Stephen Moss stated, “nature is a tool to get children to experience not just the wider world, but themselves.” At Nature’s Path Occupational Therapy (OT) that is EXACTLY our philosophy on nature and therapy. Nature is the most powerful tool available to encourage children to experience the world and themselves. While we acknowledge and support that traditional clinic based OT serves a purpose, our heart is that nature provides the real world environment to work on real life goals.
The research has been mounting to support the health benefits of nature. It is a health benefit that is long overdue for our children. Obesity now affects 1 in 5 children and adolescents in the United States. In 2016, 6.1 million children were diagnosed with ADHD, and of those children, 6 in 10 had at least one other mental, emotional, or behavioral disorder. We are also seeing a decline in the overall fine motor and gross motor strength in children. In 1998, one in twenty children could not hold their own weight when hanging from wall bars. In 2008, that decreased to one in ten (Campbell 2011).
We are raising a generation of children indoors and the effects are heartbreaking for both the neurotypical and neurodiverse. On average, children ages 8-12 in the United States spend 4-6 hours a day watching or using screens, and teens spend up to 9 hours. This excessive use of technology is affecting the overall health of children.
Our therapeutic model of nature based therapy shifts therapy from indoors to outdoors. Active free play in nature promotes physical, social, emotional, and sensory development. In nature, your child learns to navigate an unfamiliar environment, take risks, and assess their own physical and emotional limitations. Nature, and unstructured outdoor therapeutic play, not only combat the above statistics, but also provide an ideal setting to work on identified therapy goals.
