Childhood Connections to Play

As a child, my cousins and myself spent hours playing in the state forest behind my grandparents house. We went camping every year with my grandparents and we spent the day crawdad hunting, wading in the crick, fishing, and frog gigging.   I was always outside. 

 

As I stated earlier, I played outside all the time until the sun set. We lived up a holler with the rest of my mom's side of the family. My cousin and I would hunt with our bb guns, see who could score the highest with my skip it, paint rocks and pine cones gold, and hide them to have a treasure hunt.
Looking back, I often say, "what was my mother thinking, sending me out in the woods all day." There is no way I could send my kids out all day and not know where they were or what they were doing. It was a different era, one that I am sad that today's kids will never know.
Most parents today would be deemed a terrible parent and probably have children services involved if they let their five year old play  unsupervised with a bb gun.
However, if there is ever a zombie apocalypse, I know how to survive the forest. I know what I can eat, how to catch it, and to tell direction based on where the moss is growing.
I would love to see more outdoor/ nature play for today's children. Kid's today have lost imagination, which is important for good mental health (Almon, 2002).

Reference
Almon, J. (2002). The vital role of play in early childhood education. Gateways, 43. Retrieved from http://www.waldorfresearchinstitute.org/pdf/BAPlayAlmon.pdf