*This post was originally written for Human 2.0 the day after Halloween*
Last night, as I was sitting down
in my Lambie
costume handing out sugarless treats to children and playing the Star Wars
theme song to every Jedi I saw, I couldn’t help but feel nostalgic about my
childhood. I started thinking about all of the activities we now take for
granted that helped develop our physical literacy.
I was lucky enough to grow up on
a military base called Borden. Borden had everything a child needed to kill
time from sunup to sundown. Borden is really the place that I developed most of
my physical literacy. It had 1000’s of climbable trees. I developed my body
strength by climbing those trees, inventing obstacle courses and jumping off
them to learn naturally how to absorb shock. Our skin became rugged because of
the tree bark. It didn’t matter, we had fun.
It only really hurt when we showered afterwards.
My leg strength definitely came
from all the biking I did. My friends and I had a biking gang and would ride
all over the base. We’d go into the woods and mountain bike. There was a huge
hill in the forest that we all had a hard time climbing but once we got it, we
felt very accomplished and confident. Feeling confident
plays a critical role in developing your physical literacy. We’d
bike to our school’s playground and use the monkey bars, play Sandman, try to
climb the soccer posts.
We kept developing our leg
strength and our cardiovascular system during winter. We’d grab our GT Snow
Racer, the one with Brett Hull on the box, walk to the forest, find a hill,
slide down and walk back up. We would slide down for hours which meant we
walked up for hours. Once we got bored, we’d slide back down and try to bump
each other off our GT’s. We’d walk back up and repeat. Our legs felt sore
afterwards. We all went home to eat lunch and promised to meet up immediately
after to play street hockey. We would play street hockey until it was time to
eat.
I could go on and on about all of
the activities I use to do that helped my physical literacy. I hope you’re
reading this article and that you’re nodding your head in agreement because you
had a similar type of childhood. If so, let’s bring back
free play. Free play is the best way to develop our
children’s physical literacy. The more they play, the more confident they will
become. The more confident they will become, the more open they will become to
try new activities. If your child doesn’t like to play because he prefers his
iPad, the solution to that problem is simple; you must become his role model.
Chances are that if your child sees you playing outside, they will to.
Eventually, they won’t need you anymore and they will go out and play by
themselves or with their friends.
Remember to have fun:
-
Climb those monkey bars
-
Buy yourself a skateboard and enjoy the road
-
Play street hockey
-
Organize a pickup soccer game
-
Keep your balance on the sidewalk curb
