Since having kids I’ve been realising that a lot of the things in life that other people do, that have never made sense to me, suddenly make a whole lot more sense in the context of kids.
With a kid, I’m suddenly super grateful for my little lawn.
With a kid, I’m suddenly super grateful for my little lawn.
I loved playing in that yard. It had great places to hide. Ample trees to climb. Wildlife to look for and learn about. A variety of fun tasks to perform, from picking fruit and berries to making jam and juice.
When my younger brother turned 10, our parents decided that he had to play football. Almost all of the trees were felled. Everything I loved about that place was destroyed, and replaced by one, big, boring, lifeless lawn.
Instead of fun tasks, I was thenceforth assigned the task of mowing the lawn. Which I resented and continue to detest to this day.
A garden is always going to be better than a lawn. A garden of plants that grow faster than trees may be higher-maintenance, though.
Playing in his yard was way more fun.
I have a kid and I'm grateful we gave up our lawn. She plants in the spring, harvests, cooks, and preserves with us. She's excited to make pickles, jam, squash, pumpkins, corn, etc from things she's grown and tended to. She even got to pick out some of the flowers and make her own little square.
Watching her step out to grab some blueberries, raspberries, or strawberries is one of the best feelings in the world.
We read seed catalogs together in the winters and plan what we could grow (Ooh, what if we grew purple cauliflower? Or rhubarb for pie!)
I'd agree if you have a house big enough to have a playroom, and have open space close by, it's probably easy enough.
Our lawn is kinda a tiny, tiny, wildflower meadow, ie it's not cut much. The bees love the Clover.
There's also a substantial difference between a "natural" lawn, where clover and other plants are allowed vs the stereotypical "perfect" lawn (in the US) with a single grass species (and heavy application of herbicides and fertilizers).
It's almost like sweeping statements such as "no one should have a lawn" need modifiers. ;o)
I'd guess grass is still better environmentally than gravel; so long as you don't over tend it (and our mower was rescued from the dump).
Have fun.
You have to mow it. You have to mow it every week. You have to mow it every week even if you're tired, or sick, or it's hot, or it's cold, or it's rainy, or your friends are playing a game, or you had a sleepover. No excuses, no exceptions. You can't mow it too early in the morning, or too late in the evening. You can't stop halfway through and do the rest later (back yard/front yard perhaps, but not half of the front yard). The grass does not care what your reasons are. It just cares that you didn't mow it. If you don't, it punishes you. Sometimes the neighbors do, too.
In theory they understand this, in practice there are plenty of other activities that result in a litany of renegotiations. Grass. Doesn't. Care.
You know, lawns were simply not a major factor in that, outside of perhaps once-in-a-year water gun fights with some neighbor kids, the wilderness held far more appeal. Back-lot tracks, untilled fields, marginal scrubland running along stream beds. That was where the majority of my 'green time' took place.
I do remember a few families around the village that had completely unkept, wilderness yards. They provided far more entertainment than any with manicured lawns.
Edit: To add a bit of context here a lot of people are talking about pesticides and fertilizer and stuff like that but we don't do anything like that, we just mow it when it gets a bit long. Does that mean our lawn is technically a meadow?
A meadow, or natural lawn, or whatever you want to call it would be a mix of grass, clover, and other "weeds". It wouldn't require anywhere near as much chemical treatment (if any) and could be mowed and watered far less often. To me, it would also be allowed to grow long enough to flower, to promote pollinating insects.
I tend not to let the clover or dandelions flower though, as it attracts bees to the lawn, and barefoot children (very common in my country, and not looked down on like in the US) and bees on a lawn aren't a happy mix.
My garden is filled with heaps of flowering annuals and perennials though.
We do set rules, it's just that we don't always maintain them very strictly, and he loves to bend them. And when he does play outside to get more Minecraft time, he thinks 15 minutes outside it enough.
It seems he just has no idea what to do outside. As a kid, I regularly played outside, probably because I had to, and so did the other kids in the neighbourhood, so we played outside. But none of his friends plays outside, so there's nothing to do for him outside.
What doesn't help is that we live in a city: no backyard, no fields or forests behind the house, and watch when you cross the street. Plenty of playgrounds fortunately, but the youngest, who loves to play outside, is just 5, which is a bit young to be outside on his own, so he's learning to adapt to indoor play. Maybe playing outside is getting trained out of kids because of the environment we live in.
Regarding setting rules: Kids are very bright when it comes to getting their way. If there's any loopholes they'll exploit them. If they detect weakness in resolve then they'll push and push using negotiation, guilt, deception, etc... The question they're trying to figure out is, is my parent in charge or can I be? The hardest but best thing you can do as a parent to instill disciple is to be clear, consistent, and follow-through. It's really hard. I'm in the midst of it too!
In my limited experience (ex cub leader [mixed sex groups], church kids helper, worked with children for 15 years; kids and nieces/nephews of my own) most boys behaviour declines rapidly if you don't "run them", but most girls aren't affected in the same way.
On our scout camps (mixed sex, mixed age, for the last 20 years at least) in free time the girls _tend_ to retreat to their tents and chat and the boys _tend_ to hit the field and run around like idiots. There's obviously a lot of selection bias in these groups too, they do outdoor pursuits, rough camping, etc. -- these girls are fit and hardy and as capable at kayaking/hiking/climbing/backwoodsmanship as the boys (indeed at the top end, 14yo, the girls are often fitter and stronger as they tend to grow a little earlier than the boys do). There's probably some observer bias too, of course, and this is anecdotal (but longitudinal).
My observations of toddlers at "mums & toddlers" groups suggests the ones who run around with a pram are usually boys (though that's far from exclusive; and the mothers [it's about 1:30 men] have very strong gender bias, which might be the origin of that effect).
YMMV.
Interested in other observations, FWIW I'm in the UK.
https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/exercise/physical-activity-guid...
I always just took them as fun time and some kids took them as annoying burden that should be avoided. I not once thought about that they are necessary to develop my body and motor skills.
I always took Judo training as a near perfect way to improve my movement skills though.