Angela Hanscom has the remedy for our kids' stressful, over-scheduled world

In which Dan and special guest co-host Kim Dzwonkowski talk with  Angela Hanscom about the importance of getting kids outside, away from overly structured activities and hovering adults. Angela is the best-selling author of Balanced and Barefoot: How Unrestricted Outdoor Play Makes for Strong, Confident, and Capable Children and the founder of Timbernook. Dan, Kim, and Angela talk about how our overly scheduled, overly supervised world is wrecking havoc on children's mental, emotional, and physical development, and why getting kids outside is the key to turning it around. As always, I welcome comments and questions on Twitter @BigIdeaEd

Also mentioned in this episode:
The REAL reason children fidget — and what we can do about it (TED Talk) by Angela Hanscom

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:07

I realize that the occupation of a child, and you kind of touched on this a little bit, is play. And outdoor play is such a vital occupation for children, and it's really at risk. And so the whole mission of Timbernook is to restore. Not, it's not even a progressive idea what I'm doing. It's just restoring the occupation of outdoor play and protecting that for children. And to really enhance it and make sure it's as authentic as possible. Because the more authentic it is, the more therapeutic it is for children.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

Hello, Dan. Thanks so much for joining me. It's a pleasure.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

We just had the opportunity to interview Angela Hanscom, who is a pediatric occupational therapist, uh bestselling author, and she runs Timbernook. Uh and she's all about uh outdoor play and uh getting our kids back out to be balanced and barefoot and in nature. And I thought it was an amazing conversation.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

Yeah, I pretty much I mean I told her I want to come over and play in her backyard now.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

So and as a as an early education uh teacher, what did what did you take out of our interview?

SPEAKER_01 1:42

It it's like a reinforcement of all the things that I really do think. It's just the things that are hard to put into day-to-day practice. You have to make a real effort to do it.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Yeah, it's a great interview. Uh Angela talks about developing children's bodies, minds, spirits, curiosity, learning. Uh if you're a teacher uh of any age level, if you're a parent and your kids are any age level, I think you're gonna really enjoy hearing Angela's thoughts on why being outside, being less structured, and being less supervised is better for all kids. And uh with that, here's our interview. Angela is a pediatric occupational therapist, the author of Balanced and Barefoot: How unrestricted outdoor play makes for strong, confident, and capable children, and the founder of Timbernook, an organization that started out as an experiment but is now reaching children all around the world. Angela, thanks so much for joining us today.

SPEAKER_02 2:55

Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

So much I want to get to in in both your your talks and your book and the work you're doing with Timbernook. I did want to start, though, with a quote from your book, Balance and Barefoot, that I think kind of cuts to the heart of a lot of what you're doing. You wrote, unrestricted and unsupervised play is one of the most valuable educational experiences we can offer our children. And yet I feel like that quote runs counter to how many people are doing childhood today in America. How are we restricting children and why is it damaging their development?

SPEAKER_02 3:30

Yeah, oh my gosh, we're restricting them in so many different ways. Um, physically, we're restricting them. Um so having them sit for hours at a time is really wreaking havoc on their minds and bodies. So we could jump into that, but they're also being restricted on not enough playtime with other children. And so that's affecting them socially and you know, just developing relationships with other people, especially now during COVID. It's like more important than ever that they have a connection with other kids. Um and um, but yeah, even just cognitively as well, because it's through play where you start um, you know, using higher level thinking skills, problem solving, being mentally flexible with other kids' play ideas, um, being able to even just initiate a play idea and execute that is something that we're we're we're really not giving them enough opportunity to do. So it's when we say whole child, it's kind of affecting everything.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

Yeah, Kim and I were talking just before we uh came on the interview here about your discussion about core strength. Um and something that probably most people wouldn't think of when they think of play and children.

