Re: your second paragraph, you may want to read "No Such Thing as Bad Weather." It's about the Scandinavian approach to parenting young kids and the author details what you mention there. Fair warning, there are a lot of crunchy opinions in the book but she details the paradigm of free outside play quite well.
Re: the sale of federal lands, I'm against it. It was one of TR's greatest moves and countless have reaped the benefits from it. Look at Europe, especially the Mediterranean region, to see the effects of poorly managed landscapes in private hands: deforestation, erosion, "climate change"/temp increase, etc.