Comments (3) My morning, my precious free-time during naptime has been wasted!! I have spent all morning trying (unsuccessfully) to set up my new wireless printer to my Mac Airport Network and this is exactly how I feel:
One of the many great things about TV-free kids is that they really like to be outdoors. In the nice weather, my two oldest children are outdoors almost all the time. Without TV and video games, there is nothing much for them to sit around doing indoors. Besides - the lure of trees, rocks, bugs, bikes, scooters, swing sets, and “clubhouses” is too great.
In fact, last week I was very pleased that my children chose to go “sploring” outside (as my 5 year-old son calls it) despite being offered the opportunity to watch “Sprout” on TV at my sister’s house when we were there to have dinner. They climbed trees, found bugs, and moved sticks and rocks from “point A” to “point B.”
Several weeks ago, whymommy linked to a Washington Post article entitled Getting Lost in the Great Indoors. The basic point of the article is that today’s kids don’t like to go outdoors, unless the purpose is an organized activity such as soccer or Little League. They would rather be indoors with TV’s, computers, and video games.
A 2005 Kaiser Family Foundation study found that children ages 8 to 18 spend 6.5 hours a day on television, electronic games, computers, music and other media, with many multitasking electronically.
Here is a telling quote from the Washington Post article:
“In Great Falls, the Hefner family has a back yard of more than an acre, a green swath of kid heaven at the edge of Great Falls National Park. Three years ago, George Hefner, a general contractor who knows how to work a saw, built a two-story “treehouse” that stands on the ground between two leafy maples.
He imagined his children fixing it up, sleeping there.
But 10-year-old Paul cannot remember the last time he played in the little house. ‘Animals live out there, you know,’ he told his mother one day. His older sister Sarah, 16, admits that she has never set foot in it. ‘What would I do in a treehouse?’ she asked.”
According to the article, getting kids outdoors is a new venue for activists. There have been Capitol Hill hearings, state legislative action, grass-roots projects, and even a U.S. Forest Service initiative.
This recent public concern appears to be partly inspired by a book entitled Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder
by Richard Louv. This post may be a tad premature since I have not yet read Mr. Louv’s book. It remains on my “To Read” list. However Mother Rising wrote an interesting post about it, that makes me want to read it all the more! (Has anyone else out there read it yet?)
The book seems to be creating public awareness of a trend that many parents have been noticing for quite a while. In addition to the obvious culprits, TV and other electronics, the article also suggests that parental fears of leaving children unattended, more working mothers, and more organized sports may also be to blame.
It does seem that today’s kids are so overscheduled that there may be little time left for unstructured outdoor play. Overscheduling is something I would like to avoid if possible, but the lure of fun, educational activities is always there to tempt parents (a struggle I wrote about here: The 6 Year-Old and her Executive Secretary).
It is so sad to me that we need grass roots initiatives and Congressional hearings (not to mention the $20 million that 40 “civic leaders” are trying to raise to fund 20 country-wide initiatives) all simply to encourage kids to go outdoors.
I am fortunate to live in a small town. If I lived in a big city apartment it would obviously be much harder to get my kids outside. I wouldn’t be able to simply release them into the backyard. We would have to depend on family trips to the park, the country, etc. I do realize how lucky I am.
However, there are plenty of families who do have the ideal safe, kid-friendly yard (such as the family quoted above) and who nonetheless have problems getting the kids outside. My advice is to try turning off the TV and putting away the video games. You don’t need a $20 million initiative to get your kids outdoors! Just allow them to “be bored” and see what happens.
Thanks to morguefile.com and photographer ximenez.
This blog thing has become obsessive. My husband calls it my “soft addiction.” I guess there are worse things to be addicted to: drugs, alcohol, gambling, sex in public places, catnip…
This addiction all started thanks to a friend of mine whom I shall call my “enabler,” or “E” for short. You know who you are! You…YES YOU!!!
E said to me one day…
“You always pick such cool and unusual gifts for my daughter, have you ever thought about writing a shopping blog?”
“A blog?” I said, “What’s that?” (I have told you all many times that I live under a rock).
E pulled out her laptop and introduced me to the mysterious world of the “Blogosphere.”
“See, she said, I have one too!”
I thought I knew my friend pretty well, but if she had told me she liked to run around her yard naked at midnight under the full moon, I couldn’t have been more surprised.
“You do????” I said.
And so…the seed of my addiction was planted in the fertile but very bored soil of my brain. I thought about it, and Googled it, and thought about it some more. Why not try it I thought. Just once. After all, E does it. But I will only try a little, and only just this one time.
Well…that was January and now it is April…and I CAN’T STOP!!
Something on NPR the other day really made me think even more about why I am spending so much time doing this. There was a piece by a college student about the narcissism of today’s young people. One of the claims she made was that the popularity of blogging is an indicator, or perhaps a result, of this increase in narcissism. Wait a minute, I thought, I have a blog! Am I a narcissist too?