SPEAKER_01 4:47

Um yeah, I was I was so it's interesting because like I I enjoyed reading all your things. I watched your TED talk too, that was just fantastic. But for some reason, like all the the comments about core strength, I kept kind of obsessively letting the wheels of my brain turn over that one. Because it's interesting when you think that one thing that you don't really think much of on a day-to-day basis, especially in children, like I just think the rock and core strength, like I don't think you know, a five-year-old in core strength that that it does sort of have like a butterfly effect across all of the developmental milestone things that we tick off in assessments. And to think that there's like one kind of foundational thing that we're getting wrong that's affecting so much, you know.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

And why is that, Angela? What what is the what is the issue with core strength in our children today?

SPEAKER_02 5:40

Like we always talk about it's important for kids to be able to cross midline a lot as therapists or for it's a basic coordination skill, I guess. You know, when you start getting into sports, you need to be able to cross that midline, but you can't really do that until you have a midline. And the way that we help um with that as a therapist is um we work on core strength and we have them actually spin um in circles. So in our clinics, we have swings hanging from the ceiling, but um to give them a good sense of where their body is in space, they need to be moving in all different directions. So that that piece is really important. And that um if kids are being restricted from moving in rapid ways, that can affect everything because the vestibular sense is the key to all the other senses. So if that if the kids are not moving enough, that sense gets underdeveloped and weak. And um it can affect their sense of body awareness and space. They become more and more clumsy and uh more prone to get hurt, um, but it can affect like their visual skills and it affects attention in the classroom. Um, kids are literally even just falling out of their chairs in school right now, running into each other more often. Um, but it affects motional regulation too. So like if you get really mad to be able to naturally bring that back down again, and then um activity level. So you we keep complaining kids are off the wall. Um, but they again they need plenty of movement opportunity. So so core is important. Um it supports like the head muscles, like the neck muscles and all that to be able to look, listen. And um, but yeah, I would I would say the visible sense is what I'm like really concerned for.

SPEAKER_00 7:30

And and and where is that loss coming from, both in their balance and their core?

SPEAKER_02 7:34

Yeah, so what's happening is kids are often in an upright position all the time. So they're um, I think so I sat in a recent um research project for an occupational therapist. Uh, she was getting her doctoral degree, and um she actually it was like some faiota, it's some like additional um qualification for an OT that is like higher up. And um she did research here in America to see how often kids are in a chair or sitting, and it's an average of nine hours a day that kids are sitting in a chair. So um, you know, if you think about that, if they're most of the time they're upright and they're not, you know, spinning in circles or rolling down the hills or doing all the things we did growing up, and the fluid inside the inner ear can thicken. Um, and they can start to have um ear infections, they can start to have an underdeveloped, what we call vestibular sense. That's a balanced sense. And what really needs to happen is we want them to spin and go upside down so that fluid can move back and forth so it doesn't thicken, um, and it stimulates those little hair cells, and that develops your vestibular sense. Um so kids actually need like at least, you know, like plenty of movement opportunities. So, like at least I recommend at least three hours of outdoor play a day in order to not not only keep it strong but maintain it, um, or it starts to yeah, get weaker.

SPEAKER_00 9:01

Yeah, you said that you you want uh children to move in ways that makes grown-ups gasp, I think is how you said it.

SPEAKER_01 9:08

I loved that. I loved that. I I actually work at in the preschool here on the uh playground. So that's that's sort of one of my mottos is like I there we always have meetings about like safety and how high should they climb on the structure? And and when it when it comes to me to answer, I'm always like as high as they can, as long as their hands are still on it. Like I want them to climb, you know. And and just yesterday at the Christmas party, like one little girl made everyone gasp because she was on the the monkey bars and she was she gave me a look like she was she knew that she was like, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to stay up, you know. And all I did was to kind of like gently go behind her, and I was like, You got it. And if you don't, just fall. I got you. But like it's so important for them to make us gasp. I really I think you could put it beautifully, it's poetic.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

And and you say three hours of outdoor play a day. Why doesn't organized sport count?

