Cate Schultz: Revitalizing Global Solidarity and Governance Through Children's Rights - The Role of Play and Science

“We Must Learn to Hug a Tree to Save It”

Imagine you are running barefoot in a field of flowers. It is a sunny day, and the wind blows through your hair. You feel carefree, joyful, and safe. In 2024, this is not a possible reality for most children. With a burning climate, the opportunities for children to connect with nature are waning, and the next generation is widely acknowledged as out of touch with the natural world. This condition, identified as “nature-deficit disorder” by Richard Louv in 2005, continues to be pervasive and devastating some 20 years later (Louv, 2005). Without sufficient access to outdoor play, how will children be motivated to protect it? Accordingly, the question that persists is: what policies can be enacted to combat climate change to protect these children’s futures?

This commentary explores how prioritizing the rights of children—particularly through the lenses of play and science—can foster stronger international cooperation and innovative shifts in governance. By embedding these elements into our policies, we can create a more inclusive, equitable future for all children, reconnecting them with themselves, one another, and the environment we call home.

Play as the Right of the Child

In the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), play was declared a fundamental right of the child (UN, 1989). This has been applied to a wide variety of contexts in the years since, including to support asylum-seeking children in policy by the Scotland Commission on Rights of the Child (Hogg, 2023). In Article 31, the convention stresses the obligation of State parties to both respect and promote these rights and to encourage the provision of appropriate and equal opportunities for cultural, artistic, recreational, and leisure activity for children. This includes the direction to create safe, accessible environments for play, ensuring play is an integral component in educational and community-oriented planning, and to also promote public awareness regarding play for children’s development. Unfortunately, the only country in the world which has not ratified the CRC is the United States, one of the urban locations where nature-deficit disorder is most devastating and prominent. The CRC is imperative to bring into discussions at the UN Summit of the Future, since free play in nature holds the potential to directly influence and scaffold the climate activism of youth who feel an emotional tie to the environment.

Free play, especially in safe spaces outdoors, can offer a path for children to better communicate and express their distress, working through emotional turmoil prior to developing psychopathology at a heightened level (Brown, 2009; Gray, 2011). This is especially imperative for children enduring Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). According to current research, it is estimated that over 60% of the world population has endured at least one ACE in their lifetime, which can lead to a multitude of physical, emotional, social, and mental consequences in the short and long term (Madigan et al., 2023).

Play is a safe form of expression for children, and an integral coping skill in their stress resilience (Gray, 2011). Additionally, the motivational circuitry present even at early developmental periods spur children to seek out play opportunities, with a conditioned response to play even amidst adverse conditions (Gallo-Lopez & Rubin, 2012). The issue is not with a lack of ability for children to play, as they can pursue this interest, rather, the obstacles to engaging in free play must be removed for children’s natural play capacity to be enabled. Restrictions and limitations to children’s play, often incurred by their adverse conditions and stressful environments, in turn elevate stress (Gallo-Lopez & Rubin, 2012). Play in outdoor contexts is not only crucial for children experiencing strenuous circumstances, but also motivates them to protect the planet (Gray, 2011; Louv, 2005).

Vulnerable child demographics are the most at risk of falling out of touch with nature, and thus being left behind in climate conservationist and activism ventures (Louv, 2005). For example, a key way the UN Summit for the Future could discuss reconnecting children with more equitable play and opportunities in nature would be to stress increased “play-policy” in hospital and medical care environments. An innovative manner through which to approach further environmental play integration is to mandate pediatric hospitals to have designated staff and safe spaces/devices to connect immunocompromised patients with nature. For example, at the University of North Carolina Neuroscience Hospital, the child and adolescent psychiatric ward has a non-profit organization collaboration and a safely-gated courtyard garden, so that inpatient youth do not suffer nature disconnect during their stay. This therapeutic outlet is transformative, especially when their mental well-being has already reached such a dire state.

If hospitals, especially those new in creation on an international scope, were informed through UN policy on including these play spaces, both mentally and physically-ill youth would have better outcomes, and subsequently would be motivated to protect the environment with which they formed an emotional bond (Graber et al., 2021). Our global discourse on climate is understandably largely focused on the geopolitics of climate change, economic advancement, and renewable energy technology. However, it is essential to emphasize climate youth education, especially in spaces where it is overlooked or absent, such as pediatric hospital settings. This joining of forces between fields of play, cognitive development, medicine, and science would provide a new and hopeful path to climate engagement and mitigation of childhood psychopathology from hospitalization simultaneously.

Right to Science

Moreover, the right to science has been recognized in the CRC as well, and most notably as of late in the transformative work of Copenhagen University Law Professor Helle Porsdam (United Nations, 1989; Porsdam, 2021). The CRC recognizes the importance of access to scientific information for children, with Article 28 holding the right to education, which includes the dissemination of scientific knowledge for youth (United Nations, 1989). This means that in terms of the CRC, children are entitled to the fundamental right of equitable science learning access. However, this is not the case for many youth internationally. As previously mentioned, play in nature is essential for children’s mental well-being. Play also teaches them hands-on lessons on issues of climate science, such as biodiversity, civic action (including not polluting ecosystems and recycling) as well as other topics of sustainability and life cycles. Without these experiential lessons, children lack sufficient science knowledge to advocate fully for climate justice in the future, and will not be inspired nor feel capable in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields.

Students with disabilities are disproportionately excluded from STEM, especially when quantifying enrichment opportunities and clubs (Anderson, 2022). With the UNICEF estimate of approximately 266 million children globally having at least one form of moderate-to-severe disability, the UN Summit for the Future must increase global discourse on inclusion for equitable STEM (Olusanya et al., 2022). A focal point of this dialogue should be on how investing in equitable STEM not only returns rights of play and science to disadvantaged youth (at least within CRC-participating countries), but also holds the potential for these ‘invisible’ students to engage in STEM. They can be the innovators of solutions to pressing global problems, particularly in climate but also in fields of medicine as well.

In the short term, the UN Summit for the Future should emphasize the need for schools to have more supportive policies and specialized STEM teacher training for students with physical and intellectual disabilities within their communities. The voices of these students and their parents should be amplified in critical science and climate conversations. Without the intentional discussion of equitable and engaging STEM, an entire segment of the global population is left behind, when these could be the future change-makers for worldwide improvements. Thus, the potential solution of both school and pediatric spaces emphasizing STEM empowerment holds the power to be transformative within global society.

Conclusion

As Emma Holten asserted, we have a lack of a “care economy” in our society: we do not recognize the benefits and the need to care for each other and for this world (Holten, 2024). Thus, it is imperative to advocate for children’s rights both to play and science, returning them to environmental connections, empowering them in innovative STEM fields, providing underrepresented children access to nature, and motivating their actions for climate justice. Regarding short term objectives, hospitals, community centers, and schools should all have greater policies for equitable play and science access, including students with physical and mental disabilities, as well as youth experiencing poverty.

The rights to both science and play should be at the forefront of climate, health, and education discussions at the Summit. In the long-term, the UN should strive to reassert the CRC, and perhaps create additional provisions pertaining specifically to youth climate science accessibility, returning fundamental rights back to children. An appreciation for nature cannot be fostered, and a tree for a child to hug cannot grow, unless we plant the seeds for a safe, sustainable future now.