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I’ve always found that phrase a little upsetting. I had an ipad I shared with my brother when I was little, classic old games: fruit ninja, doodle jump, jetpack joyride, and the likes. My iPad was vey parent monitored though, mom cared a lot about filtering things that reach her children..that feels like a lost art now.
We played outside enough too: hide and seek, tag, just digging in the dirt…lots of digging. That sentence was just as prevalent back then as it was now. “Kids never play outside anymore.” It was upsetting you know? I rode my bike til my feet hurt, I am allowed to sit down on my iPad and watch a little Mr. Bean (at first this was autocorrected to Mr. Beast. Which is like…nope.)
Now that I’m older I can’t help but be upset on behalf of the kids. The kids don’t play outside anymore because they don’t know any outside games. I would know, I’m around many kids and some of their language hurts! I saw some kids play “among us irl” and it was literally tag. Just tag.
It reminded me of a game my dad promised to teach me, it’s called Amber. “How do you play Amber?” You might ask. I don’t know. He never got around to teaching me. I think that’s the main reprehensible aspect, adults or older kids separating themselves too much from kids. Most games are passed down by being played, while the adults keep refraining from playing with their kids, the children will stay inside!
I can attest to you with full confidence that if you present a kid with a real game they’re more likely to play it over the iPad. The iPad is here today, tomorrow, the week after, forever! But their time with friends is only now. I’ve played marbles, five stones, hopscotch, duck duck goose, Simon says, follow the leader and many other games with kids! And they ALWAYS want to play! They do! They don’t know how! If you have any kids around you, siblings, cousins, nephews and nieces etc teach them a game! The games have to be passed down for them to live! The kids want to play outside!
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Pixie the moon's daugther
༄˖°.🍂.ೃ࿔*:･I am italian, so my experience can differ, but, at a certain point of my 12 years old me, i was slowly becoming addicted to my computer and i was never playing outside {except for some neighbours boys of mine}.༄˖°.🍂.ೃ࿔*:･
✝︎⭐︎✝︎This because i had a bad separation from a childhood friend, he, at a certain point, ignored me, so i promised myself to be alone, to not belive in people.✝︎⭐︎✝︎
♢♡⚚♡♢Right now i am paying for all of these years of lonelyness and living only in my head, confused, terrified, maniac, depressed and anger towards myself and others.♢♡⚚♡♢
★⭐︎*•・I wish that this world was made for kids and not a world that supress them and abuse them.★⭐︎*•・
🍄Thank you for the post🍄
actually you are totally right . im suffring right now about lonelyness and deprission about all what happend in my childhood i was so lonely . it was all bc my parent so they dont want for me to be wiht anyone. and now im paying for everything
by khalidmilkyway; ; Report
ninjaslayer
"adults or older kids separating themselves too much from kids" This.
Plus, I wasn't one by any stretch, but I also think there's sumn to be said about latchkey kids. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that we should go back to that sort of thing, but I think it's really interesting how there seems to have been this big shift in "societal" expectations about where kids should be and when.
Kids used to come home when the streetlights came on, a curfew mandated by the literal environment, they used to hang out in the streets/cul-de-sac/park or the mall, but between social media lowkey insisting that parents need to be on call 24/7 (I know they *are*, but between school, work, and chores, I feel like social media makes it seem that parents being involved in less than 100% of their kids free time deems them as lesser than, idk) and a lack of appropriate third spaces (both online and offline) that are specifically for children, both kids and adults alike feel a little lost about what to do with and for the youth.
It's weird, but idc how strong child-free sentiments are, we all still gotta do our part to keep the kids safe and happy.
idk if any of this made sense, but I think it's really interesting to see how the new adults are dealing with the torch being passed to us regarding this sort of thing.
Cyberstxr.exe<3
I used to go to the park near my house when I was young. When my dad said it was time to go back he would let me get an apple juice from the vending machines. I would give up everything just to relive my childhood experience. Good times
EwanDoggie
Being grounded used to be bad XD
Neoni76
History repeats, the old generation complains about the next one. Nothing out of the usual :)
1S44C!! | 💭🏝️ | not accepting frq's anymore!!
"stapy, will u play toss the dirt w me?"
/ref
by 1S44C!! | 💭🏝️ | not accepting frq's anymore!!; ; Report
Parkerfr
I agree, I got an iPad the same time as my sister, i was VERY young, like 6? And I believe that i got outside enough, one time snuck out lol, I always hated this quote, nowadays i see this happing though, with those gen alphas or whatever, i do think kids SHOULD go outside more, but its not their fault if they don't, they need permission from the parents who thinks tech will raise their child for them.
goskzhdnl
Yeah good for you for being an extroverted kid who grew up in cushy suburbs with tons of kids around to you make friends with. (sorry for my aggression I just get pissed at people who think they're better for playing outside as a kid)
I grew up in a place with a really high crime rate so I almost never went to go outside just for my survival, overtime this naturally developed me to be an introvert aswell. A bunch of my classmates when I was in elementary school were also big assholes so I never made friends in that setting either so I just got attached to technology.