SPEAKER_02 10:08

Well, some of the organized sports are still kind of upright, right? So, like, even like soccer and running, and you're you're getting some movement, but it's you're still upright. So you're not getting them in that anti-gravity position and moving in rapid ways. And so, so that that's one component of why. Plus, it's often you're being told what to do at certain times, like it's drills, so it's not spontaneous movement where um children really need opportunities to move, allow their neurological systems to, you know, to be stimulated in all different ways, depending on what they need at that time. So a child, for instance, might need to spin and start spinning, and that's because they're they're craving that sensory input and they're trying to organize those senses. But if we continuously say, don't spin, or you know, get down from that rock, that's when we become the barrier to that neurological development. So with sports, it's often like, yeah, don't spin, you're supposed to be in line. You know, we're gonna be kicking the ball. Like you're not always given the opportunities to move in those bigger ways. But the other issue is um they're they're not able to, you're not really playing. You're you're following adult directed activity. So yeah, you're getting some movement, but it's not play. Play is a whole different ballgame. Play is when the kids create the rules, the kids are using those higher-level problem-solving thinking skills and diving deep into a play scheme where they get to like work on, you know, emotional control and all those other good stuff that you're not you won't necessarily always get through sports.

SPEAKER_00 11:43

Yeah, and it's a good segue into uh talking a bit more about play and imagination. You've got some beautiful passages in your book about children creating their own societies, their own hierarchies when they play, and this idea that whether you're a teacher or a parent, you see this that often children play so deeply they get lost in that world. And I'm sure Kim, you probably see that on a regular basis.

SPEAKER_01 12:07

It's really one of my favorite things to see. And I and I was so interested too, and like my second daughter, my middle child, was everything that you described in your book and and in your speech is like she was deemed d delayed in her speech and and like delayed, delay, delay. And her pediatrician was like, Oh, you should probably intervene and you know, probably do some things. I was like, give me six months. And I started to take her more to the park and everything, but it wasn't until we went to like wilderness park, where there was literally nothing there. There was no play structure, no swing set, nothing. And just let her loose there that and and with with a group, like I found you know, your little nature play group and like let her loose there that it was everything you said, like you the little the kids would just sort of come up with everything because there was nothing there, and then from nothing was like an entire world that they would even revisit the next week, like they would pick it up again, and it was it was interesting that once I took away even Park and just left her with nature, no delays. Yeah, and it was in the six-month crunch time. Yeah, yeah.

unknown 13:17

That's great.

SPEAKER_00 13:17

And you and you write about that, Angela, the the difference between nature stimuli and man-made stimuli. Can you can you talk a bit about that?

SPEAKER_02 13:25

Yeah, so um when you step outdoors, like multiple sense senses are being um stimulated, right? So if you think about like being in like I'm in this room right now, there's like no wind. Um, you know, there's only so far I can see with my eyes, because there's a wall right there. Um, there's no bird sounds. Um, you know, the ground's even, like I don't even have to think about it. It's very, it's not challenging me that much to walk across the room. But if I step outdoors, the ground's uneven. So it's constantly challenging my balance, my senses. Uh, there's wind, you know, it might be cold outside. So I'm regulating to that to that sense and um you know making new connections in my brain about that, um, you know, depth perception, there's bird sounds. Um, so there's a multiple synapses firing. And so your chances for for uh what we call sensory integration to happen, which is organization of those senses, is going to be higher outside in an environment with multiple senses. Um, but it's also in order for a child to have an organized brain, like the ideal state to be in for is to be an alert but calm state of mind. So again, you look outside and you see like greens and browns and blues, and that's we we'll paint our preschools those colors because we're trying to calm them down. Um, you go for a massage and you'll hear, you know, crashing waves to calm to calm you. Um, even certain smells of trees are calming. So it's very calming stimuli out there, but you're alert, right? Because the ground's uneven, um, an animal might run by, uh, you're constantly assessing your environment. So that that happens to be the ideal state for that sensory integration. So we want to think about what percentage of time are children in an environment conducive to that organization of the brain? And then what percentage of time do we have children in an environment that might be disorganizing or dysregulating, where maybe they're really close to other children. And so that's a factor. Like, you know, often outside you can really spread out. The kids have a lot of space. Inside, they start getting really close, they're bumping into each other. There's a lot of transitions inside, right? So we're constantly changing direction for them. And that a lot of kids with sensory issues that can disrupt, be very disruptive. Um, lots of visual posters on the walls, noises are louder inside. So a lot of times the environments indoors can um not be conducive to that organization.

