How do you encourage your children to play outside? Tell Persil for a chance to win a £300 voucher! NOW CLOSED

[PoppyMumsnet]

A new global study of 12,000 parents reveals children are spending on average less than an hour outdoors per day - and in the UK specifically 1 in 5 children never play outdoors.

In response to this, Persil is launching the Dirt is Good campaign, encouraging children to spend more time playing outdoors.

Here’s what Persil has to say: “We believe that children need plenty of outdoor play because climbing trees, building dens and just being in nature are essential for their learning and healthy development. That’s why we say that #dirtisgood. However, parents have told us that it’s getting more difficult to find time and places for their kids to play. So, in partnership with parents, educators, and other leading child development experts, we want to investigate ways to help children play and explore more so that they can learn and develop to their full potential.”

Persil wants to hear your top tips for encouraging your children to get out and play. Do you feel they have fewer opportunities to play than you did? What are the main obstacles to outside play and how do you overcome them? What, if anything, would you like to help you facilitate outdoor play for your children?

Everyone who adds a comment to this thread will be entered in to a prize draw where one winner will receive a £200 Love2shop voucher.

Thanks & good luck!

MNHQ

Standard T&Cs apply

The best thing you can do is go with them!

Adding a bit of purpose and challenge to it helps I always found. So going for a walk was boring, but going for an adventure to collect pine cones and sticks and paddle in a river was fun. Anything with mud worked. Outside at home, making obstacle courses out of various toys and garden canes or whatever is to hand could fill alot of hours of fun!

My Granddaughter loves to play outside whatever the weather...a bit of rain never hurt anyone and the fun of stomping in puddles, making the most of time spent playing with your child making memories with them

Join in the outdoor games yourself to get the DC enthused. Use props, like old table cloths, to turn trampolines into covered wagon/den/tipee.

The best way is to go out with them - kids love playing with their parents! :)

" losing" the charger for their tablets. I also encourage them to go see if their friends are coming out to play and vice versa

I tell them that all their friends will be out to play soon

Meeting with friends for picnics, games, den building. Find a local dogs home and volunteer to walk a dog. If you enjoy the outdoors your children will pick up on that.

We have a GPS and are signed up to the geocaching network, it gives children a sense of purpose when out on walks. I'll play football at the park with them as it keeps me fit and I know they're safe.

I don't have much trouble encouraging my children to go out and play they quite like the outdoors, but if they ever do need encouragement I let them take out water toys or tell them we can take their bicycles down to the greenway and that usually starts them off.

encourage them to play games with their friends outside and go on family walks so they get interested in nature.

I have given mine a few ideas recently as we have a small courtyard garden which you can't really run around in so remembering things from my childhood - hopscotch, petal perfume, pavement drawing with chalks etc. Also there's always plenty of bugs to be found!

We brought my son a soil grow-bag last year and he chose some seeds and loved growing his own vegetables it got him outside tending them lots. Some didnt turn out too great but he enjoyed himself anyway. He also loves going out after it's been raining in his welly boots walking the pavements looking for big puddles to splash in

My little girl loves her wellies so if we get them out she wants to put them on and go for a runaround.

I find the best way to get mine outside is to go out with them and get involved with their play. DS1 is only 3 though so needs a lot of interactive play otherwise he just isnt interested. Unless you give him the hose, in which case he will be out in the garden for hours and happily flood the entire street!

Go out and join them, my kids are always much more enthusiastic with me joining in all the fun

My little boy loves plants so i try and get him involved in the garden. Planting flowers and help with picking up cut grass! He loves it!

After school sports are amazing, my son always finds something he likes, and the light nights make him want to stay out when he gets in from school, were lucky to have a fab skate park next to us, and all his friends live so close, so its a win win. x

we go for lots of family walks, but we make it fun by having spot cards so the kids can look out for things, this gets them outside every time

Cardboard boxes, old sheets and pegs, the kids love to make tents

The lure of mud or sand is enough to get my 3 outside. Anything that they can leave a trail of through the house!

Mine go out as soon as they see any of their friends out - my 8 yo especially often doesn't actually come into the house after school, 3 days a week he goes straight from school to the field by the house to play football, to football training, with only brief pauses to eat and drink... he also tends to get through 3 pairs of jogging trousers per day as they get caked in mud... 10 yo and 5 yo also want to be out playing / hanging out if their friends are. 10yo goes on bike rides.

It depends where you live though - we are so lucky to live somewhere the kids play out and somewhere there is green space, a football field, a green, a village playground and a great cycle path network. Everything about having kids would be 300 times harder without suitable outdoor space and without the culture of playing out among other same age kids.

Not sure the "play with them" advice applies to kids over 4 or 5 - most kids would rather play with other kids IME - a parent is a substitute in a pinch, but I defy most parents with lots of other things to do and other kids, and a job, and dinner to cook to keep up with an 8 year old who wants to play football 6 hours a day the way his 8 year old friends and team mates do, or climb a tree and sit at the top talking and giggling with a 10 yo for hours...)

Mine go out everyday and have done since birth. They much prefer being out then in. We are lucky to live in a quiet cul de sac with several families of similar aged kids. They get on great and love being out on their own. We can see them but they don't know it!! Feeling free is the big incentive for mine plus having a gang to play with

Make sure they know no means no when it comes to spending too much time on computer games etc. and they'll spend less time trying to wear you down and will be happy to go outside and play!

I'm very lucky I do feel safe to allow my children out and explore, there are lots of friends out at the same time and we trust our children.