Why Rock Climbing?

Why Rock Climbing? The Benefits of Rock Climbing as a Therapeutic Intervention 

In the six years that I have facilitated a rock climbing therapeutic social skills group I have been asked many times why I selected rock climbing as a means to work with children with a variety or concerns including attention and learning difficulties, social skill deficits, anxiety, depression, trouble with emotion regulation, low self-esteem, and behavior problems.  My personal experience of being a rock climber for twelve years help make rock climbing a clear choice for a great medium to work with children.  The repeated question over the years of "why rock climbing?" has led me to reflect a great deal on what I believe are the array of benefits of rock climbing as a therapeutic intervention.  I can say whole heartedly that I believe that rock climbing is a wonderful way to work with children and in my experience I have seen opportunities to climb as a member of a group be transformative for a lot of different children with a wide variety of needs.  Trying to breakdown the components related to this transformation or positive change can be difficult, but I think it is related to various aspects including that rock climbing provides a clear opportunity to participate in experiential learning, is beneficial due to being a good form of exercise, and key areas such as trust, teamwork, and communication are inherent in climbing as part of a group.  I think it is the sum of all these aspects that can make rock climbing such a wonderful and beneficial thing for many children.
 
The Quest Therapeutic Model focuses on providing children with rich experiential learning opportunities in which they are able to build and practice new skills in a supportive environment.  This type of model emphasizes creating chances to learn through doing in a fun, interactive way.  Rock climbing has always stood out to me as a unique way to engage children and provide this type of rich experience due to aspects that naturally arise while climbing with a group.
 
There is clear research that demonstrates that any type of exercise can be beneficial and therapeutic in its own right.   Please click here for more information regarding the research that shows the benefits of exercise as a treatment for ADHD, anxiety, depression, and learning difficulties, as well as a healthy intervention to improve physical health.  Beyond the research that clearly establishes exercise in general as a positive intervention for both children and adults, sports such as rock climbing, martial arts, and skateboarding provide opportunities to engage in technical movements such as complex motor skills that have been found to alter chemicals and specific areas of the brain related to attention.

According to the broad science, exercise tempers ADHD by increasing the neurotransmitters dopamine and norepinephrine-both of which play leading roles in regulating the attention system. With regular physical activity, we can raise the baseline levels of dopamine and norepinephrine by spurring the growth of new receptors in certain brain areas. Any of the martial arts, ballet, ice skating, gymnastics, rock climbing, mountain biking, whitewater paddling, and-sorry to tell you, Mom-skateboarding are especially good for adults and children with ADHD. [1]

Rock climbing activities also create rich opportunities to target specific areas that are key to children's positive development.  Several areas that it is possible to address in rock climbing include:
1.  Problem Solving and Sequencing
2.  Teamwork
3.  Trust
4.  Communication
5.  Emotion Regulation
6.  Pushing Personal Limits

Having opportunities to problem solve and practice sequences is a great thing about rock climbing.  One of my favorite aspects for problem solving is that rock climbing always presents different challenges.  Not only can a person select an easy climb there are always opportunities to pick difficult climbs--really stretching one's ability.  This can often lead a person to really push past his or her own personal limits and achieve way beyond what the person thinks is possible.  I see this all the time in my work with children at the rock climbing group.  One of my favorite aspects of the group is working with children who challenge their fears, climb higher than they think is possible, and persevere to reach goals that they have set.  Sequencing also comes into play frequently, which is often specifically helpful for children with attention and learning difficulties, since children with these special needs often struggle to complete full sequences or see how different steps link together.  What I see over and over again in the group is that the children are able to take their success experiences of reaching their climbing goals and carry that with them into other areas of their lives.  For example: I have had several children tell me that they knew they were capable of challenging a fear or accomplishing an academic task because they have climbed to the top of the wall, gone off the zipline, or had a successful climb outdoors that leads them to know that they "can accomplish anything."

Rock climbing provides rich opportunities to also have children work together in situations that demand high levels of teamwork, trust, and communication. At Quest, we actually push this even further by creating advanced challenges for the group members to complete that are impossible to finish successfully if they are unwilling to work together.  These team based challenges also focus heavily and teaching prosocial skills to assist our children in being positive members of a team and to demonstrate the skills necessary to build high levels of trust and communicate at much deeper levels.  Trust is crucial in rock climbing since it is so difficult to be successful when you don't trust the other person.  We teach our children a lot of things to successfully build trust with others in many areas from the language used, to ways they maintain a teammate's safety.  Having our children complete extra challenges like climbing blindfolded or tied together further serves to link our children together as a unit and build their communication, problem solving abilities, and trust levels.  Pushing limits in these ways create wonderful possibilities for our children to practice skills necessary for emotion regulation in the moment versus other types of therapeutic activities that do not have this type of experience to work through in the moment.  I don't know if rock climbing as a therapeutic intervention has the power to be beneficial for some children because of any one of these aspects in particular or if it really is a summation of all of these different components.  What I do know, after running these groups for years, is that there is something that is transformative for some of my campers through this type of group and for that I am truly thankful.
 
[1] Ratey, J. J. Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, 2008