SPEAKER_00 15:59

Yeah, and it can actually make it harder for those students that have those issues. It amplifies that. Yeah, you have that great line in your book. You say, Indoors, there are rules to follow. I love that. It's very poignant. And and often on playgrounds there are too. And part of that's because there are adults around. Why is being unsupervised awesome for kids?

SPEAKER_02 16:23

Yeah, well, I think it's important to, you know, obviously being able to like follow rules and being respectful and all stuff, that's really important. But I feel like children also need an opportunity to play um away from adults in the adult world and all the expectations from that. Um, so because they need an opportunity to be able to play with other children and come up with their own play ideas and execute that and just dive deep into play. And often what we learned over the years is at Timbernock, if we were, let's say you guys were building a fort, if I was standing right next to you, um, you would often what we found is the kids would start turning to the adult to seek reassurance, constant reassurance, like, is this okay? Are we doing, you know, are we doing this right? Can you do this for us? Um, and tattling on each other more often. And then we realized if we backed up like at least like 20 feet and then got down low, so we reduced adult presence out there, that we could still supervise them for safety. Um, but they would start turning to each other to um come up with their own ideas, solve their own problems, and even like deal with their own conflicts and feel capable. Like we did that, we've we solved our own problem.

SPEAKER_01 17:41

I feel like I struggle with that notion on my playground at work because I it's like a I kind of describe it as a dance that I don't always do well, but I really intend to, where the stepping forward and the stepping back, like like knowing when to come in and change something or or interrupt something or for safety's sake, stop something, and then when to just sort of fade into the background. But I think the fading is where a lot of times um all the magic happens, like for me to witness, but then also for them to get all the educational values that they're getting out of something. And I think it's so interesting that you're saying, you know, the whole idea of unsupervised, but there's still supervision for safety play, is that like, especially at my level of teaching, like preschool age, is we're always trying to teach agency and like being responsible for yourself and for other people and your space and all and using your voice and not your fists to solve your conflicts. That agency is a something that we want them to leave the preschool with a good sense of so that they can go into the grade levels and succeed. But where do they get that if someone's always watching them like a vulture? And where do they get that if they're the kids that are building a fort and always going, like, Am I doing am I doing it okay? Should I get this? Do I get what do I do with this vlog? That they need to know that we trust them. And I think a lot of that is gained through this kind of play. The the unsupervised, you got this, you know what you're doing, kind of play. Right.

unknown 19:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

Angela, why do you think society has increasingly moved away from that? A lot of what you've written and talked about is sort of a comparison to maybe when we were kids, and you look at uh comparison comparing data to the 1980s, you know, increased fidgeting, decreased vestibular. What what has changed in society that has caused this?

SPEAKER_02 19:36

The biggest thing is fear. It's like something we can't see, but it's all it's all surrounds fear. So it's fear of kids getting hurt, uh, liability, right? Um, fear of what like the adults often were saying fear of what other people think of them. Like if are they a bad parent if they're not going in or a teacher, you know? Um fear of insects, like here in New Hampshire we have ticks. So people are afraid to go in the woods, uh, fear of stranger danger. So it all most of the reasons why kids are not getting the time is fear. The other one is being overly scheduled, um, where we're trying to like enhance our children, I guess, by doing so many things. And um, but that's just creating all sorts of issues because they're constantly being transitioned from one place to the next. They don't have that solitude, that downtime away from the fears of the world. The you know, they don't have time to. I had recently had a middle school child tell me um, I was um helping to volunteer at my children's school and doing a health class, and one of my homework assignments was to take one day away from screens. Um, it they had two weeks to do this. I said just pick one day away from screen screens. And you would have thought it was taking their life away there one, but one girl was like, I'm afraid to be alone with my thoughts, was her was what she said. And I was like, Oh my gosh, isn't that interesting that they they're so stimulated and constantly entertained that they don't have to that downtime.

