twinoaks207
Having Fun!
We have become a nation of fraidy cats. We are afraid to let children play outside lest they be snatched. We are afraid to be out of touch with them when they are out of our eyesight, so we give them phones (in 1st grade!). We are afraid of strangers, so we don't let them make new friends easily. We are afraid that we will be sued for something by somebody, so we don't do things that we might have done in the past. We are afraid that we might be charged & fined if we don't do something (bike helmets), so we restrict things even more. We have become a nation afraid to think for ourselves, so we let others do it for us.
"We have met the enemy, and he is us".
I see kids who joyfully color people green and blue and purple in Kindergarten. By first grade, they are coloring them brown or pink. I had a first-grader last year who chose to color his pumpkin blue. The teacher (who is an excellent teacher in all other respects), said to him, "why are you coloring your pumpkin blue? Pumpkins are orange." I know that his motive had something to do with color and object recognition. I also know that I took great pleasure in bringing a blue pumpkin to school for the next time that child had class with me. They were both amazed as neither one had ever seen one.
We do it to ourselves, and worse, we do it to the children and it is all of us, and it is a lot of the time done without thought.
We need to take a step back, turn off the news that is always so full of doom, gloom & crime stories, and re-learn how to have fun with our kids without anything that plugs in or runs on batteries.
Imagine our country without any power....could we cope?
