Playing outside made me creative and imaginative when I was growing up. I remember dressing up my cat and playing house. Funny thing to call it, but that is what we called it back then. Playing house didn't include cleaning the house, it was only pretending to be grown up, being the mom. We also played school. Why we wanted to play school when we were already attending school is a mystery, maybe it was more fun playing school than the actual hours at school. More children today are attached to their electronic devices, which is fine, but they may be missing out on using their minds to write a play and get the neighborhood kids to perform and sing. Playing baseball for kids now is in structured leagues, whereas we just called around and found some kids to have enough for two teams and played baseball.
Sunday, March 3, 2013
Playing outside made me creative and imaginative when I was growing up. I remember dressing up my cat and playing house. Funny thing to call it, but that is what we called it back then. Playing house didn't include cleaning the house, it was only pretending to be grown up, being the mom. We also played school. Why we wanted to play school when we were already attending school is a mystery, maybe it was more fun playing school than the actual hours at school. More children today are attached to their electronic devices, which is fine, but they may be missing out on using their minds to write a play and get the neighborhood kids to perform and sing. Playing baseball for kids now is in structured leagues, whereas we just called around and found some kids to have enough for two teams and played baseball.
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14 comments:
i agree...not only are they missing out on creativity but they are missing melanin as well and vitamins from the sun....
Funny, I was thinking about this yesterday when my 10 yr old granddaughter and 9 yr old grandson were here. They certainly know their way around all those electronic devices, but they spent most of the time they were here with markers and paper making up a game that they took outside and played according to whatever their rules were. Then when I was taking my graanddaughter home she spent the ride sending texts from my phone to her own ipod. What a world they live in.
Well, the world has changed, but I'm one of those people seems to find time for BOTH! I love being outside, and I love my gadgets. Kids need time outdoors, that's for sure. Otherwise their parents will run screaming from them!! :-)
Reality is not hard to compete with. I remember shirking every other thing in the world to see Saturday Morning Cartoons...but my kids have Saturday Morning Cartoons every day. I wonder what the outcome will be.
playing baseball in the backyard meant one of us would eventually get grounded for busting a window.
My neighbourhood is a closely-knit group on a dead end street. I've always been pleased to see and hear at least 4 kids at a time.. and often close to a dozen playing street hockey, dodge ball and other games. They're mostly=active kids but when I think back to our own childhoods, we seemed to have had our choice of dozens of outdoor events to keep us busy. Progress isn't always for the best.
Things are definitely different now than they used to be. I grew up playing sports with all the neighborhood kids, pretend games like school, house, and Cops and Robbers. My kids had some of these experiences, but their playtime was definitely more structured than mine was. Parents now keep a tighter reign on their kids than they used to have to do. And yes, technology definitely plays a part in the lack of creative play.
I'm glad that I grew up when I did. I agree with you about how important it was to use your imagination back then. I'm not sure all of this technology is doing us any favors. We're losing a lot.
I miss playing, :(
I grew up like you did. Things are so different now. Even back then, playing video games meant going to the arcade with friends.
Further back, before TV's, radios, and recordings, each person in a community was expected to be able to tell a good story, play an instrument, sing, act, etc. If not, they could be ostracized from social gatherings. In a lot of ways, our gadgets have given us creative freedom again and unshackled us from corporate sponsored art. And I like that. But, I do get your point. I find the biggest problem is that our gadgets are destroying our ability to just be, to be still and quiet, which is where the seed of creativity grows.
There was a field just down the road from me where we spent most of the summer - football, hide and seek, cowboys and indians, etc. We climbed trees (well the others did, I couldn't do it) made camps in bushes and had a great time. When the weather turned, I had a ton of toys at home... The best of both worlds, I guess!
My two-year-old said email for the first time today. Crazy. My kids play outside and aren't attached to electronics, but things are still different. They won't get to roam the neighborhood or ride their bikes up and down the street.
When I was 10 years old, my Mom bought the first tv set we had -a used table model -and the reception here back then -cable hadn't even been thought of back then -was extremely poor -consisting mostly of snow and a lot of static in the audio. I loved it! But it never took the place of the outdoor activities my friends and I had back then -sled riding and ice skating in the winter; bike riding and playing various games during the warmer months of the year. Today -although there aren't near as many children living on my street as there were when I was a kid -one would think there are no children here because rarely does one see kids outside playing! Winter or summer! Although at my house, there is some evidence of children as the grandkids do not believe in picking up any toys they have for outside use and there tends to be a somewhat healthy assortment of those items in my yard.
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