by show of hands, how many of you sat around the house like lazy bums when you finished your homework in elementary school? middle school? high school?
that's what i thought. exactly zero.
it struck me, yet again, yesterday that kids of this young generation at my school aren't overweight and lazy because they overeat. they're overweight and lazy because they don't play outside. i know kids live in this neighborhood. you'd be hard pressed to find one playing outside at their house. i'm sure in this day and age of parents' paranoia over anonymous bogeymen doing God-knows-what to their progeny that they're a little less likely to let their kids play in the front yard. with that logic, you'd think that you'd hear a little more noise and such coming from backyards. nope. yesterday afternoon, it was like this neighborhood was empty, with nary a kid behind any of the doors. i know that's not the case. parents are too stressed and overworked to leave work at a reasonable hour for their kids to get out to play. no wonder this generation's favorite answer for, "what's your favorite thing to do?" revolves around games made by nintendo, sony, and microsoft, not spalding, russell, or wilson.
once in a blue moon, i'll see kids out playing in the leaves, but never out riding their bikes. maybe the streets are rougher in suburbia these days than they were back when i was a kid, but i doubt it. my best friend alex lived around the block from me. we'd hop through neighbor's yards to get to one another's houses. our parents weren't petrified of us getting bitten by the neighbors' dogs or getting sued for trespassing because we knew each other. i took those same dogs for walks after school each day...er, they took me for walks each day. i remember us falling off our bikes, falling off trampolines, getting into scrapes with other kids in the neighborhood. this kid matt that lived on my street got hit by a car at least five times to my memory. on his bike, off his bike, skateboards. come to think of it, maybe his mom should've been more concerned...
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I definitely played outside in the evenings at home. I always had to go to after school care in the afternoons, but we played outside there too. Also, we got a recess time during school. No one at my school is allowed a recess time. I feel bad for my kids, not only for the running around aspect of it, but also the socializing. I know school can't be all about socializing, but I'm always having to tell them "stop talking, we're working, stop talking." But when do they get to talk to their friends? Lunch is pretty much their only time, but then they get so excited and out of control that they get in trouble in the cafeteria for being too loud. I think making a little extra time for recess would go a long way in helping the kids concentrate on school when it's time to sit down and learn. Well that got long. But anyways, to make a long story short, I agree! :)
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