Autumn leaf-pile jumping makes kids smarter

New West Publishing, Boise – October 21, 2007
By Jill Kuraitis

The classic American sound of the baseball playoffs on television reminds me of something our family used to do this time of year.

According to the research done by the Children and Nature Network – and dozens of other organizations – “Children are smarter, cooperative, happier and healthier when they have frequent and varied opportunities for free and unstructured play in the out-of-doors.”

In other words, go hit a rock with a stick for awhile, kid. Good for ya.

In the '90s, when my two kids were school-age, we’d have a yearly party called “Catalapa Leaf-Whomping Day.” Two eight-stories-high catalpa trees grow in our streamside backyard - those monsters with dinner-plate-sized leaves and two-foot seed pods that look like dried green beans on crack (perfect for whacking your little sister).

When the leaves fall from these godzillas, holy smokes! - it’s a mess. The kids and their friends would go door-to-door organizing the neighbors on a Saturday afternoon for a raking party, which, after some mighty raking, produced a leaf pile the size of an SUV.

With a whoop the kids would break ranks and run for the first flying leap, the dogs plunged in headlong, and the barking, leaf-tossing and mayhem began. We never even took a picture, so intent were we moms showing our kids that moms jump in leaf-piles, too. We were living life, not photographing it.

After at least one shrieking chaotic “snake! snake!” episode when the older boys would bravely find the little offender and release it into the shrubbery, we’d be filthy, wet and sometimes a little wormy. I’d break out the hot chocolate and cider and coffee and apples and doughnut holes and nuts, and we’d all plop down contentedly in our dirty clothes and admire the mess.

The sound of the World Series seeped out from the house, where the men drank beer and stood around the television, yelling those wonderful sounds men yell during sports.

I remember those times with some kind of awe. Determined to get all the neighbors there, the children practically dragged the cranky old guy who we never saw out of his house. Elderly neighbors, even the stickler-for-rules lady from down the street and once, a priest visiting nearby – all of them jumped in the leaves at least once.

We who grew up in the days when you played in the street “until the street lights come on” – the universal code to go home for dinner – and the fields and gulches and irrigation ditches and barns and clubhouses in the woods should have made sure our kids had at least some of that. It’s different and more dangerous world, so not all the same things are possible. But a lot of it was, and still is.

I hope we can inspire the young parents with kids in school right now. What it looks like from here is that younger families are so stressed that nature somehow only gets admired out the window of a van or SUV on the way to karate lessons. We need to help and support them to be sure they can find ways to get their families outdoors.

When two parents work two jobs each just to make ends meet, there’s not a lot of time for leaf-jumping. Now that the old-fashioned Sunday drive is out because it wastes and pollutes, it takes planning to reach nature if you haven’t got any nearby. And a lack of familiarity with nature may leave some parents with few ideas of what to do when they get there. All of that and more.

But what about that kid of yours who is in front of a computer, iPod in his ear, texting on his cell phone while about to go over to Jeremy’s house where they will play Nintendo for hours? Could he be outside instead, playing something he’s been encouraged to do all this life?

What about the kid who plays piano, takes karate Monday, tennis on Tuesday, dance on Thursday, scouts on Friday and babysits all day Saturdays? Could she drop one of those so there is more time in her life to lie on the lawn and find shapes in the clouds and interesting bugs in the soil?

My mom and I used to go out to the sidewalk after a rain and pick up the stranded earthworms to put back in the dirt. We’d name them, and laugh and laugh. 40 years later, I’m still throwing them back, and when I find one in my garden, I remember what Mom said - they are a sign the earth is healthy there.

So let’s all find a kid and resolved to get him outdoors more. Your nephew, your little sister, your grandchild, a neighbor child who can throw some worms around with you ... you never know when you’ve inspired someone.

And, according to Experts, they might be thinner, healthier, more relaxed, easier to get along with and feel a connection and commitment to the earth. Heck, it might even raise their grades. Let’s encourage younger parents to learn about children and nature.

Need more inspiration?

Go outside and whack something with a stick.

‘S good for ya.

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