Western Children need to use their imagination more!!

a reply to: SLAYER69

We did not even have a TV until I was about 5 or so ... in fact nobody did
But what we had was lots of freedom ... non of the fear mongering back then

Parents were happy to let their kids go out and explore ... there was a sense of community spirit back then and everyone looked out for each others kids ... well mostly

Playing football on the Park a mile or so away
A hot Summer's day and it was normal to knock on any door and ask for a drink of water

I feel there needs to be a balance taking into account the modern society we now live in
The world is smaller place now ...
When a kid no one travelled abroad ...

There are many good things about our modern world ... but I agree that kids today are soft and molly coddled
Yes times were hard back then both financially and life style wise but I am glad to be art of a generation that faced Hardships and overcame them independent of any nanny state

I feel for the young today ... the kids are just kids as we were kids but in a different situation
The world is far more stressful and needy than I recall it ...

I love when the family gets together usually at holiday time ... all ages
Kids do love other things besides computors ... playing games that cost nothing

I feel allowing a child to spend hours and hours in isolation on comps is a lazy option
I personally like to engage with young people it is so rewarding and enriching

a reply to: artistpoet

Three channels, black and white and the remote was built into the TV
Telephones numbers, if you had one, were 3-4 digits. No buttons, spin it baby and wait for the damn thing to rattle back to zero.

a reply to: verschickter

Lol ... I was a working class boy ... we felt posh when when we got our first phone ... no more going to the red phone box ...
My Dad only got a car when he was about 40 ... only doctors etc had cars then
Heck I recall the first Motor Way being built ... the M1 back then you mostly had the motorway to yourself ... no speed limit
Driving was pure pleasure unlike today

God I am old Lol

a reply to: artistpoet
We had a small shop in town, it was practically a "public phone".
Streets? Try dirt, at least in our small nest

Back then, when you got into a fight, you would stop when the other was on the ground, helping him up or not, but never beat him senseless or kick him with the boots.

a reply to: verschickter

I recall a fight I had with a local lad ... we were put up it by older kids
He was learning boxing and gave me a real good jab ... it hurt and I got mad and pinned him to the ground
But as I raised my fist to hit him ... I simply could not
He was struggling to get free and I was determined not to let him ...
It was sort of a stale mate

Good fortune saved the day ... My trouser suddenly ripped up the backside ... I exclaimed "Oh No! My Mum will kill me for ripping my kegs (trousers)" ... I released my Hold and my adversary was so concerned about my plight all was forgotten and we were friends from then on

a reply to: verschickter

When I was a kid we lived in a cardboard box and when Dad returned from the pit he would beat us senseless with his shovel ... and that was luxury (joke)
Monty Python sketch

a reply to: artistpoet
Yeah was a common thing to walk back from the fight and be friends again

a reply to: artistpoet

When I was a kid, the rich ones lived in cardbordboxes and dad did not even have a shovel! (I am poorer than you joke)

Boy I remember the beatup when we sneaked into the school garden harvesting strawberries. Because we hid it in our underwear and jumped the fence when the old director came after us with his cane, we got the second beatup when we came home.

Or when we used to yell down on the old neighborhood NAZI from the barn, never thinking he would be coming for us.

a reply to: verschickter

Lol ... Luxury

a reply to: SLAYER69
I don't think you're wrong. I don't have kids but if I did I'd make sure they got out in nature and the real world as much as possible.

Kids have to be outside, how are they supposed to build a propper imune system if they´re kept inside.
They have to fall, stand up again, and build treehouses, fall out of it, go swimming in lakes and have fun.
Basically do # and test themselves.

a reply to: SLAYER69

We also used explosives. Must have been an Amerkan thing (?

No, not really. I loved blowing crap up!

It is not the same world that it once was. Society looks for increased safety at the expense of freedom and then finds it has neither.

P

We always hated it when the street lights came on because that meant all us kids had to go home.

In the summer that wasn't so bad because it wasn't until around 10pm... but in the winter, the sun was setting and the dang street lights were turning on by around 6pm.

Boo hiss... can't finish our fort until tomorrow !

a reply to: SLAYER69

We also used explosives. Must have been an Amerkan thing (?

We used to play with the detonators from the train tracks as kids, lucky i never ended up like this kid so not just an American thing, also my father growing up on the isle of wight in England used to go and find the downed german fighters and bombers...his stories range from finding live bombs,grenades machine guns etc....

I fear you are right though about the modern kids they are plugged in at an alarming rate......my 6 year old gets 1 hour a day on the screen....i am ruthless about it and he is cool with it, he now is becoming really good a sports and craft like activities.....

a reply to: SLAYER69

My summers were never spent in front of the TV (unless there was a storm - we'd leave the weather channel on in our household) - I was always running around doing something outside, be it catching frogs, riding my bike into town (which was less than a mile away), exploring the private property woods behind my house.

I remember running into less and less kids in the woods as I got older. I think even my friends started wanting to be outside less, and in front of their gaming systems more as time went on. My siblings didn't get the same push to go outside that I did: They wouldn't venture into the woods, and tended to stay home more.