SPEAKER_00 21:16

That speaks to me in so many levels as a teacher. Yeah, it's children are they're never bored. Boredom, boredom is a good thing, right? I we say this to our kids all the time at home. Like, like it's a you know, if you when you're bored, is now your time to take over and and and decide and grow. And our kids don't always love hearing that, but it's good for them.

SPEAKER_01 21:40

Totally. And I like I always see I'm such a devotee to play, because I've never stopped playing, and I'm you know, knocking on the door of middle age, but it for me it's like an essential thing like sleeping, you know. And scientists always say, like, so sleeping is when you order ever your your thoughts of the day and everything that happened and you're regulating. and all important things. But when I'm like messing around with stuff and playing around, that's where I'm like aware that I'm actually sorting and and processing. And like that second daughter that I told you about that play is like so essential to her. Sometimes her teachers will be like, what happened like with that situation in class or what does she think about this? And I'm always like, give me a couple days, I'll see what happens after she plays it through. Because it will go, I will see it in her dramatic play, especially. Whatever she's thinking about something big that happened to her comes out when she's got her superhero dolls. And then I'll know.

SPEAKER_02 22:38

That's like play therapy, right? So it's like that's how you work through um you know what's going on in your world. I love that. That's great.

SPEAKER_00 22:46

You have in in the book you have this anecdote of about a girl named Sarah, a nine-year-old who is overscheduled and it reminds me of of so many students I've encountered in my teaching that they're almost like walking talking resumes. It's just like they move from one bullet point to the next in life. And we've done surveys here at school and found out just how many extracurriculars our our students are doing and it's really a little uh alarming. A couple times now you've mentioned uh Timbernook. Now be a good time to hear about that um which you founded. Could you give us a little overview of what Timbernook does and and how you started it.

SPEAKER_02 23:25

Yeah so it yeah started in my backyard. It was never planned. I just said um it's a long it's a pretty long story but yeah it started in my backyard as an experiment pretty much and I was just doing it for my own children. And the first year I took university OT students to help me uh because that's my background and I thought what a unique way to have these students see nature for its therapeutic value and but I had no idea what I was getting into because traditionally occupational therapists work one-on-one with a child or a small group of kids so I was not used to um running a bigger group of children and I didn't realize I was starting a business. I just was going to do this for fun. And um I ran that first uh summer with three weeks of summer camp and then I had um I was like I'm all done that was so much work I you know it was um a lot of work to manage that many children and everything but there was a huge demand and so I paid attention to that because um in those I had four volunteers from the university go back and I had 14 volunteers for the next year and I had a couple teachers reach out and that's so I kept saying yes and each year I'd be like I'm gonna do it one more year. And um the first year was all about entertaining them and keeping them like doing fun projects outside. And what I realized is the kids just wanted to play. And so what I've learned over the years is you know really reflecting back is I'm not an I'm not a teacher or an environmentalist or a naturalist. And really at the time that's what that those were the are still are primarily the professions that do nature programming. And I kept thinking what does an occupational therapist have anything to do with nature programs? And um I realized that the occupation of a child and you kind of touched on this a little bit is play. And outdoor play is such a vital occupation for children and it's really at risk. And so the whole mission of Timbernook is to restore not it's not even a progressive idea what I'm doing. It's just restoring the occupation of outdoor play and protecting that for children and to really enhance it and make sure it's as authentic as possible because the more authentic it is the more therapeutic it is for children. And so that's that's pretty much what we do. We're in four countries now and um we basically provide outdoor the opportunity to play and very rich um play experiences I guess for lack of a better word. But the environment is staged in different ways and the children play for like hours out there with with different materials.

SPEAKER_00 26:04

Yeah I was gonna ask what what is a if there is a typical day at Timbernook, what does it look like?

