A question about childhood....

[jammer]

What happened to it? What happened to long summer days playing in the creek, and general childhood mayhem? Why does it seem like everything has to be structured around an uppity summer camp, therapy sessions, and video games? Maybe it's just the situation in Dallas, but I feel almost sad that children seem to be so busy all the time that they don't have time to be children.

Why is there a zero tolerance policy for everything? Playground brawls...low grades, why does everything have to be handed to the children of today?

I'm really bothered by the development of our youth. Have they progressed or gotten worse with the current climate? Things used to appear so innocent.

 

[Renee750il]

I think you bring up some very valid points, Jammer.

 

[ACooper]

And honestly..........I think many many parents don't WANT to go along with that, they feel pressured to do so

Suzie has to do what Jill is doing, Bobby has to be as good as Joey, etc... Seriously you get looked down on and pressured if your kids aren't signed up for this, that, and the other. It's terrible, and for the most part we don't go along with it. If my kids are different or left out, then so be it.............they'll learn to be individuals

 

[smkie]

THey had electronic day at school where the children could bring in their electronics. THe only thing Hy had is her keyboard which is sizeable and i am not turning it loose in a school where i am not at. IF it is broken there is no replacing it. THis really bothered her that she had nothing to take. I don't even see WHY they had to have it.

I Don't see why 9 year olds need cellphone access at school. I can see it for the walk to and back home. FOr latch key kids but on the play ground? ONe mother was telling me about all the phone problems she was having with her 9 year old daughter. Since she has her own phone all i could do was shake my head.

I have alot of whys but that is because we are poverty level and she is going to a middle class school. IT bothers her alot but i have to remind her of what she does have. What she is learning that some are not because she doesnt' have her head buried in video games and such. THat helps a little.
She has some of that time you are talking about. SHe spends alot on her tire swing. SHe reads on a blanket out in the yard. Her friends like her tire swing too and they all come down and share. SO it isn't all structured play.
A big part of it is safety. They can't ride their bikes around the neighborhood like we use to. ONly where we can SEE them.

 

[Zhucca]

The saddest thing I've noticed is in the new playgrounds they are building there are no swings, tire swings, gliders, or merri-go-rounds. Because they are 'too dangerous'.

 

[smkie]

I take Hyia down to the creek but always in rain boots. There is just too much glass and such in the water to go barefoot as we did. I hope to get her hip waders by this fall. SHe likes it just as much as i did ...do. WE look for fossils and look for different kinds of insects and such. I just wish she could have the freedom that i had. My dogs and i lived in the woods practically at her age. THis fall i will teach her to identify her trees.

YOu can't let them go by themselves now. IT's just too dangerous.

Our playgrounds have all of the above. AT school they even have a climbing wall besides the swings and slides.

 

[GlassOnion]

Well part of the problem is that there's no creeks and what not to play in any more. And the ones that are left, I wouldn't want to play in due to pollution and garbage dumping (not necessarily the pollution of the water, but the more tangible stuff that's in there).


When I was growing up, we lived on a dead-end street. Not a cul-de-sac, just our street ran into a dead end. Beyond the dead end was a wooded area that was perpendicular to a huge drainage ditch. We LOVED to play in that drainage ditch. Could catch all sorts of fun stuff in there (critters and colds!). It also happened to have a little part where the embankment went up and formed a lip around the forest, and a huge tree bole had grown over that area. Made for the world's most perfect fort.


I drove down there about a year or two go (I live ~30 minutes away) and there's no more dead end, no more woods, no more fort. It's just a plowed over piece of suburbia now.


Edit: Also because of it being a dead end street: not a lot of traffic. Could play basketball/baseball right into the street without having to call 'CAR!' every two seconds.

 

[~Tucker&Me~]

Coming from someone in high school:

I hear childhood stories from my parents and honestly, it makes me a little sad. I think I was pretty fortunate and had a good childhood but I definitely never got the freedom my parents got. I definitely shouldn't complain but I do feel like I missed out a little.

High school is a different story altogether!

