homes are near a park or other green space, regardless of their social or economic status. Residents of public housing complexes report better family interactions when they live near trees.

These are only a few of the findings from recent studies that support the idea that nature is essential to the physical, psychological, and social well-being of the human animal, said Frances Kuo, a professor of natural resources and environmental science and psychology at the University of Illinois. Kuo will present her own and other findings on the subject at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago on Feb. 13.

“Humans are evolved organisms and the environment is our habitat,” Kuo said. “Now, as human societies become more urban, we as scientists are in a position to look at humans in much the same way that those who study animal behavior have looked at animals in the wild to see the effect of a changing habitat on this species.”

Humans living in landscapes that lack trees or other natural features undergo patterns of social, psychological, and physical breakdown that are strikingly similar to those observed in other animals that have been deprived of their natural habitat, Kuo said.

“In animals what you see is increases in aggression, you see disrupted parenting patterns, their social hierarchies are disrupted,” she said.

According to a recent University of Tennessee study, children who play on playgrounds incorporating natural elements like logs and flowers tend to be more active than those who play on traditional playgrounds with metal and brightly colored equipment.

We see children daily trying to beat the odds, trying to stay sane amidst insane circumstances, writes Karen Stephens for the Child Care Information Exchange. The stresses vary, but they typically fall under the umbrella of family dysfunction, including domestic violence, drug and alco- hol abuse, and child abuse.

Reserarch suggests that chronic sedentary behavior is compromising children's ability and achievement,' says a recent report in Health Day News.  

Physical activities such as climbing a tree, running barefoot and navigating obstacles, even for a few minutes a day, can improve cognitive abilities, researchers found in a new study.

The aim of the study was to see the effect of proprioceptive activities, which involve the awareness of body positioning and orientation, on potential gains in working memory.

"Improving working memory can have a beneficial effect on so many areas in our life, and it's exciting to see that proprioceptive activities can enhance it in such a short period of time," said Tracy Alloway, an associate professor at the University of North Florida, in a press release.

Four years ago, for instance, teachers at the Richmond Avenue Primary and Nursery School looked critically around their campus and set about, as one of them put it, “bringing in risk.”

Out went the plastic playhouses and in came the dicey stuff: stacks of two-by-fours, crates and loose bricks. The schoolyard got a mud pit, a tire swing, log stumps and workbenches with hammers and saws.

“We thought, how can we bring that element of risk into your everyday environment?” said Leah Morris, who manages the early years program at the school in Shoeburyness in southeast Britain. “We were looking at, O.K., so we’ve got a sand pit, what can we add to the sand pit to make it more risky?”

Now, Ms. Morris says proudly, “we have fires, we use knives, saws, different tools,” all used under adult supervision. Indoors, scissors abound, and so do sharp-edged tape dispensers (“they normally only cut themselves once,” she says).

Sand has been used more sparingly in public playgrounds in recent decades because of the danger of hidden glass or animal feces, part of the “sterilization” of play that risk advocates complain about. Andrew Testa for The New York Times