We Failed At Achieving 1,000 Hours Outside This Year. But in the End, We Still Won

In December of 2021, I came across an Instagram page called @1000hoursoutside. A mom started the account while living in a townhome without a yard and was set on making a better attempt to focus her time and energy on spending time outside with her family. The whole idea behind the 1,000 hours spent outside came from a study done on screen time in children saying the average child spends about 1,000 hours on screens a year, she was trying to flip the narrative and spend this many hours outside instead. While I dislike blaming screens or writing them off completely, I too have found immense value in spending time outside for myself and my children. 

I started tracking our outside hours come January 1st. My youngest son was born at the beginning of January, so during the first week or so of the year we were not able to clock many hours. But once we were home from the hospital, even he got in on the action at only a few days old! 

One of the benefits of tracking our hours for us was the motivation behind it. If we knew we could add more hours to our tracker app to earn badges and see how far we’ve come, it made it more motivating (especially in the colder months!) to get out a little more. Even spending 20 minutes outside adds up eventually! 

Tracking hours may seem arbitrary, and to some, it may be. To us, it gave us motivation and a starting point to see how far we had come. For example, in the month of January, we spent 22 hours outside, but in February we were able to jump to 24 hours outside for the month! It may have only been a 2-hour difference, but it felt like such a big win to us. By March we were up to 36 hours and in April we spent 82 hours outside!! 

In the end, we didn’t end up getting a full 1,000 hours outside. We finished off the year with around 890 hours. But did we fail? 

If we’re only talking numbers, then yes. 

But did we also win? 

We won more family time. 

We won the development of gross-motor skills. 

We won the time spent being curious over snow hills left over in the spring. 

We won more fresh air. 

We won afternoons with friends at the park. And evenings gathered around a fire roasting hot dogs and marshmallows. 

We won a balmy spring day by the river, and a hot summer’s day lounging out by our camper. 

We may have lost the number game, but in the end, I think we ultimately won. And next year, we’ll shoot for higher. Not to meet a number from a random statistic in a study, but because time spent outside is never wasted. 

You don’t have to read a blog post or Pinterest quote to see the benefits of spending time outside. You just have to get outside and the benefits will show themselves tenfold. 

Real Life Risky Play

On a fall afternoon, I was outside supervising a group of neighborhood kids playing in my yard and neighboring yards. I am a big fan of risky play, so watching them scale apple trees and climb up our rope swing was bringing me so much joy! (And yes, some anxiety. But I do trust them and their ability to know when it’s too much for their body.) 

At one point they found a ladder lying on the ground that they worked together to prop up onto a stump in the yard- yay for teamwork! They were using this ramp to climb up and down and hang on and jump off of it, it was great to watch. However, upon closer inspection, I realized that right under the propped-up ladder were several 2×4 boards that were full of rusty screws and nails. 

Instantly their risky play turned to dangerous play. 

I was able to take a second to gather my thoughts and plan my next move, how I reacted could drastically change the outcome of their work. 

There was danger, but nothing was immediate. Courses needed to be changed, but it wasn’t a life-or-death situation at the moment that I needed to swoop in right away. 

I offered them some awareness of the situation,
“Hey guys, let’s look around really quick. What do you see on the ground? Boards with nails in them? Yeah, that can be dangerous if we fall on them! What can we do to make this a little safer?” 

Their first solution was to move the boards away from where they were playing, but with the number of children and only myself there to supervise them, I didn’t feel like this would be a safe option to make sure all of the boards were picked up and moved without a nail going through someone’s hand or foot, so I had to tell them we needed to find a new option. 

After some more deliberation, they decided to work together to pick up the ladder and move it to a different area to prop up and play on again. After moving it, the ladder was taller and in a more risky position to play on, but the danger of it was gone because it was a safer landing than the alternative. 

They played with their setup for hours and hours with no incident! And maybe they would have played in their first location for that long with no harm to anyone either, but the danger there was not something I could ignore. 

Risky play is important and good and needed, but as a caregiver, it’s my job to determine when risky play turns into dangerous play.

There was so much learning in this situation, both for the children, and myself! I am not perfect and every situation isn’t handled this well every time. But with practice and time, I’ve learned more and more how to differentiate between risky and dangerous play and the best way to approach the changes we need to make in order to keep everyone safe, while still giving them opportunities to learn through risk. 

Other helpful articles on risky play: 

Risk Vs. Reward: Risky Play for Children

When Does Risky Play Become Dangerous Play? How to Find the Balance

If We Can’t Say Be Careful, What Do We Say?