what do you think happens when the kids are left alone to just play?

[coloradoporsche]

what do you think happens when the kids are left alone to just play?

Ever read Lord of the Flies?

[dhoward]

But, how will I watch South Park?

[bryanthompson]

One of the best books of all time. If you like it, take a look at any Stephen Crane, start with The Open Boat.

[legion]

"So now, every night, the Provider must be appeased at Carousel. We need their book so one of ours doesn't die."

[Shaun @ Tru6]

Thanks for setting this up Bryan. My childhood was

rural CT through 3rd grade. it was Tonka trucks, forg, toad and turtle farms, bees, hiking every day. I sold turtles to rich kids from Hartford at tag sales. Inside it was all about Lego's, reading and Scooby Doo. What else is there? At school, we'd see who could go highest on the big swings and jump and go the farthest.

4-9th in MN was all about dirt bikes (pedal) building courses in a hillside, hockey, fishing, camping, D&D.

TX: 10th: that just sucked, I try to forget about Victoria, TX

11-12: Western MA: school, worked 40 hour weeks learning to cook on the line of the town's high end french restaurant. Paycheck bought cars: 64.5 Mustang wtih 260 V8, 63 VW truck and mulitple 240Zs. I could pull on those apart to metal and put it back together in a weekend. The addiction can be traced back to 15.

no kids, but as I said in the Walmart post, my friend's kids can't do anything on their own, and they're clingy too. ewww!

last thing, if and when I have kids, and I live in the country or slowpoke suburbia, no way my kids are wearing bike helmets.

[widebody911]

Just look at the toys today. They're either 'action figured' tied to the latest movie or electronic games. Even Legos are useless - they're more of a snap-together model than anything to be creative with.

[dhoward]

Oh!
Remeber Erector sets!
I used to cut the $hit out of my fingers on those!
Cool!

[legion]

I remember I used to build things I saw in movies out of Legos because my parents wouldn't buy me the real movie toys. It would sometimes take me a whole weekend...

[Shaun @ Tru6]

Originally posted by widebody911
Just look at the toys today. They're either 'action figured' tied to the latest movie or electronic games. Even Legos are useless - they're more of a snap-together model than anything to be creative with.

We'd capture the rare snapping turtle and make it bite the heads of our GI Joes, and of course sister's Barbies.

Good days!

[legion]

I consider Barbie torture a finely-honed art form.

[dd74]

It's all very simple: children control the parents. For it to be any other way, many items will need to be eliminated or at least pared down from the child's daily life.

Television
Toys
Trips to the mall, where rewards are given for being "good."
Etc.

Yet, take all that away, and today's parents would have to interact more with the child. However, today's parent isn't up to the task of interaction. They're too tired, or too stressed, or too...excuse...excuse...excuse.

Today at lunch, our operations manager came up with a solution: a pre-parent test to see if one is worthy of raising a child.

After all, if people are checked out to see if they can adopt a cat or dog...

[bryanthompson]

We always used cherry bombs to torture barbies & g.i. joes. A large mound of dirt, some twigs (for building leanto shelters on the mound of dirt), and some black-cats left over from July 4th. I'd still have fun with that!

[304065]

good list dd

to this I would add

"Food" as "Reward"

[Drago]

Originally posted by widebody911
Even Legos are useless - they're more of a snap-together model than anything to be creative with.

I couldn't agree more. Fortunately, they get destroyed pretty quickly and he either learns how to put it back together himself or all the parts go into the big plastic bin with all the other destroyed Lego models. Eventually they'll start using thier imagination to build things with the parts, just like in the good old days.

[Shaun @ Tru6]

Originally posted by bryanthompson
We always used cherry bombs to torture barbies & g.i. joes. A large mound of dirt, some twigs (for building leanto shelters on the mound of dirt), and some black-cats left over from July 4th. I'd still have fun with that!

Black cats are also great for blowing up dog fish (little sharks) caught in the CT Sound.

DON"T blow up a stingy jellyfish!!!!!!!

[dd74]

Originally posted by john_cramer
good list dd

There is an even more important list; one for the parents --

Take away:

Free time - yours is not yours any longer.

Extravegance - you can forget about your next Porsche (because)

Expendable income - you will have none after enrolling the wee one in private school, buying season tickets to the philharmonic for them, museum passes, art classes, etc.

Now, this might be the list of a parent who claims they're involved. But really, that's a crock: to me, the parent that overschedules their child is simply shuffling the kid off from one place to the other after school finishes.

"Food" as "Reward" equates to a 100-pound second grader, courtesy of a lazy-assed parent who is afraid of their own child - a behavior the parent has set up from the beginning.

Meanwhile...

an overscheduled child equates to a kid whose parent has no time for their own child, as well as a child who will never tell you how their day has been because by the time you ask, "How was your day?" they're asleep, exhausted, at the dinner table.

So the thought occurs: is ours simply the wrong society in which to raise kids? I truly tend to think so.

I do not agree with this new-age style of raising children, which some psychologists have called "liberal" or "modern," which seeks to dissolve SOP of discipline - i.e. punishment and even spanking. Yet, more often than not, these "experts" are unequivocably incorrect about how to raise a child. Children aren't stupid, and do know manipulation; it is imprinted in their conscious from the moment they first cry and mommy comes running. The liberal or modern manner of raising a child where they are not punished or in any other way disciplined, save for a tepid "time out," leads to more problems than a parent can deal with. The kid is clingy and irresponsible until when they hit the real world and find that that world doesn't give a damn about them. At that point, as an adult, they're ready for a psychologist.

[Rick V]

I'm very lucky My son (now 19) loved to play baseball so we did alot of traveling around the state doing the suportive parent thing. My daughter(now 16)was and is into reading and writing so she was happy to pile up with us.
Now that they are older the son is trying to build an eagle talon (he didn't get that crap from me) to take out the old mans BMW and P-car.
I find myself doing most of the work and all of the laughing.
The daughter is still reading and writing and hanging out with her friends.
I had to teach them both how to blow up stuff and to play doorbel ditch it. The latter being hard living out in the country but a good laugh just the same.
It seems the things we held closest from our childhoods like leggo's and linkon logs have been replaced by PS2 and the internet but what the hey my parents didn't have leggos.
Don't forget shooting marbles and racing the Matchbox cars.

[craigster59]

Riding bikes, fishing, Hot Wheels, football, baseball, "Little Rascals","3 Stooges" and "Looney Tunes". Everything else was just background noise.

[gassy]

What my son and I do instead of tv...the first wooden bastard. Gravity fed engine...

[86 911]

I hate watching TV. It's so boring to me and I really don't understand the craze to watch so much of it. Okay, I DO watch the Dicovery channel at least once a month, but that's about it. DVD players in the cars... don't even get me started! A car is to to drive, not to be an entertainment system! And now the car manufactures have gone so far as to designing a device on your car where you can get and check e-mail. They need to do something better with their time than create distracting devices!
Although, why am I talking?The only creativity I get at home is playing with the dogs and writing intellectual and creative responses on the Pelican BBS!