Free to Grow

Research & evidence

The research behind why outdoor, hands-on play is worth building a backyard plan around.

Time outdoors and emotional regulation

A body of environmental-psychology research links time in green, natural settings to calmer nervous systems and better attention/emotional regulation in kids generally — not tied to any specific diagnosis. The largest evidence here comes from a Danish cohort of nearly a million people: Engemann et al. (2019) found that kids who grew up with more green space nearby had up to 55% lower risk of mental health struggles later in life, with the effect scaling directly with how much of their childhood was spent near greenery. On the attention side specifically: Attention Restoration Theory (Kaplan & Kaplan, 1989) proposes that natural environments let effortful, depleted attention recover in a way built environments don’t. A separate 2019 study focused specifically on kids with significant sensory and social differences found the same pattern of real benefit — better mood, physical coordination, and social engagement — alongside real barriers worth planning around, like unpredictable reactions from strangers in shared public spaces.

A parent’s own stress affects the kids too

This isn’t just something we felt — it’s been studied directly. Burgdorf, Szabó, & Abbott (2019) reviewed 25 studies of mindfulness-based parenting programs and found that when parents’ own stress went down, their kids’ behavioral and emotional outcomes measurably improved too — and the effect grew stronger at the two-month follow-up rather than fading out. It’s a big part of why every plan here includes a real spot for the parent, not just the kids: the two aren’t separate goals.

Hands-on growing and willingness to try new things

Separately, garden-based programs — kids planting, tending, and harvesting food themselves — have been studied fairly extensively as a way to increase willingness to try fruits and vegetables. Savoie-Roskos, Wengreen, & Durward (2017) reviewed 14 studies of gardening-based interventions with kids ages 2–18 and found real increases in fruit and vegetable intake, with several of the individual studies specifically reporting increased willingness to try produce kids had previously refused. That holds up in real-world programs, not just controlled studies: Yoder et al. (2014) evaluated Wisconsin’s Farm to School programming across nine elementary schools and found fruit intake among the kids who’d been eating the least of it jumped 135% — the single biggest effect in the whole study. The throughline for this product: a kid deciding to try something themselves, on their own terms, seems to matter as much as the food itself.

What this means for how we use it

We’re not claiming a backyard plan treats anything, and we’re not citing this research as a substitute for medical, developmental, or behavioral support a family already has. It’s the reasoning behind why this product exists: real, sustained access to a well-designed outdoor space is a genuinely evidence-backed lever, not just a nice-to-have.

Sources

  • Kaplan, R., & Kaplan, S. (1989). The Experience of Nature: A Psychological Perspective. Cambridge University Press.
  • Engemann, K., Pedersen, C. B., Arge, L., Tsirogiannis, C., Mortensen, P. B., & Svenning, J.-C. (2019). Residential Green Space in Childhood Is Associated With Lower Risk of Psychiatric Disorders From Adolescence Into Adulthood. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(11), 5188–5193. PNAS →
  • Burgdorf, V., Szabó, M., & Abbott, M. J. (2019). The Effect of Mindfulness Interventions for Parents on Parenting Stress and Youth Psychological Outcomes: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 1336. Frontiers →
  • Li, D., Larsen, L., Yang, Y., Wang, L., Zhai, Y., & Sullivan, W. C. (2019). Exposure to Nature for Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder: Benefits, Caveats, and Barriers. Health & Place, 55, 71–79. DOI →
  • Savoie-Roskos, M. R., Wengreen, H., & Durward, C. (2017). Increasing Fruit and Vegetable Intake Among Children and Youth Through Gardening-Based Interventions: A Systematic Review. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 117(2), 240–250. Summary (The Community Guide) →
  • Yoder, A. B. B., Liebhart, J. L., McCarty, D. J., Meinen, A., Schoeller, D., Vargas, C., & LaRowe, T. (2014). Farm to Elementary School Programming Increases Access to Fruits and Vegetables and Increases Their Consumption Among Those With Low Intake. Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, 46(5), 341–349. PubMed →

A starting set, not an exhaustive literature review — each of these points to a real, published, peer-reviewed source rather than a general research vibe, but there’s a much larger body of work in this space than these citations can represent.