I think the education program takes away from growing up and the social aspect of a young person's life. I study hard and I have a tutor. I get mostly A's and B's and am a pretty good student I think. However between getting all my homework done and studying, it's very hard to find time to hang out with friends or just generally have any sort of life outside of academics. I used to love LOVE reading and I haven't read a book since spring break (coming from a person who finishes books in 2 days). There is simply no time.

I think so much emphasis is put on getting good grades that other important things (having a social life, a childhood, recreational time) just take a backseat.

Hah my dad tells me all these intense stories from his childhood, like how this one time him and his friends went to their neighbors house and rode this giant pig to see who could stay on the longest.

I, on the other hand, will get to tell my kid about the time I got 100% on a really hard bio quiz.

Wooooooo....

 

[Renee750il]

Yah, GO, I lived in a place like that in California. It was a real cul de sac, though, just right for nightly kickball games (although it was rare my mother allowed me to go out and participate), but it was there and I'd sit and watch sometimes from my bedroom window (my room was on the front of the house).

The houses on my side of the street backed up against an open pasture for a horse farm and there were all sorts of thing back there. Every now and then I'd be allowed to go out there and I could catch lizards and snakes and freak the boys out, lol.

The other kids (well, the boys, anyway) made regular forays into the big, concrete open irrigation conduits for frogs. I did get to go once, after mom got tired of all the bugs eating the stuff in her garden, and we brought back about 80 baby frogs. We used a small wading pool and some rocks to set them up a habitat for a couple of weeks until they got larger, then turned them loose out in the gardens. Never had anymore trouble with bugs, lol.

We could still ride our bicycles out in the neighborhood, and the neighborhood school left the playground open and kids could slip in and play there, unmolested by playground monitors

 

[mjb]

I think kids have lost the freedoms I had as a child because of parents' fears that someone will harm them or take them.

I know when I was a kid, we could leave the house and go for hours. I had to be home at mealtime or by dark. Other than that, my parents did not know where I was.

I would go absolutely crazy not knowing where my kids are today. (And my parents were probably more protective than average during my childhood).

I'm 50, so the times are different, and perhaps the fact that I grew up in a very small agricultural town rather than the city or suburbs. But I was in town, and we would ride our bikes all over town, through neighborhoods, out of the city into the countryside, into town and stop and get a Coke at the drug store, etc. My parents only came looking for me if it got dark before I got home. And boy was I in trouble if they ever came looking for me and nothing was actually wrong.

This was before cell phones. I even remember driving back and forth to college and having to call the minute I got back to my dorm. I LOVE the fact that my children had/have phones to call me when they're on the road. I feel a little more secure.

Of course, my high school age son does moan and groan about being the only kid without a cell phone, and I've told him he will get one when he's driving. I occasionally do let him take mine as he is being 'dropped off' places that I get some peace of mind with being able to get in touch with him.

 

[smkie]

I know camp seems like it takes away from it but in a lot of ways it gives it a chance. I saw kids at the campfire campground doing exactly that. Chasing fireflies in the dusk and playing tag in a field lit up by the moon. IT was safe, it was relaxed and i wish to heck we were there this summer.

YOu just can't have it the way it was 40 years ago. THere are too many people and there are too many risks that just weren't there. We had a missing child last night in the neighborhood and that is just about as scary as it can get. Hyia must call me when she is leaving a friend's house. ..even if it is just a few houses down so i can know she is on the street and go out and meet her. IT's the way it has to be.

 

[Laurelin]

I think it's kind of sad. I was thinking about this yesterday, even between me and Em (6 years) it's like a whole new generation. Not that they're bad, it's just I don't get them at all. We picked them up from being overseas a long time and the first thing they all do is pull out their cell phones and start texting.

I grew up remembering no computers, no cell phone, etc and they don't have a clue about it. When we were kids we'd be outside all day long. I never see any kids outside in my neighborhood now. Ever. We live in a nice, safe place and have woods to explore but no one does it. When I was young we'd spend all summer catching animals (some were really bad ideas like the time we caught 13 wasps and stuck them in a jar). We raced our bikes and our bikes and our rollerblades. I had scraped knees almost every week from wiping out. We played street hockey all the time, even in the rains. When it rained, we were in the ditch, mud up to our knees searching for crayfish. My favorite season was blackberry season where we'd be cut up from thorns trying to gather enough to bring to my mom to make a cobbler. We had a 'fort' in the woods we'd go to to hang out. It was 'secret' even though it was pretty obvious where it was, lol.