SPEAKER_02 26:08

So an example day might be we might little kids ages four to seven so we always have mixed ages out there because it's more representative of true neighborhood play is not they're not all the same age kind of thing. So we might have you know four to seven year olds come out and they might have a puppet show of three little pigs. And then they there would be real bales of hay out there bricks um big logs and then there might be wolf masks and wolf tails hanging up and some other items there might be rope and some like milk crates staged out there. And so after the puppet show we would give them an open opportunity. So we'd say now you have the opportunity to create your own three little pig homes and that's really it. So whether they do it or not is up to them but it it it creates a foundation and inspiration for play for some of those kids that don't have a lot of experience playing they need a bridge. Sometimes it's too overwhelming to have a blank slate and they have no idea what to do. So it gives a launching point and then the other children play in those materials in creative ways and it and it inspires those kids to play in new ways. And so it's the environment is there is staged in a way that inspires kids. And the more they do Timbernook the more different play opportunities they get the more creative they get um but they have usually about at least three hours out there.

SPEAKER_01 27:28

I want to play that I want to play that I love I love the idea too of like it's it kind of goes with what you were saying about unstructured play but there's like the safety structure or unsupervised sorry but there's the supervision structure but the whole idea of like free three hour play in the wilderness there's still like a skeletal something there should there need to be a skeletal something there. You know you're just not sending kids out into the world wild and being like go here's a rock but it's also nice like I just love the idea too of stories as like the backbones for things because I think a lot of times our our play with kids especially that age from four to seven like the whole notion of how many ways can you tell a story and like living it being able to go and manipulate the materials and and be a character in the storybook or or be the force of nature that makes a house fall. Like there's so many ways to sort of fit yourself in that I think even the kids that do go out and are more like orbiters and don't want to be in the middle of a hay and throwing a brick like there's still a space for everyone which is really what nature is there is a space for everyone. It doesn't matter what even if on a given day you are the kid with the brick in hand leading everyone with the wolf mask on there might be a day where you're not and and nature always has you like there's still a space.

SPEAKER_02 29:00

Yeah like another example for older kids so we might have seven to 14 year olds out there and then they would have like an opportunity to create like a giant ball run. But there would be just gutters and black tubing and different size balls and duct tape and rope and again it's an open invitation and whether they do it or not it's up to them. So you'll find most of the kids will engage in it in some form or fashion and they might lug things up on giant or giant rocks or um yeah so but it's working on a lot like you have you see your leaders come forward you know they're doing everything from fine motor tying knots to you know um problem solving creativity um and it's but it's all done through play and it you know a meaningful play so it's a choice that's another thing is it has to be a choice because true play is a choice.

SPEAKER_00 29:50

So I'm curious what kind of uh children and families come to Timbernook? What are what kind of kids are they? What what are the parents' expectations? Why are they why are they there?

SPEAKER_02 30:02

That's a good question. So it's very um how do I explain it it's we try to replicate true neighborhood play as much as possible so in real world. So it's it would be a mixture of children really it would be children that would be considered neurotypical to children that might have some um challenges. But the beauty of that is that we don't create programming just based on like for instance what might be typical in my world is to have a camp for kids with special needs. And if I took all the kids that let's say struggled with social skills and put them in a camp often you're going to need an adult to interact more. And it's not real world to me. I feel like if you it's better to have children that have all different strengths and that child that has um trouble with social skills will have that that peer modeling. They'll have kids with more creativity model for them in a natural way. And so we'll often see kids with special needs there we see them as they have great transformation stories because they're placed in a real world environment. It's um so yeah for instance we have like a you know some children with some more severe disabilities out there but they're we're seeing beautiful things with them because the kids like just take them under their wing and um I see like speech therapy happening out there like you know I see OT, I see like physical therapy, I see you know all sorts of really cool stuff. But again it's through a natural play environment.

SPEAKER_00 31:36

That's really cool. And can you give us an example of a a success story that stands out to you?

