A new study confirms what many parents and educators have believed for a long time, that time spent playing outdoors helps reduce symptoms of ADHD in children. The caveat -- for best results, the spaces should be green and expansive (like soccer fields and large lawns).
The study, published in the journal Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being, compared how different types of play spaces affected children with ADHD.
Among the findings:
- Children with ADHD who played regularly in green play settings had milder symptoms than children who played in man-made outdoor or indoor settings.
- The improvement was observed for all income groups and for both boys and girls.
- For hyperactive children, the apparent advantage of green spaces was true only for relatively open green settings (such as soccer fields and large lawns), as opposed to other green spaces like forests.
What does this mean for children in colder climates like Minnesota, where access to green spaces is limited for much of the year?
This study and previous studies agree that nature itself has a beneficial effect on kids with ADHD. Even in the winter when we have little access to grass, kids can still interact with nature through hiking, skiing, sledding and so on.
Parents should focus on giving children regular access to the outdoors in the form of big, open spaces, rather than enclosed and man-made play areas.
Green seems to have a psychological effect on kids with ADHD. Science Daily even reports that photographs have had a calming effect:
Previous research has shown that brief exposure to green outdoor spaces -- and in one study, to photos of green settings -- can improve concentration and impulse control in children and adults in the general population -- individuals without ADHD.
The bottom line comes down to what many would consider common sense: In order to thrive, kids need regular exposure to the outdoors, nature and wide open spaces.
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