That's one of the downsides to living in the age we do - When I was growing up, the internet took forever to load, so it was more fun to go outside (I remember the huge power outage that lasted something like 5 days - my parents let me stay outside after dark because it was the coolest part of the day). Now, people complain when they need to wait a couple seconds to stream a game.

-fossilera

originally posted by: verschickter
..Back then, when you got into a fight, you would stop when the other was on the ground, helping him up or not, but never beat him senseless or kick him with the boots. Back then the strong looked after the weak, at least that was our moral.

When is this "back then" for you? I remember things quite differently in '69 or '70. I was only saved by adult intervention and was hospitalized and nearly killed by a group of kids while other plenty of other kids stood around and watched. So much for some macho code of conduct or protecting the weak back in "the good old days".

There were a lot more freedoms but the bad times were much more brutal if you ask me. Granted, I was a target but I seldom romanticize how great it was "back then". Thank goodness for the escape of television and the 10:00 AM Saturday morning monster/sci-fi movie theater and books and comics which propelled my imagination into better places and made my reality more tolerable. Today's kids have their own escapes.

Kids today do not live in the same world as us Boomers, particularly urban kids. In many ways, it is unfortunate they won't have the same type of experiences as us older folks but on the other hand, I wouldn't want to have to live in their world either.

Every generation seems to look at the next and shake their heads. Even those of us that are grandchildren of the "greatest generation" and children of those from later periods of war are still considered weak and lazy and having things too easy in life. It is easy to look at today's generation of youth and think the same things with their multiple screens, social media and a completely different society than before the digital age. As we've urbanized and population densities have increased, the opportunity to go out and roam the countryside/neighborhood as us older folks did without encountering some of the more unsavory sides of life - crime, drugs, gangs or narcissistic selfie pop culture are rare.

Sure kids sit on their ass and play video games - the world sucks for them and unlike some of us older folks, many don't have the same expectation that their lives will be better than that of their parents which kind of puts the kibosh on hope or prospects for the future. If I was raising children, I could never give them the kind of reasonably cushy life, freedom and experiences I had as a kid. In many ways, life is better in modern times but is no less difficult, the game has been changed significantly, however.

I won't deny that I think a few hard knocks and adversity to a certain degree do add character and build strength. I should also add that those damn kids should stay off my lawn as it appears that these ideas are antiquited.

a reply to: Freija
Don't get the wrong impression my youth was all about fist fights and brawls.

Seems we`re of the same age if you were around 10 years old, in 69. I don't shake my head at the kids, you take me to seriously In the end, the parents (the generation we parented) are to blame, not the kids, because they raise them.
And we raised those parents...

Of course, "back then", times were more serious. Car accidents, if they happened, were often fatal. I see it also as a local thing. We were into kickboxing so we had our place to let of the steam and thatś where the idea came from. In order to "protect the weaker", there have to be bad apples, by logic...

I am also not entertaining the idea that beating us in school and at home is the right thing to to.
"Beating" some "sense" into one does simply not work.

"So much is exhibited to the eye that nothing is left to the imagination. It sometimes seems almost possible that the modern world might be choked by its own riches, and human faculty dwindle away amid the million inventions that have been introduced to render its exercise unnecessary."

a reply to: peskyhumans

and in response to chrismarco post above yours as well - the micro-chips will tell if your kids aren't doing enough sport -

YOU BAD PARENT - off to the re-education camp

a reply to: SLAYER69

As a kid we had no to and were told to go outside and play and that's what we did. We would play at the abandoned house next door and pretend there were ghosts or we would make up our own stories.

My son is 3 and I refuse to let him have any kind of tablet device. He plays with his toys and has quite the active imagination. I love watching him play and make up stories. He watches his favorite shows and will reenact them with his toys and mix in Batman and Superman. His own doctor told me how bad it is getting for kids his age due to tablets and the parents letting kids have them all day. They're not babysitters yet I see this with many of my friends. I have some friends who call me a mean mommy because I don't let my kid play games on the iPad. No way! He can pay games with actual toys and blocks instead of swiping a screen or watching kids open toys on YouTube. I can't stand those videos! My son loves his story time at night and the iPad is a treat when he has finished his dinner. He gets to watch what I allow
Him to watch and that is all.

The other day I was hooking up some speakers and I turned around and he had drawn on my tile floor! I looked at him and he said mommy I made a road for my trucks. He did lol he used a brown crayon and drew a road on the floor for his trucks. I was impressed with his little imagination but I also had to explain he can't draw on the tile!! He will out of nowhere talk about monsters and lava coming to get us so we play the game of monsters and lava. We run around hiding from the monsters and jump on the couch to escape the lava. It's cute and I enjoy playing with my son when he makes up his own stories.

Kids today seem to lack imagination! I see it with my friends kids. Tablets and cell phones attached to their hands. When we go out to eat that's all I see. My son sits with no tablet to occupy him and he waits for his food. He knows not to touch my phone and I can sit it next to him and he won't touch it. I get a lot go flack from people over it but I don't think they should be used a babysitter! I bring crayons or some of his toys when we go out and he entertains himself.