Children need to be out in the open air

http://youtu.be/SWE6EOmXLZM

When I was growing up – admittedly in a rural area – we were sent out to play in a woodland or in the fields for hours on end, an apple the only provision. Supervision? What supervision? We were trusted to be home by mealtimes. I don't think anything very serious ever happened to any of us. We explored a "big cave" that had probably once been a fox den or was maybe simply a hollow left when a boulder tumbled down the steep slope after a heavy rainfall.
We were allowed to develop our natural instincts and learnt to trust them.
The worst that ever happened was a very young boy falling off the garden swing at his house. He broke his arm and was a hero in plaster for several weeks. I was about four at the time. When I was about nine, a friend swung me around, holding on to one of my arms and one of my feet. The landing was a bit rough and I scraped the top of my other foot.  Sore for a few days, but the memory of that exhilarating flight in mid-air has remained with me ever since.
I have unforgettable memories of playing Indians, clambering up trees and ambushing our persecutors with tiny pebbles, of lugging big rocks into the middle of shallow streams, building dams to have a dip in a proper pool. Those were communal efforts that taught us the fine art of communicating to achieve a common goal. There was much shouting and laughter and we all got wonderfully brown tans in the process. Although suncream was unheard-of until much later, I don't recall ever having sunburn or heatstroke or anything of the kind.