SPEAKER_02 31:43

Yeah um so there's so many but I'll give it just a basic example we had a little boy come one time. So we have these giant mud puddles here too at our site I mean every location for Timberx all different obviously but at ours we have woods and then we have a river and then we have giant giant mud puddles and this old boy came knowing we were going to our mud puddles and he's like I I'll go but I'm not taking my boots off because he had plastic lily boots and he didn't want to get dirty and I'm like that's fine. So we go down and there were frogs and the the mud puddles and so some of the kids went in and started catching frogs and he was like he was on the edge of the mud puddle and he was getting super excited. So he went right in um and the water went in his wally boots and he had socks on. So that felt really gross. So he came he went came right back out and said can I take this off you know my socks are wet this feels gross. So I said sure so he took his socks and shoes off and went in barefoot and was because the motivation to catch the frogs um and then um afterwards I told his mom you know he he was like went in barefoot catching frogs and she's like oh my gosh she goes do you know I've been trying we've been trying to get him to go barefoot for two years in a clinic setting in a therapy setting unsuccessful you know where they use the plastic balance beans and um so I found that interesting because if I had said I think you should try to take your shoes off what do you think he would have done yeah wow it it it was organic.

SPEAKER_01 33:17

Yeah yeah natural and it goes to that agency part where he he made the decision to do it. He didn't like how it felt he decided what can I do about this I can take him off and then it was that there's so much victory in that victory that's like a Russian doll of victory. You know that like the shoes came off but and there was so much that anchored it that was just choice and taking care of himself and and standing up for his discomfort and fixing it.

SPEAKER_02 33:46

It's beautiful it's beautiful and it was a real environment too. So now he's able he was able to generalize that over to start going barefoot camping you know like here we are in a clinic setting putting them on plastic balance beams with little pickies and like that doesn't necessarily mean you'll go barefoot outdoors. Like it's a totally different it's not even a real environment. So and that motivation to play um was was what trumped his fear. But yeah your choice was big. So if I had said no I think you should try to take your shoes off often when kids have sensory issues it can raise anxiety to even suggest they take their shoes off to them and become a control issue.

SPEAKER_00 34:29

For teachers listening parents listening um what recommendations what tips can you give them for um if they're feeling like their child's anxious their child maybe's overscheduled is out of touch with nature where where can a parent or a a teacher start or school start?

SPEAKER_02 34:50

Sure um so well I definitely recommend reading Balance and Barefoot if they can um just because it gives basics for both the parents and also for schools. And some basic tips are if I was a parent, one thing I recommend is probably um inviting like another child or a couple of kids over to play with your child. Even if it's for you know like I there's so many like play dates right now where kids are like scheduled for one hour. But I mean I mean like having a child come over for the complete day and allowing them to have plenty of time to play. And um especially outdoors I think sometimes when there's other children involved they inspire each other. It's a little bit harder to get kids to play by themselves. So I feel like that's one of the first things I would do. The second thing is consider putting some items outside that might be unique that they might be interested in playing with for instance a lot of kids like fort building it's almost one of the first things they always do at Timbernook is create their sense of space out there. So old curtains um you know lumber tools um you know tires but like having stuff that they're allowed to create forts with outside is really big for little children. Sometimes old kitchenware is really fun in the dirt in the sand on the beach um you know trucks and ramps. So starting to think outside the box a little bit with you know materials that can be used for many purposes outdoors.

SPEAKER_00 36:23

Yeah I I love all of that. I love all of that and Kim I know you have some thoughts on that.

SPEAKER_01 36:28

I mean that's my playground at this school is beautiful and it has beautiful structures and every STEM steam toy that you could ever want. But my contribution to it since I've been here I started a mud kitchen and it's all just old kitchen things because they don't want the toy ones. They want like the actual kitchen gadgets and so they're they're in there. And then I since my kids are smaller and you know the space is limited like I add unconventional sort of tiny world things where it's just sort of like a pile like loose part type pile of like paper rolls or you know weird recycled bits that I thought well this could do something besides just be recycled and to see what they make with that and it's always always like even if they fall down eventually like it's always something fun.

