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Recently a study on children and outdoor play was released in Europe and landed as a headline of various news institutions. It is about the importance of outdoor play for children. Results have shown that outdoor plays tend to reduce the anxiety of children and help them cope with family problems.

Child psychologists have emphasized that outdoor play does not only serve as coping mechanism but also renders a healthy way for children to keep their health from suffering from the loss of chance to play outside. These experts add that no outdoor play harms children, and in the long course of history of child psychology, outdoor games prove to be rather beneficial.

However, nowadays, especially at the onset of technology, children do enjoy “junk” entertainment sources such as the Internet, video games, portable play stations and the like. In fact, a UK based study has dedicated time and effort to prove that childrens dominant pattern of enjoying games that do not much require big, physical movements.

The experts agree that kids need to get off the couch and start getting some exercise outdoors. For them, these are not “real” but rather “virtual” interactions with playmates.

Outdoor play is also essential for the development of a childs social interaction. It improves their ability to interrelate with other children of his age. Needless to say, not only the physical, but also the psychological well being of children is nourished.

The importance of unsupervised free outdoor play on childrens positive mental and physical health has been well documented. These, they say, could help improve the mental state of children since games that are played outdoors keep them from violence that is usually the theme of video games.

Disturbing is the trend towards less outdoor play in terms of the long terms effects upon children. It is becoming a global phenomenon seeing less of the children play in parks and beaches and spending much less time outdoors playing.

The benfits of outdoor play on a childs emotional, physical and mental health are unparalleled by any other single activity the a child can participate in. Children need multi-sided games that will require them to elicit bigger physical responses over television serials and computer-aided entertainment that require very little interaction.

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