I have thought long and hard about this. But I don’t believe that blogging, my kind of blogging anyway, is about narcissism. I do not write because I think that I am such a fascinating and wonderful person that I owe it to the world to share my every thought, emotion, and daily event. For me it is a social past time.
I do have actual, “real-life” friends. In fact, in my current small town, I have met more wonderful people than I have ever met since I left grad school. So why should I feel the need for “virtual” friends and acquaintances?
The simple answer is that, although it is entirely my choice and I am grateful to be able to afford to do so, it is lonely being at home alone with a baby and/or a 4 and 6 year-old (depending on school schedules and illnesses). I can only change so many diapers, wipe so many noses, and referee so many battles before I feel my neurons fizzling and popping one by one in a slow and painful decline…one “mom” at a time.
The complicated answer is that technology has brought us social isolation. Cell phones, faxes, email, and the internet enable us to work and carry on with the business of life without the need for face to face, human contact. Perhaps blogging is a way for us to reach out and connect with others of similar interests and backgrounds, just as we might have “gathered in the town square” 200 years ago.
The other aspect that fascinates me about modern technology is that although it does promote physical isolation, it also makes the world a much smaller place. I am in awe of my Clustermap and my “stats.” When an internet cafe patron in China or a cat-lover in Europe can read this small town Arizona mother’s words within seconds of their “publication,” that is totally amazing! I am connecting with people I never would have known 200, 100, or even 10 years ago.
This desire to reach out and connect with others is inherent in human-nature. To me, that is what blogging is all about. If blogging is by definition narcissistic, then so are all friendships and relationships. And that, I refuse to believe.
So, thank you E for being the “pusher” of my addiction and dragging me out from under my rock. Even though I am not exactly “unplugged” anymore now that I blog, I am connected, and that is what really matters in life!
Thanks to morguefile.com and photographer penywise for this great picture!
I recently had a birthday. Yes, another one, but as my mother used to say: “At least it’s better than the alternative!” For my birthday my two oldest made me cards. Well, they didn’t exactly “make” the cards themselves, they used some blank cards someone had given them and wrote sweet messages inside. I tried not to take it personally that the pictures on the front of the cards were of dinosaurs!
The dinosaur thing got me thinking. I know my kids can’t understand time yet. I don’t think they believe me when I tell them that even though Mommy is old, she is not old enough to have gone bronco-riding on the back of a T-Rex.
When I tell them that there were no computers or cell phones when I was a child, they look at me like I have twelve heads. We didn’t even have cordless phones! “How did you talk?” “Well, we talked fine, but we just had to stand there tied to the phone by a long curly cord.” STAND THERE? I can see the wheels turning in their brains. You mean you had to just talk? You didn’t do the dishes, make beds, and change a diaper all while talking on the phone? Wow! What an odd concept!
Technology gives us the gift (?) of multitasking. We no longer do just one thing at a time. The Buddhists believe that you must “live in the moment,” savor every experience, enjoy the feeling of the water on your hands as you do the dishes, the texture of the sheets as you tuck them in, the smell of your baby as you change a diaper (well, maybe not then, not even for Buddhists). I believe that there is a lot to the theory that real happiness is indeed, living in the moment. Can we truly appreciate life as we race headlong through it, crazily attempting to accomplish five things at once?
How on earth did I get from dinosaurs to the meaning of life? This post has certainly taken on a direction all its own! There is another dinosaur-inspired post brewing in my head. More on that later. But for now, have a peaceful Saturday with your family and remember to put down that phone and enjoy life!
Thanks to morguefile.com and photographer Melodi2 for this unusual photo!
Today I saw the first spring robin on my way to school with the kids! That sight always fills me with some hope for a warmer future.
As of yesterday, it is a little easier to believe that spring is truly on the way. Yesterday was so warm that the kids had a friend over and played outside most of the afternoon. After being shut indoors for so long, it was refreshing to see them run around, have a “picnic,” and play on the swing set. They also enjoyed all the mud that the snow has left behind. I guess I’ll be doing some laundry today!
It occurs to me as I write this, that this is the type of information that I would have written in a letter in the days when people actually wrote letters. Since the theme of this blog is essentially “high-tech” vs. “low-tech,” it makes me realize that a blog actually seems to be a “high-tech” way of delivering “low-tech” (in most cases) information.
Perhaps we all miss the days of seeing a familiar envelope in our mailbox and knowing that it brought very ordinary news from dear friends or family. There was comfort in that connection, a sense of belonging. Do I experience that same thrill of pleasure and surprise when I open an email from a friend? No. Would I email my friends to tell them about the robin I saw this morning? No. Would I have described that experience in a letter? Yes.
Perhaps our desire to connect with others in this fashion is a yearning for a return to simpler times.
Blog Reader (RSS)
Subscribe in a reader
By Email
Subscribe to Unplug Your Kids by Email
~and~
Panorama Theme by 
Themocracy
