Ditch the screens: Ed Stafford on reconnecting with nature (and your kids)
We need more adventure and less screen time in our lives, explorer Ed Stafford learnt on his new show in Belize
Ed Grenby - 24 September 2024
Chucking kids across waterfalls, feeding them spiders, making them sleep with jaguars – it’s a wonder Ed Stafford wasn’t detained by Belizean social services while filming his latest show out there. But that’s the whole point of Into the Jungle with Ed Stafford: the Guinness World Record-holding explorer took six British children and their dads into the wilds of Central America on a challenging but hopefully bonding trip. Here’s his guide to what we can all learn from the experience.
KIDS NEED TOUGHENING UP A BIT
“The problem is, modern life’s a bit easy. I’m a big advocate of risk and adventure and challenges and toughing it, because you need those to evolve as a person. But I don’t think there’s enough of that in everyday life. You can just go to the fridge and get food, you can turn the tap on and get water – you can be very broken and still exist in this life. I think I’ve evolved as a human being because I’ve gone on lots of adventures. Not because I’m now super-tough and can kill a snake, but because it’s humbled me and allowed me to work through stuff that I probably wouldn’t have if I’d been sitting in an office.”
ANYONE CAN HAVE AN ADVENTURE
“We did this show with dads, but it could all definitely work with mums, too. We haven’t talked about doing it with nannas yet, but you never know! And really, anyone can be adventurous. In one of the programmes, we abseil 160 feet down into a sinkhole, and we’ve got this 12-year-old girl, Immie, who was born with limb difference, so her arm ends at her elbow.
“Abseiling is intimidating in any case, and she was so distraught at the top of it. I thought, ‘Have we taken this too far?’ But her dad’s help and kindness and utter love got her through it, and she was so elated when she got to the bottom. One of our safety crew, an ex-SAS guy, came up to me and said, ‘That’s the most impressive thing I’ve seen in my whole life.’ It was beautiful, and I’m choking up just talking about it.”
YOU ONLY NEED A FORTNIGHT
“We saw a huge amount of change in these kids in just ten days. It’s all gradual, because we knew we couldn’t push them too far too soon, or there’d be a traumatic experience. So initially they’re in little cabins or huts, and eventually they’re out in hammocks, and then they’re building their own shelters. But any holiday can be full of new challenges. When I take my family away, we’re not really sitting on the beach and drinking beer, we’re looking for new experiences. I think that’s healthy.”
A FEW MOUTHFULS OF BUGS WON’T HURT
“That stuff works televisually, because it plays into people’s fears, but it’s also nice because when we sent everyone out foraging into the jungle, they came to recognise the value of food and the stuff we take for granted. And once you’ve eaten ants or cockroaches, from then on you know that you can if you have to. For me, that’s not about prepping for armageddon, it’s about interacting with nature.”
TAKE A SCREEN BREAK
“I know it’s not easy. If my kids have the option [he has three with fellow explorer Laura Bingham, and the family moved to Costa Rica last year so the children could have a more outdoorsy upbringing], they’ll grab some Pringles and watch TV all day. But invariably when the kids engage with foods they’ve not tried before, or activities they wouldn’t have tried if they’d been on their phones, they end up happier.
“It’s the same with adults. With the dads on this show, they were all talking round the campfire with each other till one o’clock in the morning – there was no alcohol or anything, and normally people would have gone to bed much earlier without that lubricant; but because they didn’t have any screens, they were genuinely engaged with each other. I’m in a WhatsApp group with them, and now – ten months later – there’s still about 200 messages a week. It’s gorgeous, but I’ve had to archive it because I can’t have all these messages popping up all the time!”
DON’T SWEAT THE JAGUARS
“There was genuine jeopardy on this show: the possibility of getting bitten by a snake, for instance, or attacked by a jaguar – one of our local guides saw a jaguar only ten metres outside of camp while we were all out there sleeping in hammocks. But I knew that we were far more likely to die in a road traffic accident on the bus journey from Belize City – and we could use that feeling of being in a strange place.
