- What happens if I miss a day? The spirit of the challenge means you should get outside every day, rain, shine or snow and if you miss a day, you start counting back at day 1! Otherwise it wouldn’t be much of a challenge, would it 🙂
- Does my whole family have to be outside together?This is up to you! I had realized that I had been getting my kids outdoors and was using that time to get other things done inside. However, going into the new year I wanted to be intentional about re-connecting with nature myself as well. So because of that, I am only counting minutes I am outside with our two oldest children. I know this is not always feasible and that is okay! It is up to you to determine the best way to complete this challenge for your family. Do your kids each need their own tracker to stay motivated? Do you want to use this as a way to get them to learn how to play more independently with supervision from afar? All of these things stay within the spirit of the challenge!
- What about using technology outside? The intent of getting outdoors is to connect with nature. For my family, this means I am only using my phone to take photos or videos I want to remember, with everything else on my phone being off limits during our outdoor time. The kids also know this is not a time for technology. However, like everything in life, there are always exceptions. If the only time you and your child can get outside is when they have to complete their homework on a tablet or computer, doing so outside still provides benefits to them. So count it!
- What if the weather is unsafe?If the weather is unsafe (dangerously high or low temperatures, dangerous air quality, natural weather disasters) you should obviously not venture outside. Instead, just add an additional day onto the end of the challenge. We are not in control of the weather and safety should always be your top priority.
- Does it have to be for a full month (Ex. Jan 1-30)? While we would eventually like to create “badges” for our community to earn (hitting all days in January for example), that isn’t ready quite yet. Start the challenge whenever you stubble across it and feel inspired to do so! It is much better to start mid-month rather than wait until the end of the month. This is why our main trackers don’t information that correlate with specific dates.
30 more outdoors 