Summertime... but is the living easy?

What does the word "summertime" make you think of, when you're daydreaming during the darkest days of winter? Lemonade on a hot day? A picnic? Aimlessly wandering through meadows?

There's a bucolic fantasy of childhood summers as times of carefree adventure, exploratory laziness, and joy. For some it's a memory, for others a fantasy, and for a few, a reality. Most of the time, I tend to hear from baby boomers and their elders that summers used to be that way, from kids and youth now that it's not that way at all, and from folks in between those two ages that childhood summers were a little structured and a little unstructured when they were growing up. It seems we're trending toward more and more structured time and indoor time in the months between school.

There are pros and cons to this. The world may be less safe for kids to play alone and outdoors than it used to be, or it may be perceived as less safe; it's hard to say. Structured programs provide kids with a safe place to be, and with meals their families might not otherwise be able to afford. Programs can help kids catch up on academic learning that is overwhelming them during the school year, and can take kids on field trips to places they would never otherwise imagine getting to go, or engage them in creative activities like rocketry or photography.

Structured programs also don't have to be indoors; they can bring kids into the wilderness or city parks to explore their environment, play sports, splash in the water, or otherwise frolic, all with new friends and with caring adults to supervise.

And yet it's important to make sure children get some semblance of unstructured outdoor play time in the summer, not in front of a video game or in a classroom. A recent book argues that today's kids have "Nature Deficit Disorder" and that it's contributing to obesity and attention deficit. There may have been a reason we thought nostalgically about bucolic summers past, even if we never experienced them; explorative time in nature may be essential to our development. Kids today may be missing out on that need, and losing some skills and confidence as a result.

I'm not surprised. Earlier this month, I spent an hour exploring the lowest tide in four years on a sunny afternoon north of Golden Gardens Park here in Seattle. I walked far out on the sand flats, examining colorful starfish, fascinating anemones, geoducks that spit water, and all sorts of marine life. I overlapped a little with a few parents who had brought their young children on the adventure. The children were terrified. Not of the funny-looking creatures, but of being dirty and wet. The water, the sand, the seaweed were all shocking. They wanted to be dry and indoors.

A generation or two ago, I'm guessing that would have been more rare. Children were more used to exploring outside, to getting dirty, to jumping in puddles. It makes sense; we evolved in a natural environment, and we evolved to learn in one. When they're comfortable outdoors, children are naturally inquisitive and creative.

It's not easy to ensure your kids get some creative outdoor play time this summer, if you have kids or if you run a program. But see if you can make it happen. Bring the kids to the beach or a meadow, with some general guidelines for safety, and let them explore. Comfort in the natural world, a sense of inquiry and curiosity, fitness from moving around, and the creativity to explore will all benefit them later on -- in school and in life.