Playing outside : reflection on the perceptions of families in daycare centre

Abstract

Nowadays, interest in playing outside and getting in touch with nature seems to have gained prominence in society and particularly among professionals and researchers. We know that play has a fundamental and crucial role in a child's global and integral development, as they learn best through autonomous play, and their lives are enriched by the fact that it is a pleasurable, imaginative, spontaneous and creative activity. We seem to be recovering old habits and routines that we've lost. New generations are faced with several variables that condition children's access to different opportunities for exploring space. Issues such as safety, the balance between risk and danger, adult control and supervision are all aspects that parents consider. This paper describes partial data collected among families of 36 children (nursery to two-year-old) involved in the study. It describes partial data from a wider study by the Observatory for the Future of Early Childhood Education in Portugal (OFEI): "Outdoor learning opportunities: changing practices in urban daycare centres". It reflects on parent’s perspectives about using outdoors in children's lives as well as in parents' lives when they were children. We noticed changes between parents' and children's generations in terms of access to the outdoors as well as significant differences in play between parents and children. Keywords: Play outside, families, development, early childhood education