“Someone came on one of my expeditions, and because he was in an alien environment and his brain was spinning, he asked, ‘Will these Ibuprofen work in the jungle?’ Being somewhere unfamiliar destabilises you and therefore makes you more open to change. Go somewhere weird and wonderful – anywhere – and you can really learn about yourself.”
KIDS NEED TOUGHENING UP A BIT
“The problem is, modern life’s a bit easy. I’m a big advocate of risk and adventure and challenges and toughing it, because you need those to evolve as a person. But I don’t think there’s enough of that in everyday life. You can just go to the fridge and get food, you can turn the tap on and get water – you can be very broken and still exist in this life. I think I’ve evolved as a human being because I’ve gone on lots of adventures. Not because I’m now super-tough and can kill a snake, but because it’s humbled me and allowed me to work through stuff that I probably wouldn’t have if I’d been sitting in an office.”
ANYONE CAN HAVE AN ADVENTURE
“We did this show with dads, but it could all definitely work with mums, too. We haven’t talked about doing it with nannas yet, but you never know! And really, anyone can be adventurous. In one of the programmes, we abseil 160 feet down into a sinkhole, and we’ve got this 12-year-old girl, Immie, who was born with limb difference, so her arm ends at her elbow.
“Abseiling is intimidating in any case, and she was so distraught at the top of it. I thought, ‘Have we taken this too far?’ But her dad’s help and kindness and utter love got her through it, and she was so elated when she got to the bottom. One of our safety crew, an ex-SAS guy, came up to me and said, ‘That’s the most impressive thing I’ve seen in my whole life.’ It was beautiful, and I’m choking up just talking about it.”
YOU ONLY NEED A FORTNIGHT
“We saw a huge amount of change in these kids in just ten days. It’s all gradual, because we knew we couldn’t push them too far too soon, or there’d be a traumatic experience. So initially they’re in little cabins or huts, and eventually they’re out in hammocks, and then they’re building their own shelters. But any holiday can be full of new challenges. When I take my family away, we’re not really sitting on the beach and drinking beer, we’re looking for new experiences. I think that’s healthy.”
A FEW MOUTHFULS OF BUGS WON’T HURT
“That stuff works televisually, because it plays into people’s fears, but it’s also nice because when we sent everyone out foraging into the jungle, they came to recognise the value of food and the stuff we take for granted. And once you’ve eaten ants or cockroaches, from then on you know that you can if you have to. For me, that’s not about prepping for armageddon, it’s about interacting with nature.”
TAKE A SCREEN BREAK
“I know it’s not easy. If my kids have the option [he has three with fellow explorer Laura Bingham, and the family moved to Costa Rica last year so the children could have a more outdoorsy upbringing], they’ll grab some Pringles and watch TV all day. But invariably when the kids engage with foods they’ve not tried before, or activities they wouldn’t have tried if they’d been on their phones, they end up happier.
“It’s the same with adults. With the dads on this show, they were all talking round the campfire with each other till one o’clock in the morning – there was no alcohol or anything, and normally people would have gone to bed much earlier without that lubricant; but because they didn’t have any screens, they were genuinely engaged with each other. I’m in a WhatsApp group with them, and now – ten months later – there’s still about 200 messages a week. It’s gorgeous, but I’ve had to archive it because I can’t have all these messages popping up all the time!”
DON’T SWEAT THE JAGUARS
“There was genuine jeopardy on this show: the possibility of getting bitten by a snake, for instance, or attacked by a jaguar – one of our local guides saw a jaguar only ten metres outside of camp while we were all out there sleeping in hammocks. But I knew that we were far more likely to die in a road traffic accident on the bus journey from Belize City – and we could use that feeling of being in a strange place.
“Someone came on one of my expeditions, and because he was in an alien environment and his brain was spinning, he asked, ‘Will these Ibuprofen work in the jungle?’ Being somewhere unfamiliar destabilises you and therefore makes you more open to change. Go somewhere weird and wonderful – anywhere – and you can really learn about yourself.”