I miss those times a lot. I wish my sisters could've experienced them and I always get sad when I hear Josie talk about recess at school. They're not allowed to run on the playground! How sad is that... I spent all my recesses running and chasing stinky boys around the playground.

 

[bubbatd]

I was so lucky to be brought up in the" good old days " . I could ride my borrowed horse and my bike anywhere , many days Mom would fix me a sandwich and I'd find a stream and just sit for hours . No TV or video games ! I have so many happy summer memories !

 

[Barb04]

We were talking about this the other day. My husband was reminiscing about being a child in NY and playing stick ball as well as other outdoor games.

We have lots of kids swingsets (expensive wooden kind) in my neighborhood, but I think they are for show only. I've only seen children playing outside maybe 3 times since I've lived here in the past 21 months.

 

[bubbatd]

Not only are the kids losing out on fun ..... but I miss the children's laughter .

 

[GlassOnion]

Oh yah, recess is a completely different beast now. My sister teaches 1st grade and tells me about their 'recess'. They can't play tag, they have no swings, slides, or monkey bars. Anything that they could hurt themselves on is pretty much gone. They do have a fort type thing but it's like, two feet off the ground.


Our recess playground had lots of fun things. There was one thing which was essentially three poles put at an angle, facing in towards each other (so like a teepee without the outside covering). At the top they met and made for a relatively level surface, so the idea was to get 2 of your friends and see who could climb up their poll and get up to the top first. Made for an awesome vantage point at the top, being about 10 feet off the ground.

We also had a huge fort thing that our PTA built for us (the parents actually built us a big, giant, wooden death trap to play on!). It was huge and had slides, a giant tower thing (which you could also climb on, though the object of that game was 'don't get caught by a teacher' and 'don't fall and break your leg' since it was 3 stories tall), monkey bars, and sand all around it. Was the perfect freeze tag place. We were all over that thing and I'm surprised no one died. The lengths we went to to hide and avoid the chaser would give a teacher a heart attack now a days and make the school lawyer's hair stand up on end.

But there's no way I'd trade the skinned elbows, busted knees, and limping inside for what they have today, no matter how 'safe' it is. I'm just kind of sad that my kid is going to have to grow up in a relatively sterile, drab environment. And it'll be worse by the time I have one of my own at that.

Hah my dad tells me all these intense stories from his childhood, like how this one time him and his friends went to their neighbors house and rode this giant pig to see who could stay on the longest.

Hmm...reminds me of the time I tackled a goat. Work at a wildlife center and assist the veterinarian on site. You'll have plenty of stories after that.

 

[Fran27]

Nobody's mentioned sleepovers... now all I see is parents worried that other parents will abuse their child and won't let them have sleepovers anymore. And even for birthday parties, my parents used to just drop us off and let us play for 3 hours... now the parents stay...

 

[puppydog]

I am so happy that I live in South Africa. We still have the ability to do all of those things. Sure, loads of kids prefer to sit on their fat rears in front of a TV, but parents should not ALLOW it.
I live really close to some gorgeous areas and it is still safe around here.

 

[Tankstar]

I always say my generation (80's) was the last generation to be outdoors and play all day. My brothers who are 5 and 7 years younger then me, grew up in a world of video games, computers, cell phones ect. When I was growing up TV was not intresting at all. My bike and friends were much more. My friends, my bike and my dogs would be gone all day on adventures. We lived just of lake ontario, with great woods and swamps around. So so much to do, forts, tree houses, man hunt, hide and seek, or just plain exploring. I went back there with Blaze a few years ago. And nothing has changed, except the play ground, tirre swing gone, merry go round gone, monky bars gone. Its sad to see that.

 

[Sweet72947]

In my neighborhood, on a nice day all the kids are outside playing! They ride bikes, run around chasing each other, play games and generally seem to have a good time. And then the ice cream truck drives up the street and you see kids running from everyone else's house theirs to get money from their parents. Its still like "the good old days" here!