I was pondering the past, like my brain tends to do ever so often, and realized it’s amazing how technology has grown in just a few decades. It’s only been a few decades since smart phones and tablets existed. When the first smart phone was invented in the 90’s only the elite could afford them? Then blackberries came into existence in the early 2000’s. Remember those? How addicting! Quickly and ferociously, tablets and then iPads were invented. We hungered for the new technology, feverishly saved up to get them and soon we morphed into a new generation. Kids began to be born into families with touch screens and 2 year old’s could maneuver them in a way that made grandparents jealous. How can a young child “get” this technology and not a sixty year old? So here we are faced with a new way of life we did not grow up in.
How do you get your children from not getting lost in cyberspace? Sure online games are fun and all the apps are entertaining but not always educational. Tie that to Common Core schoolwork and you have a recipe for headaches, but I digress. That’s for another post. My kids ask to go play outside about as often as they want to play mine craft. I think it’s finally getting old. And we have this tree in the front yard with climbable branches that just calls their names. When I was 8, the neighborhood kids and I ran around and played hide n go seek, I remember it being dark and us catching light bugs and still playing outside. I’m sure my mom worried about me since our town, Plainfield, New Jersey, wasn’t the best area to live in, but we basked in the dusk light and counted the stars. We used to squish the poor light bugs onto our skin so we’d have the glow on our skin and clothes for just a few minutes.
Here in Florida however, we don’t have light bugs and the mosquito’s chase us in before too long, so how do you recreate a similar environment like the one you had for your kids? You go with the flow and change with the times. Adapt or get run over right? Share stories with your children about your 80’s childhood and how you did things when you were their age. We didn’t have a gazillion shows to choose to watch on Saturday mornings or after school. You had one channel, maybe two and you watched what was on, no channel surfing. Only 13 channels, and now they have 300 plus. We had Nintendo after our parents pinched pennies and now they have Xbox, Wii and smartphones. Let me know what reactions you get from your kids when you share the differences between your childhood and theirs. We are bound to get some good laughs.