But oh well I apparently "grew up" wrong.
I didn’t grow up in the suburbs..or around a lot of kids ^^
Any games I played at home were with my little brother. And any games that required a big group I played in school, with random kids.
This blog is also only commenting about parents, not kids…I don’t blame kids for their actions.
by ziv⊹₊⟡; ; Report
Nana
I get what you mean… I always heard that phrase too, but in my case it was more because my parents never really let me go out to play. So I ended up feeling kind of the opposit.wanting but not allowed
Kou 𖦹
"Kids don't play outside anymore!" Because you never presented them with the option to and the iPad is all they know + Parents are too paranoid now, I get wanting your kids to be safe but you can't keep them locked up inside and expect them to generate things to do, unfortunately I've met people with parents like this T_T
Mithras
Children have become addicted to technology and this is one of the biggest reasons.
pedroj
Born in 2000 the close thing I've had to that was a tamagotchi when i tell you 2008 was the time of my life I would go outside meet my neighbors Tony and JoJo stay out all night and come inside to take care of my tamatown 8 years old being a parent to a toy while also living my life outside iPad didn't come out until after so I'm happy I didn't have a tablet we had a iPod touch it was the first gen my mom never let me take it outside this generation needs to have a monochrome Nokia and non color screen virtual pet
꩜𓆉lani𓆉꩜
This is so true. To add on it a lot of parents DONT LET THEM OUTSIDE PERIOD. Ive babysat a ton of kids who are not allowed out at all. Parents think if u leave them out even supervised for two seconds the kid will be kidnapped or worse. I also see a lot of parents who are scared of their kid getting hurt. Which is fair but scraping ur knee, falling down in some mud playing tag, slipping wrong on a slipping slide are all core memories and are apart of life. Let them ride a bike let them climb a tree let them throw nuts at that squirrel let them be curious. Most importantly teach them the games. Theyll entertain themselves trust me.
My sister let's my and he's use her old iPhone and tablets it's true this generation is screwed we need kids to be kids again they shouldn't be using a piece of glass to entertain them now I know I Said I in a previous post in this blog that i had a tamagotchi but the difference was I left it at home and unpaused it and also that was 08 technology wasn't advanced like now .
by pedroj; ; Report
vvette
fr. older people say that just to excuse themselves from playing with kids, cuz "kids don't wanna play anymore". they do, you're just too lazy/busy to play with them and teach them some games. i have a baby niece, can't wait for her to be big enough so we can play together! i have so many musics, games, and kid's shows i wanna show her.
lvnxa
yesterday i saw kids playing squid game irl and they were like 7 yo :(
arthur
I think a thousand years from now kids will still be playing "(insert recent media) irl" lmao. I'm an 07' kid and I remember playing a game me and my friends made up called "minecraft irl" where we'd try translating the games mechanics into things 3rd graders could do in the local neighborhood, from obvious things like putting shit in a 9x9 grid to "craft things" (I found a crowbar on the side of the road and swung it around like a sword) to more "avantgarde" ideas like beating the dog shit out've bushes because watching the leaves and twigs fall out felt like collecting xp from killing mobs lol. Of course we also played more traditional outside games like freeze tag, hide and seek, and played the occasional harmless prank like ding dong ditching a neighbor, etc.
We did all this while having easy access to phones and tablets but like you said in your post, when given the option for actual games to play outside children are far more likely to choose to go outside and play. sure we would sometimes play Minecraft together (the actual game on mobile not avantgarde-craft lol), go to someone's house and watch popularmmos or I remember one time a friend snuck out his tablet and we all huddled together to watch early fnaf animations but more often then not we'd choose to play outside rather than be on our devices. Children yearn to play in the sun and connect with others they just need to be in an environment that enables them to do so and the responsibility to make that happen falls on the parents. I know that's the obvious sentiment our generation feels whenever this discussion comes up but I just wanted to share my own little anecdotes since I felt like they lined up with yours.
COOKIE_DESTROYER555
THIS. This is what I have been saying for YEARS. Not to mention the people who complain that kids never play outside anymore are also the ones to call the cops on kids riding their bikes. :/
_BuildXGoD_x
kinda teared up,cus since im young this is so relatable. My wholee life i wanted to play with my parents and siblings but they were always too busy or just didnt wanna play cus they're tired.
i had no friends when i was young. i was scared to go out by myself,and it was just simply boring.
i always envied and still envy people who got friends as a lil kid.
Lol,i was seeking interaction,and then saw the online world and i was like '' wow! everyone's sofriendly,there's so many kids''.
EGGFLYING
I think there are kids and parents who want kids to play outside in nature, but dont because of concerns of safety, especially cities. its sad, even I had that kind of thing growing up- like I'd sometimes want to ride my bicycle outside, but I'd ride it inside of our home property which also had big gates, but my parents were protective and so I mostly stayed inside and played with my devices.
real
by _BuildXGoD_x; ; Report
BJ Alexander
I agree on that. I want to break free from all this criticism from social media and go outside again. But it's difficult to...