What Our Kids Are Missing
Posted on August 9, 2011 by FoBaM-Jamie
There’s no question. Childhood today is an entirely different experience than what many of us remember from our own youth. The world has changed and so have the trappings and traditions of the young. Today, guest blogger Kate Hayes (aka @bostonblogmom)reflects on the things that her own kids will never experience.
Most of the time, I am amazed at the world that my two kids are growing up in. The type of technology and the amount of information that is literally at their fingertips blows my mind. However, at six and three years old, they don’t really think any of it is such a big deal. It’s all they know. They believe it is totally normal to be able to watch almost any movie they want on demand, with the click of a button. Or to be able to pause and rewind LIVE television. Or to have a little video chat on the phone with their cousins who live across the country. Are you kidding me?? In the world I grew up in, a mere thirty years ago, that kind of stuff was “Back to the Future” sci-fi! I still can’t believe we’re living it.
The world was not that different between our parents’ generation and our own. In fact, it seems to me that until now, the basics of life never really changed much from one generation to the next. People still worked where they lived. They knew who they knew (as in, the people they knew “in person”). Communication options were limited. Most information came from books, and the ones you needed weren’t necessarily easy to find. And no one ever knew what they were missing.
Now our kids have unlimited options about where they can work (virtually from anywhere), who they can communicate with, and what they can learn. Their ability to create and achieve is also limitless. This is great. But it also makes me think with some level of sadness at some of the things I loved as a child that my kids will never experience:
- The excitement of taking a roll of film to be developed and waiting to see what’s on it. (I don’t think my kids would have a clue what a roll of film was if they saw one.)
- The novelty of watching Saturday morning cartoons and one-time holiday “specials” on TV. (What makes them so special now, when you can watch them anytime?)
- The quest of going to the video store to rent the movies you wanted for a slumber party. (“Do you think they’ll have Ghost, or will it be taken?”)
- The wonder of watching your family’s rare home videos – truly, you, moving and talking on the TV! (My kids…meh…nearly every second of their lives has been recorded.)
- The thrill of having to wait for things you wanted, instead of being able to instantly order them on any whim. (My kids aren’t old enough to order things on their own yet – but I know already that “patience” is a virtue they may never fully understand.)
- The challenge of making the perfect cassette “mix tape” to share with your friends (before iTunes came along and made it so easy).
- The sheer naiveté of piling pillows and blankets in the back of the family station wagon and bouncing around with your siblings unharnessed on long family road trips. (So, technology has also made us smarter – can you believe any of us survived?)
I guess the part that worries me about this list are the feelings that came along with those activities – excitement, novelty, wonder, challenge, thrill. Those were the feelings that made my childhood so magical. Are my kids still experiencing those emotions, or has technology made everything too easy for them? They have a level of expectation that is unreal at their age. There isn’t much that amazes them.
What do you think? Are our kids missing out on the best parts of childhood due to this new technological explosion, or are they better off than we were? I’d love to know your thoughts.
Kate Hayes is the proud mom of two funny little kids who also happens to be a professional writer and brand new children’s book author. She blogs “for fun” about her family’s adventures in New England at www.adventuresinparenting.me, and was named one of the Humor Voices of the Year at BlogHer 2011. Kate also starts every single day with a Starbucks Cinnamon Dolce Latte, non-fat WITH whip, thank you very much.
Image Credit: Alex Carmichal
I completely agree with this blog post to a T!! I have friends whose children are glued to the fancy touch screen mp3 players that now have video chat, e-mail etc., e-books, their own parent’s phones or obsessed with playing their game consoles. I have noticed that a lot of parents don’t spend time with their children like our parents used to when we were little. They invest in all these electronics and they become the new babysitter. Then when your child has a problem at school, you get the parents that don’t know why little Tommy would act that way. I limit the amount of the time my children are sitting in front of the tv or playing video games. They do not own phones, ipods, e-books or anything of that sort. Heck, they don’t even understand e-mail. I plan on having family camping trips and investing time in my children and to teach them if you want something nice (electronics, cars, etc.) you must work and earn your own money to buy those things. I want to know my children, what their dreams, ambitions and goals are going to be. And I want to watch them change those dreams or goals a million times until they figure out their passion in life. Thanks for this post, I really enjoyed it!
I have a 16 yr old and she is glued to the computer and the cell phone. Its ridiculos. I cant even talk to her because she is “talking” to one of her friends from Washington or someplace. She has never met these kids so how does she know they r her friends. I dont get that. It drives me CRAZY!!!!