SPEAKER_00 37:21

And and you've written and spoken also Angela about the need to bring back longer recess. But schools have reduced recess and why is that longer recess uh important not just because they have more time but actually developmentally why is it better for them?

SPEAKER_02 37:37

Well because um often like the short 20 minute recess sessions um is it's just it is not enough time to get into play. So um well two two reasons for that one is they can't dive into a play scheme right so you figure out who am I going to play with what am I going to play and then the bell rings and kids are smart so they'll resort to you know playing games like structured games like tag or playing on an off a play structure but they they will be less likely to dive into imaginatory type play which is a higher level of play and that's going to be working on social emotional skills and you know higher level thinking the other issue with that is um when kids are feeling fidgety you know they've been sitting for most of the day when you first let them out their activity level goes up here so now they're so they're already like their arousal level is already here and now they're up here in 20 minutes. So you let them back in and they're off the wall. That's why those five minute breaks too it's not it can totally dysregulate kids. So they now they're really off the wall. So it takes a good 45 minutes to an hour for them to regulate back down again to be ready to pay attention and learn. So you want longer recess to help them prepare um for learning again um but also so they can dive into some advanced play schemes.

SPEAKER_00 39:01

And I I think it probably would require a whole other episode of the podcast to talk about screen time. But um but uh maybe we just touch on it a little bit um where screens are now everywhere uh you know in the backs of car seats and in every child's hands and you you you talk about seeing kids swiping at toys trying to like wake the toy up or engage it um just I don't want to like you know we could launch a whole other episode on this one but what what are some things you've noticed and how screens are um taking away from from children's development um I think the biggest thing that keeps popping up to me is it's not reality.

SPEAKER_02 39:41

And so I feel like children need real experiences in person with other children um for connection and mental health reasons. But they also need real experiences to develop their neurological systems, right? So they need the senses to be engaged um they need to go upside down and like all those things will not happen when you're sitting um upright and you're not even engaging the muscles and the senses you're not gonna develop your senses properly.

SPEAKER_01 40:14

So oh my goodness I just want to I want to play with you in your backyard. Those are my final thoughts like I'm gonna get on a plane right now. I love like I wouldn't take I always kind of take like a morsel to sort of store in my brain and and keep forever. And I think I love that you started Timbernook because you played and it was just sort of like an experiment it was an act of play that started all of this and that to me is like a little beautiful nugget. I just like the symmetry and the the balance of that um and that it just you you were like well no I'm done playing but you you're never done I think it's really cool. And I love what you're doing. I think um you know it especially at a school like where Dan and I are and the kids do have screens they have everything um that just getting back to like dirt there's really a lot of value in it and um I think the kids even if they have everything like you put a pile of iPads and you're in some sort of enchanted meadow and you have a pile of like kitchen gadgets they really are going to go for the kitchen gadgets. Like most of them are going to take the pile of of nothing and make something out of it.

SPEAKER_00 41:31

They really are cool Angela thanks so much for joining us today really appreciate all your insights really enjoyed the book and uh as Kim said love what you're doing at Timbernook.

SPEAKER_02 41:43

Thank you thanks for having me I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 41:45

So I'm coming over a Sunday okay awesome a huge thanks to Angela Hanscom and my colleague Kim Duankowski for joining me love that interview love everything Angela's doing especially here in 2021 this stressful largely indoor year we can always get outside. In fact getting outside is one of the things we can always do and uh if you're a parent or a teacher hopefully you uh took something away from Angela's words I strongly encourage you to check out her book Balanced and Barefoot uh to read more of her thoughts and uh you can go over to Timber Nook's website and learn more about the programs she's doing there. And I've linked a bunch of resources about Angela and her work in the show notes. Well I wish you a very happy merry end of 2021 uh and uh a new year and uh a healthy new year. Thanks so much for checking out what's the big idea I appreciate you for listening and uh as always share any thoughts or comments on Twitter at Big IdeaEd. Take care everyone