Passport to Texas

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When given a choice, kids used to spend entire days in unstructured outdoor play. Not so today.

11— There was a study done that says kids spend an average of 5,000 hours by the time they reach kindergarten age being exposed to some sort of electronic media. That’s roughly the equivalent it takes to get a college degree.

That’s Russell Graves, professional writer, photographer and former Ag teacher. He cited that statistic in an article he wrote for the January 2013 issue of Texas Parks and Wildlife magazine. Television, video games and other electronic devices compete for a child’s attention.

05 –At some point, kids need to have a love of the outdoors and a love a playing outdoors fostered in them.

And that’s where adults come in. We have to help children cultivate what’s already exists inside them. In his article, Russell Graves offers simple suggestions for parents to help their kids cultivate love of the outdoors and of discovery.

16 – One of the things we did when my kids were little is we would garden. Whether it was a vegetable garden or a flower garden – just get them out there in the dirt. Let them dig holes, and let them plant flowers. Because, then all of a sudden, they get involved with wanting to come home every day and check to see how their flower garden or their vegetables are doing.

And that leads to examining bugs, and reptiles and birds and before you know it – you have a nature lover on your hands.

We’ll have more with Russell Graves tomorrow. For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 18th, 2012 at 12:00 am and is filed under TPW Mag. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.