Indoor children need the outdoors

If Mary McKinley had her way, every child in Utah would be required to put away their cell phones, iPods and Xboxes for an hour or two each day and head outdoors to experience some real twittering.

At the Ogden Nature Center, where McKinley works as executive director, children are exposed daily to bird calls and whispering trees, pollywog ponds and honeybees. For nearly 35 years, Utah's first nature center has been a place to find a bit of calm in a chaotic world.

But McKinley and others fortunate enough to earn a living promoting the importance of quiet time in green space are feeling a bit worried these days.

What will happen 15 or 20 years from now if the number of children living their lives indoors with computers, video games and big-screen television sets continues to rise?

As adults, will these people still care about preserving the wonders of the natural world? Will they want to take their own children camping, hiking or on outings to collect rocks and bugs? Who will guard our wild spaces, asks McKinley, if everybody is indoors, having virtual experiences?

"It's a growing problem," she says, "and part of that is because of the changing times we live in. The biggest reason we've lost the right to roam in four generations is because of perceived safety issues. There are more cars, which makes parents nervous about traffic. Then there's 'stranger danger' and the fact that so many more children are spending time in day care or with baby sitters.

" 'Don't go outside — stay in the house' has become a way of life for a lot of these kids."

Hoping to encourage more families to explore the outdoors — even if that simply involves looking under rocks in their own backyards — McKinley recently joined me for a Free Lunch chat in honor of National Take a Child Outdoors Week.

For McKinley, of course, every week is Take a Child Outdoors Week, but she recognizes that there are thousands of families out there who could use some gentle prompting.

"Experiencing nature can be as simple as taking pillows out to lie on the grass and look at the clouds," she says. "It's good bonding time, and although it might seem like a small moment, it matters an awful lot. These are the things that children remember."