A few weeks ago I posted “Educating our children…don’t take away their creativity” 

The weather got a bit nicer this week and my daughter was outside playing with her friends. It was nice to see them outside and it reminded me of the post I had about creativity and the role outdoor plays in providing it. So it inspired me to write this post today.

One of the things that I believe keeps kids creative is outdoor play. Today Kids don’t play outside much anymore. They are watching TV or playing video games. I think they are losing some great creativity. When I was a kid, I would come home from school, do my homework and go outside to play.

I guess there are many factors that have contributed to the demise of outdoor play over the years. Both parents working, more TV channels, video games, the internet, and safety for your children. Years ago, there were more stay at home Moms but we didn’t use that term back then, they were simply Moms that didn’t work. Kids could come home after school. They weren’t taken to childcare or after school care. Today more kids end up in after school childcare and don’t get home until after 6pm or later.

Regular TV consisted of a just a few channels like, ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX AND PBS. Kids could find TV shows to watch only during certain times of the day. No one offered children’s programming 24 hours a day. Now we have dozens of channels for kids to watch everyday, all day.

Kids are spending hours everyday, playing video games. They are glued to a screen. Thank goodness that some of the video games today require you to actually get up and move around. Before these existed they would just sit and play. This time spent indoors used to be outdoor time before.

The internet is the key to email, texting and Facebook. These things have sucked the life out of outside play, not to mention other social behaviors. There are 1st graders with iPhones these days. Kids under 14 years old should not be allowed to even have a Facebook account in my opinion.

This is a very sad factor today. Some kids live in neighborhoods that are not safe, so they can’t go outside to play. Back in the day, kids were able to play safely even in the worst neighborhoods.

Parents today tend to over schedule their kids as well. I’m not against the Karate, Dance and Instrument lessons, etc. But there needs to be a balance. Parents should reflect more on their own childhood and not deny their children the opportunity to have simple fun like they did. Take your kid outside to play dammit!

Kids need outside play time. It fosters creativity. Sometimes kids just want to play and not think. Maybe they just want to run around. Every kid should have some unstructured outside play time every week if the weather permits. And we as Parents need to make this happen!

What ever happened to hide and seek, freeze tag, catching fire flies, red light green light, jump rope, hope scotch, duck duck goose, tag, kick ball and the other games we used to play or just make up on the fly?

What games did you and your friends play?