We Outside: On Double Dutch, Roller Skating, and Hand Games

Looking back at the outdoor activities we grew up enjoying and the intergenerational work being done to maintain them.

Fact checked by Karen Cilli

Remember those fun summer days spent running through the yard with your siblings and cousins? It had serious advantages. Aside from the mental, physical, and social development that outside play contributes to, it provides benefits beyond what data can calculate— good memories. Advocates for play are looking to preserve the physical activities, which culturally and historically, are responsible for creating meaningful memories during childhood. As society navigates the priority to build mental health and deep connections, the positive side of having kids play outside should be in the conversations.

"Engaging in outdoor activities can positively impact one's ability to communicate and interact socially with others," says pediatrician Shontae Buffington. Emotional intelligence is just as crucial as natural intelligence, and the opportunity to grow that muscle starts on the playground. As adults, the importance of people skills is on full display daily; why wouldn't any parent want to cultivate that skill as early as possible in their child to ensure success? Now that the facts are in, it's clear how children's mental, physical, and social development is better off from playing outside.

There are mental and emotional benefits as well. "Playing outside helps children by being more imaginative, less aggressive, and better able to concentrate," Buffington notes. Playing outside allows kids to, well, be kids. They get to experience a world in which they are carefree. "Play protects children's emotional development, while a lack of free time and a hurried lifestyle can cause stress and anxiety and even contribute to depression," Buffington says.

Kids aren't the only ones who stand to gain excitement from outdoor activities. There are groups dedicated to helping adults get in on the fun, too. As people have adapted to a digital-first world and know the importance of communing physically, finding and building resources that intersect both worlds is essential. Aley Arion, founder of Black Girl Playground, saw and fulfilled that need. Black Girl Playground describes itself as a "digital safe haven for our inner Black child to heal and for us to be motivated to lead our creativity." When you reflect on your childhood, isn't it when you were most free? Creative? Explorative? That's precisely what Arion believes, and that's where the root of her project stems from. She says playing outside is a "universal language" for fun, joy, and simplicity. She feels that "play and creativity go hand in hand," and creating is a form of healing.

When you visit Black Girl Playground's Instagram page, there are memes and encouragement rooted in playfulness and child-like rhetoric. Mentally and emotionally, you find yourself 'feeling like a kid again,' ready to accomplish the dreams you had. Arion has formed a solid community and is now transitioning to in-person events—a "human touch to the digital space," she calls it. Building a relationship face-to-face is irreplaceable, but as we transition into a more digitally comfortable world, hybrid communities are the new norm. Therefore, Black Girl Playgrounds, among other dual-operating communities, should be considered when considering how to get more involved in outside play.

Hand games like "Miss Mary Mack," "Thumb Wars," and "Rock, Paper, Scissors," serve as icebreakers. Native Americans originated hand games to teach youth positive ways to cope, find connections, and resolve conflict. Centuries later, in this post-pandemic era, they can be used to ease social anxiety in places like the playground and classroom. Community leaders have also created programs in cities across the country where the mission is to get their neighborhoods active again. Those programs and organizations also have special significance: for example, Brooklyn Recess, a group whose goal is to keep double-dutch alive in Brooklyn.

"Growing up, everyone jumped rope," says Natelegé Whaley, co-founder of Brooklyn Recess. She's looking to preserve an activity that formed so much of her childhood. She says double dutch provided "fun, expression, and fitness" to the Black girls in her community coming up as a millennial. She feels an urge to maintain it. "Growing up, we didn't need adults to tell us how to play," she says. That's a lost art she's looking to preserve—the enthusiasm and excitement to play outside within a cultural activity so that the next generation doesn't lose 'recipes.'

Another cultural activity organizations seek to preserve is roller skating (who can forget the impact of Roll Bounce in the early 2000s?). Dating back to the 1960s, roller skating was a way for Black people to escape discrimination. Having shared the same experience in this country, African- Americans would use the activity to release their frustrations and build community while simultaneously getting a workout in. Though working out was probably not at the forefront of their minds, roller skating is now recognized as a great source of intense cardio. As roller skating was going viral on TikTok during the pandemic as an activity people should be interested in, POPSUGAR published an article about its health benefits.

When speaking to D.J. Gooden, the Founder of  Black Girls Skate, we learned that skating has helped them with "stress, anxiety, and fear." It has also enabled them 'to remain active and recover from a terrible car accident.' Along with the impact of skating on keeping Gooden mobile and healthy, they reflected on the childhood memory of "being taught to skateboard by an older black man with a full grey head of hair, and wanting to be as good as him when getting older."

Sweet experiences like that cannot be duplicated or replaced. While curating those memories, Gooden was also developing the habit of remaining active, so much so that it followed them into adulthood. And that's why Black Girls Skate and other organizations like theirs are so important-- they maintain historically meaningful activities and build niche communities of color, all while emphasizing the importance of staying active. 

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