Playgrounds, Beaches, Construction Sites, Oh My! Our Year of 1,000 Hours Outside

OUTSIDE, USA — It could have been at the beach. Could have been at the playground. Could have been either observing or climbing around another construction site.

We’re not sure exactly where it happened or what our little outdoor boy was doing, but somewhere in Pompano Beach, we crossed the rubicon: Austin, our 2 and a half year old toddler, hit his 1,000th hour outside in the calendar year.

Such was our New Year’s Resolution-turned-parenting-principle this year: To get our son outside for at least 1,000 hours.

Early in January, we saw a social media trend amongst parents, calling for 400 hours of outside time a year. To a family who has practically lived outside our entire lives, this seemed light. Four-hundred hours is barely more than an hour a day.

What if we shot for, say, close to three?

What if we tried to hit 1,000?

Austin, examining our lake for whatever it is toddlers examine lakes for

When we first set our goal of 1,000-plus hours of outdoor time, it seemed at once ambitious and not. One thousand hours is nearly 42 days worth of being outside. That sounds imposing. But an hour and a half in the morning, and an hour and a half in the afternoon or evening?

It made it manageable to the point that I wondered if it was really audacious enough.

How hard could it really be? (Turns out, a little more difficult than it appears, but still more than doable)

Our chief concern with the goal was that it would become a chore, for being outside to become something we, and he, needed to do rather than wanted to do. A need, not a want; a job, not a passion.

This fear was assuaged before winter turned to spring.

Keeping a toddler inside, even with all the magnetiles and Tonka trucks in the world, is like caging a tiger, or keeping a puppy in a kennel.

If there’s an apt comparison to be made here, it’s that toddlers and puppies are probably more alike than toddlers and their parents. Both are practically vibrating with an energy that demands movement, stimulation, learning with hands and feet and mouth. Both will eat everything in sight, and particularly the things they ought not eat. Both occasionally pee on the carpet and, frequently, outdoors. Both follow you around like a Pokemon, lovingly, adoringly, yet will also lash out with little to no warning.

Jill Winger, author of Old Fashioned on Purpose and the popular blog, The Prairie Homestead, observed that “Our dog, Jed, has a reputation for being a troublemaker. But after he completes a job, like helping us herd the goats back into their pen, his entire demeanor changes. His expression shifts from one of mischievousness to a look that could only be described as ‘quiet and easy.'”

We found virtually the same with our son. He wasn’t herding goats, but getting outside, playing, or doing a job, like helping mom garden or taking out the trash with me or climbing trees or digging up dirt and mulch changed his demeanor. Getting outside time, then, never once became a chore, rather more of a lifeline, for parents and toddler alike. If I could sum up everything I’ve learned about parenting, it might be this: Let them play.

Benjamin Franklin said something similar about grown men in his autobiography:

“When men are employ’d, they are best content’d; for on the days they worked were good-natur’d and cheerful, and with the consciousness of having done a good day’s work, they spent the evening jollily; but on our idle days, they were mutinous and quarrelsome, finding fault with their pork, the bread, etc, and in continual ill-humor.”

Does the latter half of that passage sound like the traditional stereotype of a toddler to you?

It does — until you get them outside.

Stirring the compost with mom, basketball in hand

Delaney and a few of the moms we grew close with during our innumerable visits to the playground and pool this year all found that when the kids had ample time outside to run and play and interact, they’d be more creative inside. They’d grow less bored and restless — and by extension, less irritable — because suddenly everything had so much more potential. Magnetiles weren’t magnetiles any longer but bulldozers and diggers and garages. A little wooden stand meant to hold up a decorative surfboard became a fork lift. The fountain in our backyard became a fishing pond filled with speckled trout and the occasional dolphin, and the stone walkway turned into a grill to cook up the fish we caught. We had numerous bountiful feasts, day after day after sunsoaked — and sometimes rain-drenched — day. The garden was a world of wonder on par with Avatar. The dirt pit in our front yard, filled after a water pipe broke, became the most extravagant construction site you’ve ever seen.

In total, we spent 208 hours in our front and backyard. Doing nothing. Doing everything.

Where else did we pass the time out of doors? Many of the traditional haunts you’d expect — beaches (73 hours), pools (52 hours) and playgrounds (246 hours) — and many you wouldn’t.

We spent a hilarious amount of time at construction sites (57 hours, or nearly two and a half DAYS).

The real playground

Down the road, there were 10 duplexes going up, and it may as well have been 10 Super Bowls happening all at once. The workers there are more famous and respectable to Austin than Tom Brady and Peyton Manning combined.

And, I feel obliged to note, God bless those workers.

The only thing the men at construction sites seem to enjoy more than the work itself is sharing it with a little boy. Mike the Mason allowed Austin to shadow him for a bit one morning over the summer, and made sure to say hello every morning thereafter. Chance the general contractor broke down blueprints with him, and now, every single toy construction worker in our house is named Mr. Chance. Wendell, who did a little bit of everything, taught him how to hammer a fence post in. They all let him climb on the diggers and bulldozers and forklifts and pull the levers and pedals, every day.

It was sublime.

I’m asked, somewhat frequently, what I’d like Austin to be one day or what sports I want him to play. My answer for a while was I don’t care, so long as he’s active and useful. Now I just want him to do whatever gets him as excited as going to the construction site.

Who knows?

What I do know is this: Our task and vision that was uneasy at first for the fear of creating a combative relationship with getting outside — akin to young children going to school or brushing their teeth or clipping fingernails — became, to me, the most useful pillar of raising children we’ve had as parents.

One morning last week, Austin and I were standing on the porch as rain showered down on his front yard dirt pit/construction site. Still, in spite of the rain, he begged to go on a walk to the real construction site, to see the diggers, and maybe to the pond down the road to see how many puddles he could count, and if we could find the biggest one. So off we went, into the wondrously wet and sloppy day, in search of puddles and fun. My neighbor, Mike, laughed from his porch as we walked by.

“No offense, Dad, but I hope that boy comes back dirty.”

Me too, Mike.

Me too.