Balanced and Barefoot: How Unrestricted Outdoor Play Makes for Strong, Confident, and Capable Children (edition 2016)

by Angela J. Hanscom (Author)

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Family & Relationships. Nature. Science. Nonfiction. HTML: "Angela Hanscom is a powerful voice for balance." �??Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods In this important book, a pediatric occupational therapist and founder of TimberNook shows how outdoor play and unstructured freedom of movement are vital for children's cognitive development and growth, and offers tons of fun, engaging ways to help ensure that kids grow into healthy, balanced, and resilient adults. Today's kids have adopted sedentary lifestyles filled with television, video games, and computer screens. But more and more, studies show that children need "rough and tumble" outdoor play in order to develop their sensory, motor, and executive functions. Disturbingly, a lack of movement has been shown to lead to a number of health and cognitive difficulties, such as attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), emotion regulation and sensory processing issues, and aggressiveness at school recess break. So, how can you ensure your child is fully engaging their body, mind, and all of their senses? Using the same philosophy that lies at the heart of her popular TimberNook program�??that nature is the ultimate sensory experience, and that psychological and physical health improves for children when they spend time outside on a regular basis�??author Angela Hanscom offers several strategies to help your child thrive, even if you live in an urban environment. Today it is rare to find children rolling down hills, climbing trees, or spinning in circles just for fun. We've taken away merry-go-rounds, shortened the length of swings, and done away with teeter-totters to keep children safe. Children have fewer opportunities for unstructured outdoor play than ever before, and recess times at school are shrinking due to demanding educational environments. With this book, you'll discover little things you can do anytime, anywhere to help your kids achieve the movement they need to be happy and healthy in mind, body, and spirit.… (more)

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Member:	Josiah.Shelton9
Title:	Balanced and Barefoot: How Unrestricted Outdoor Play Makes for Strong, Confident, and Capable Children
Authors:	Angela J. Hanscom (Author)
Info:	New Harbinger Publications (2016), Edition: 1, 256 pages
Collections:	Your library
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Balanced and Barefoot: How Unrestricted Outdoor Play Makes for Strong, Confident, and Capable Children by Angela J. Hanscom

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Audiobook. I liked almost of the ideas and the approaches discussed in the book, but found it very repetitive - especially early on. Also, awful narration! (

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nannyofoz | May 2, 2023 |

Having already read work by Richard Louve, Katy Bowman, John Ratey and Peter Gray this was more of a summary of information I had already been exposed to, rather than anything new or surprising. The biggest takeaway being that 4 - 8 hours a day of outdoor/physically active time is ideal --physically and psychologically for people of ALL ages (even infants), in big ways (ie cardiovascular fitness) and small ways (ie eye and vestibular function). This is extremely counter-cultural, and thus seems impossible on a regular basis, especially among school age and older people. But it is good to get these ideas out there and hopefully we can make a cultural shift. (

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bangerlm | Jan 18, 2023 |

Finally finished it! I read every word (mostly), which is different for NF for me. Let me just state that I think Occupational Therapy is amazingly awesome and that I am a proud practitioner of said awesomeness.

Is this the best how-to book, probably not. But as the foundation, the reason why we need this for our children, as a jumping point, the book is very good. I am especially excited about the recommended readings and references--very thorough.

Take home point: kids need to be outside, as much as possible; without devices, minimal supervision. Free to explore, try things, figure stuff out, get out energy, get in energy, to relax/refocus/energize, to be independent. Hanscom offers us many baby steps to get partially to that level that we were about 30-40 years ago--riding bikes to friends houses, playing outside most of the day, talking to ourselves, building forts, etc. But in this big scary world, it isn't easy as a parent to trust that everything is going to be okay. Trust me, as a person who knows the benefits of kids being outside, paired with the parent who hears horrible stories on the news about what can happen to children, I have been there, totally. It is good stuff, sometimes scary, but our kids need this. (

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BarbF410 | May 22, 2022 |

Richard Louv's book "Last Child in the Woods" made the case that the outdoors is good for you. Angela Hanson, an occupational therapist, makes the case that we injure and maybe even disable children when we have them spend so much time indoors, on "safe" play equipment, and in supervised pay.

We even need new terminology to describe this. Container Baby Syndrome (CBS) describes the problems caused by spending too much time in "baby containers", like child seats, walkers, strollers, and so on. These "safe" containers cause flat spots on heads, poor visual/body coordination, low strength, poor vestibular development, poor balance, and more.

She tested three classrooms of fifth-graders who had trouble paying attention. They fidgeted, even fell out of their chairs. She tested core strength and balance skills, simple things like spinning in a circle ten times with eyes open, then closed. Compared to the average for children from 1984, only one out of twelve children could meet the expected level! [pages 47 and 48] (

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wunder | Feb 3, 2022 |

A must read for every parent! This is what your child needs to be happy, healthy and thriving! Forget everything else. (

)

Sam_Morrisey | Jul 20, 2019 |

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Family & Relationships. Nature. Science. Nonfiction. HTML:

"Angela Hanscom is a powerful voice for balance."
�??Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods
In this important book, a pediatric occupational therapist and founder of TimberNook shows how outdoor play and unstructured freedom of movement are vital for children's cognitive development and growth, and offers tons of fun, engaging ways to help ensure that kids grow into healthy, balanced, and resilient adults.
Today's kids have adopted sedentary lifestyles filled with television, video games, and computer screens. But more and more, studies show that children need "rough and tumble" outdoor play in order to develop their sensory, motor, and executive functions. Disturbingly, a lack of movement has been shown to lead to a number of health and cognitive difficulties, such as attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), emotion regulation and sensory processing issues, and aggressiveness at school recess break. So, how can you ensure your child is fully engaging their body, mind, and all of their senses?
Using the same philosophy that lies at the heart of her popular TimberNook program�??that nature is the ultimate sensory experience, and that psychological and physical health improves for children when they spend time outside on a regular basis�??author Angela Hanscom offers several strategies to help your child thrive, even if you live in an urban environment.
Today it is rare to find children rolling down hills, climbing trees, or spinning in circles just for fun. We've taken away merry-go-rounds, shortened the length of swings, and done away with teeter-totters to keep children safe. Children have fewer opportunities for unstructured outdoor play than ever before, and recess times at school are shrinking due to demanding educational environments.
With this book, you'll discover little things you can do anytime, anywhere to help your kids achieve the movement they need to be happy and healthy in mind, body, and spirit.

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