There is a lot these kiddos are missing – an imagination, creativity w/o any outside tech. Help or. W/ o parents input – what kind of world are we living in when. Parents feel they are required to be 24 hr. Enterainment for the kids?
Yes and no. You could ask our parents the same and they would tell us that OUR childhood was nothing compared to theirs. Each generation gets different things to tangle with but the heart of childhood (exploring, learning, failing and succeeding, and fun) never ever goes away. The second that is taken away THEN our children are truly losing out. Is that coming closer… I feel it is and I will fight to keep mine in childhood as long as possible. They have their whole lives to be older, that innocence, that joy, I want to keep around longer.
I am sad that my kids can’t just “go outside and play” in the summer. When I was a kid, we would leave our house in the morning, hop on our bikes and explore the neighborhood. We could be an any number of friends’ houses, or playing in the woods by the creek. We came home for snacks, lunch, or something to drink and went back out again. Our parents didn’t know where we were every minute of the day, but they knew where to look if they needed to find us. We played in backyards, driveways and cul-de-sacs…. we climbed trees and went “exploring” in the woods or vacant lots. We walked to the local convenience store and bought a sack of candy for a few cents that lasted us all day long (or more). I am sad that my kids don’t get to experience that kind of freedom and unscheduled play.
Kids/adults lack of patience affects learning too. Learning implys understanding concepts over time. The right-now etoys take away the understanding concepts part because they skip all those steps to go right to the answer.Very little kids (b4 reading, computers,etc) are in the present moment ,they are very curious and like exploring their surroundings especially nature. Now, there are too many distractions that focus on the immediate (very short term)future, and the present is the past, and the past doesnt matter.
I totally agree. I have twin 6 year old boys, they think that we need to play the Wii when it is too hot or too cold to go outside. I don’t think that when I was that age I ever thought it was too hot or cold to be outside. My husband and I are trying to keep the values we grew up with and limit their Wii, DS and computer time. When we hear “there is nothing to do” we reply you can go outside and play or read a book. Of course going outside means the backyard unless one of us can be in the front with them. That is the sad part of being a kid today, they don’t have the freedom to explore the surroundings of the neighborhood, because you don’t let them take off unless you are there with them.
And with these advance comes the pressure put on these kids to learn it quicker and quicker. My kids had a computer class in pre-school. They had scheduled computer time in kindergarten and that is how they took the standardized tests.
Some technology is fine, works great in science and research but it is stealing our children’s imagination and language skills.
My mom and I were just discussing this the other day in regards to my daughter. She is 6 and it just seems like she is so savvy about technology already. I have to be really strict with her about time spent on electronics, because I don’t want her to become a kid who thinks the only thing to do is watch tv or play a game. It’s so hard, though! Finding the balance between “how much is too much” is a struggle. I grew up with electronics. My dad built and repaired computers, so we had one at home before many people even knew what they were. But the explosion in technology in the last few years is crazy and our kids are such a part of it that they just take it for granted. My daughter asks about life “in the old days.” It’s scary to think when she says that that she means the 1980′s, not the 1920′s!
It’s definitely a whole new world today! Kids now have so much more access to technology and informatiion, etc., than we ever dreamed possible when we were growing up! I was just talking to my mom about this the other day…. Today’s kids grow up with x-boxes, wii and computers, etc., and they take so much of that for granted. All of my (thrty-plus) nieces and nephews (including Kate’s two) don’t have a clue as to what the world was like before all of this became available.. There’s pluses and minuses to it all…. The down side is that they become bored so easily, if they are not constantly entertained and stimulated. The up side is that they seem to be so much more advanced intellectually and cognitively. I think it will be interesting to see in what ways these kids are different as they grow up and enter the working world. I think the best thing that parents can do is to try to strive for balance and to try to expose their kids to as many of those (lost) positive experiences from their youth as they can; such as taking them to the zoo or camping out under the stars (even if it’s only in your own backyard), or taking them apple or berry picking,, etc. All you can do is try your best to “round out their experiences” and (unfortunately) we’ll have to wait and see how they come out in the end…
I can’t agree any more with you on the technology today and the demands of fast moving, instant entertainment at your fingertips. I think it’s more about balance. Setting up boundries of how much time kids are getting on these devices and how many times per day or week they “earn” the privalege of using them. As parents we should be praying and looking constantly for opportunities to teach our kids virtues as well as seeking new ways of developing them to the fullest.