I was sad to say that I don’t think I really do much in the way of playing these days. I mean, I play with my younger son when he he’s here. Whether it’s board games or video games or playing with Legos or playing basketball in the yard, throwing a football, hitting a baseball, etc.
But I don’t know that there’s anything that I do strictly for recreational pleasure, beyond going to the gym, watching TV or watching a movie. But even the gym, I feel like there is a agenda to that in that I’m trying to get in better shape.
Last year, I responded to this prompt. I talked about the benefits of playing, particularly for children. Playing enables children to develop and construct the social that they will use throughout the rest of their lives.
There’s actually a very interesting video I had found recently, I think it was on TikTok, but a guy was talking about children, particularly of the last two decades, and how they no longer “play“. He said that kids actually are losing the ability to construct some of those societal norms. One, because we became helicopter parents. Two, because of smart phones and smartphone addiction. And three because of the Covid lockdowns. Kids don’t play the way that they did in my generation anymore.
Go anywhere on social media look up a post about generation X. My fellow Gen Xers will thump their chest about the fact that we played outside, all day. We drank water from a hose. We rode our bikes to God knows where. We all knew that it was time to come home when the lights out front went on at night. They’ll also boast about the fact that network TV ran public service ads asking “it’s 10 o’clock. Do you know where your children are?“
We don’t have that anymore. I’m sure in part that’s because we’re all a little bit wiser now. But I don’t think that you hear about kids getting hurt, kids getting killed their kids getting abducted anymore than we ever did it any other time in the last 50 years or so. I know this is going off topic, but this brings me back to the question of: is the world a more dangerous place today than it was 50 years ago? I don’t know that it is. But I think that because we hear more about things that do happen, we are allowed to believe that it is more dangerous.
I think about this a lot, particularly with kid too. No, I’m not afraid of him getting abducted or anything like that. I mean, I am, but rather, my big worry is the fact that he lives a very isolated life. He goes to school online, so a lot of his school friends are people that he knows through online schooling. He does have friends in the real world as well. Usually, they are friends of the family neighborhood, friends, things like that.
Kid 2 likes online school. I think with him being on the autism spectrum, it helps him socially in a lot of ways. He has gone to public school in the past, but it turned out to be a frustrating experience, both for him, and for his teachers.
That’s the only reason I’m good with him staying there. He wants told me he wants to stay in online schools because “he’s afraid there might be a school shooting one day”.
And that’s fucked up. When kids are afraid to go to school because they’re afraid of a school shooting.
If kids hate school, sure I’m OK with that. I tell my high school students all the time “tell me about it! They have to pay me money just to come in here and do my job every day!” That shuts them up whenever they complain about hitting school. But for kids to be afraid to go to school because they’re concerned about getting critically injured or killed?
That second thought, yeah, maybe there are some things that are seriously fucked up with our society today.
Thanks for stopping by Rebuilding Rob. Be sure to like, 👍 comment and subscribe to my blog below. It’s greatly appreciated! Also, feel free to follow me on social media as well! Check out my most recent posts as well as some earlier, related posts
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The article “it’s 2025. Do we not know where our children are?“ First appeared on Rebuilding Rob.
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