When I was a child, my parents, aunts, grandmothers or nannies would make us go out to play. It was never too sunny, we would dress up cool enough. We cooked in sand, played house, nurse, doctor, fireman and super hero and other types of roles that we could think up.
I vividly remember childhood cooking with my cousin, using sand and water with a small pot given to us. We pretended to cook meat using stones; we would even cut up leaves when we wanted to cook traditional soups. We would then dish it and place a plate in front of our teddy bears and dolls to eat. These games would go on for hours, before we are called in for supper.
Who remembers the time that television channels wouldn’t transmit till about 4.00p.m.? And after they start, they would spend about 30 minutes singing the pledge and national anthem. Bearing in mind that programmes for children only last about 2 hours before the news or a documentary!!!???
My husband and I look around us and we are challenged about how to restrain my kids from losing all guard and bursting into the technology eras of today.
For example now digital satellite television is on 24/7, generators are an option in a lot of homes, and in some automatic generators. Not to mention most recently, inverters are becoming available.
A family friend of ours had recently moved to an underdeveloped region in Nigeria. Believe me they were not so glad about it, because they had poor water supply, but they were glad that their 7 and 5 year olds were free to play outside in the sand, dance a lot with the other children, and listen to old folklore by moonlight instead of gluing their eyes to the t.v screen or playing Nintendo and I-pod all day.
Parents and guardians we need your opinions and suggestions on how to keep our children’s imaginations alive, I recently read a book on parenting called “Raising Girls,” that children need active lives to build and develop their self esteem like building a muscle. Yikes!!! People... food for thought!
