Noah, 7, looks up at the sky in amazement and watches the leaves move in the wind. He's never seen anything like it before, he says. And then: "This is my first time in the forest." The other children are perplexed. "Mum, there are one or two kids who have never been in the forest before," they say later at home, slightly stunned. The teacher is not surprised. "That's not uncommon," she says, who is organising a project week in the forest together with ten other seven-year-olds. The children build a bridge, climb a self-made tower made from wood scraps and cook their own lunch on the fire. For four hours a day, they can spend as much time carving, digging and hanging around in the forest as their little explorer hearts desire. "Unfortunately, it has become a fact that children only visit the forest occasionally, and when they do, they do so dutifully on the footpath," explains the teacher, who wishes to remain anonymous. For many children, nature has become a kind of backdrop that is viewed from a car, bicycle or path.

Studies also show that our grandparents' generation still spent 75 per cent of their leisure time outdoors, while our parents spent 55 per cent and our children only 25 per cent. Herbert Renz-Polster and Gerald Hüther lament this decline. The paediatrician and neurobiology professor from Germany write in their book "How children grow today" that children's radius of action - the space in which they are allowed to play and discover on their own - fell to one ninth between 1970 and 1990. "It can be assumed that further losses have occurred in the meantime. And for many children, there is also an electronic leash - which child is not available to their parents at all times via mobile phone?" the authors continue. A fatal development, they say, because: "Nature is a customised development space for children." It offers children richness for their development and is full of stimuli that fit the challenges of growing up like a key to a lock.

A visit to the forest is important in many ways for a child's development and for all their senses: hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting and touching. The water babbles, the children observe how the water in the stream runs over the stones; it smells damp; they feel the drops splashing on their skin, as well as the soft moss when they walk barefoot on it. This creates impressions that become anchored in the nervous system and later evoke associations in the child. According to neuropaediatrician Markus Weissert, a child's development in the first few years of life is crucial for the networking of the nervous system and the formation of synapses. "Nature is the ideal environment for this, as children receive sensory information that cannot be compensated for at home." It has also been shown that children who spend time in the forest know more creative solutions than children who only sit in the classroom.

These experts are not the only ones to lament the "lack of nature" among many children. The American Richard Louv spoke of a real "nature deficit disorder" back in 2005 in his highly acclaimed book "The Last Child in the Woods". And paediatrician and
author Remo Largo has been pointing out in interviews for years that children "have grown up almost exclusively in nature throughout human history". Nature and the forest provide an ideal habitat for this free, self-determined childhood play, says educationalist Margrit Stamm. "The best early childhood education is the holistic development of all the senses. The forest lends itself to this"(more on this in the interview).

Children have less and less time to play. According to research, children today play up to a third less than they did 15 years ago. Yet it is so important. "Free play helps us to cope with life," writes Professor Emeritus Rolf Oerter in his standard educational work "Developmental Psychology". It could be said that "free play serves mental and physical hygiene". Because in free play, the child sets the tone. According to Oerter, they use play to counterbalance the constant pressure of socialisation and thus establish their own autonomy at an early age. In this sense, play is education. And that's not all: "Play is the child's work and its most important activity," says Professor André Frank Zimpel. The educationalist is the best-known researcher in Europe to study early childhood development and play in particular. For Zimpel, playing is the best thing a child can do. "When children drive a stone like a submarine on the ground, in the water or in the sand, or put on flowers like a princess's crown, they are moving in a fantasy world."

Nevertheless, they always have one foot in the real world. It is precisely through fantasy that children learn to use their imagination and to abstract. According to Zimpel, children lose some characteristics in fantasy play and emphasise others. It is precisely this type of brain activity that later forms the basis for scientific and humanistic thinking. Through play, children intuitively seek out challenges that drive their intellectual development and learn almost everything through play. Letting young children play does not mean leaving them to their own devices, says Heidi Simoni, Director of the Marie Meierhofer Institute for the Child. Play needs space and time. Those who are not allowed to play are restricted in their development in terms of creativity and concentration. Such children, explains Simoni, are less able to make and realise plans. If this is supported by parents, daycare centres and schools, the unanimous tenor of developmental pedagogues is that it leads to healthy development in all important areas - cognitive, emotional, social, creative and motor skills.

Today, however, children's play as described above has lost its significance. It contrasts play with learning or "is merely described as a preliminary stage for actual work", as Margrit Stamm knows from her FRANZ study ("Earlier education - more successful in the future? "), supplemented with findings from the PRINZ kindergarten study ("Best practice in daycare centres and kindergartens"). The study involved 303 children aged between three and six and their parents, a dozen daycare centres and a dozen kindergartens. The surveys were conducted from 2009 to 2014. The result of the two studies: in the eyes of many adults, children's play is seen as "trivial or a waste of time". A socio-political debate is responsible for this assessment. Daycare centres and kindergartens are seen as places for learning. The results of the Pisa study and the pressure to be successful in a globalised, knowledge-oriented world of work have led many parents to go on a veritable promotion spree. According to Stamm, many products have come onto the market that try to convince parents that you can never start early enough to teach children their first reading, maths and foreign language skills "through play".

As a result, parents are constantly clocking up their children's weekly programmes and organising their free time in the belief that they are doing their child good by doing so. Brain research has also contributed to this belief. The "use it or lose it" formula is based on the realisation that small children have significantly more neuronal connections in their brains than adults. We recognise this impressively when we play memory with three or four-year-olds and the little ones are much better at remembering where the matching motif is in the pile of cards than the adult player. However, the maintenance of these neuronal connections is usage-dependent. If some of the data highways are not used, they degrade again. In the course of a child's development, they are reduced by 30 to 50 per cent. The conclusion that children should be encouraged as early as possible in their brain development has also led to this "developmentitis" (Stamm).

However, researchers such as ETH psychologist Elsbeth Stern warn against the exploratory increase in organised leisure activities. The expert in early childhood education and intelligence research takes a critical view of excessive early support. "Early intervention is based on the assumption that there are sensitive phases for learning and that anyone who misses them is missing a unique opportunity. However, there is still a lack of evidence that early intervention really has a lasting impact on a child's success. We can still learn to write at the age of 20." Elsbeth Stern was recently quoted in the NDR programme "Spielen ist keine verschwendete Zeit" ("Playing is not a waste of time") as saying that if parents chauffeur their children from one course to the next, there is a risk of "neglect at a high level". Especially when learning a foreign language, parents' expectations of courses are often far too high. After all, a foreign language can only be learnt by young children in a natural context. For example, in families where one of the parents speaks their mother tongue. Or in bilingual kindergartens or schools, where the children are immersed in a "language bath" every day.

According to the researcher, the proportion of foreign language spoken should be around 40 per cent in order to achieve lasting success. And fun. Because fun and enjoyment are the key to successful and sustainable learning. Both supply the nervous system with dopamine, the happiness messenger in the brain. Anyone who remembers what they have learnt also always remembers the emotions involved in learning. If learning was perceived as pleasurable, we remember this time fondly. If we have memorised a subject in fear, we try to suppress thoughts of that time. In this respect, playing is the best way to encourage learning because children almost always find it fun. Robert Schmuki, former director of Pro Juventute and himself a long-time youth worker in the field of play and exercise, sees it the same way. "Not exposing children to the open world robs them of important physical and mental experiences. You have to climb trees yourself." In his parent counselling sessions, parents often ask him why their 15-year-old can't do anything with himself. "When should your son have learnt what to do in his free time?" Schmuki asks in such cases. "Until he was 12, his life was planned minute by minute. "