s/o of the birthday party thread

[starrzone]

To answer your question, I don't think so. SO has his kids for a couple weeks (this is day 6 of 11), and he is really sick right now with a flu/cold. He texted me that he was taking the kids to the playground because he felt bad because they were "inside on the couch all day". There was no answer when I replied "You know, you CAN kick them outside and tell them to play!" My mother used to shoo us out and lock the door when she didn't want us underfoot.

 

[golfgal]

To answer your question, I don't think so. SO has his kids for a couple weeks (this is day 6 of 11), and he is really sick right now with a flu/cold. He texted me that he was taking the kids to the playground because he felt bad because they were "inside on the couch all day". There was no answer when I replied "You know, you CAN kick them outside and tell them to play!" My mother used to shoo us out and lock the door when she didn't want us underfoot.

Same with us growing up. For our kids if they were in the house too much I started handing them cleaning rags, etc. It didn't happen often but sometimes if the weather was bad for a couple days they would get into a habit of being inside.

NIGHT GAMES--that is the thing our kids miss the most from our old town. We would have 50 kids show up to play night games--hide and seek, ghosts in the graveyard, Bear, whatever. When I was growing up we had the same. We had a game we called Ditch that we played pretty much every night. We would have anywhere from 20-50 kids out playing most nights.

Our kids played a lot of tag kind of games or Fruit Basket upset. We played "Polly May we Cross your Bridge" a lot.

I am still dying to know what all the grandkids have planned for today. DD was up late scanning pictures of the aunts and uncles from years ago so I don't know what is up with that. I did find out that one cousin is putting together a Pinata.

 

[mjkacmom]

Although we have many, many structured activities (sports, dance, music lessons, scouting, etc.), my kids, and their friends, are very creative in their play. My 7 year olds had the game of Risk out, and made up a new game with it. The older kids invented some sort of game involving the swingset and a hippy-hop. My kids have been playing outside without me since the age of 4, and not once have I ever been concerned that they will be abducted.

 

[Colleen27]

As a teacher, my dh hears kids say that "summer is boring" and that they have nothing to do all summer. I'm afraid that playing all day and using an imagination to play for hours is becoming a lost art. What do you think? Are kids today less active with creative and physical play than kids who grew up in the 60s, 70s, and 80s?

It depends on the kids. Around here they still do those things, but I think my town is sort of an anomaly. Most families have been here for generations and there's not a lot of "times have changed, the world is more dangerous now" thinking among the parents. So the kids are mostly allowed to play in the same ways we were allowed to play when we were their age, and that seems to be unusual these days.

Every time I read a "kids these days" thread on a message board, I'm reminded of how thankful I am that life led us to the town we live in today. Yesterday morning, I had 14 kids in my backyard, ranging in age from 2 up to 12, playing "Little House on the Prairie" and paddling our three-passenger tube (the kind you tow behind a boat) across the little 18" deep kiddie pool as a pretend river crossing.

 

[SpecialK]

My kids would like nothing better than to hang out with a bunch of kids, swimming and playing ball. Unfortunately, the kids around here who are their ages are the "cool kids" and mine are not included. It's not always a matter of kicking your kids out the door and telling them to go find somebody.

 

[rainydayplay]

I'm part of the generation that was born in the mid-late 80s and early 90s. Sitting in front of a computer or a TV was pretty much unheard of. The only exception would be weekend morning cartoons.

I used to live for Saturday morning cartoons! Now, IF they show them, they are generally pretty awful IMO.

We live in a neighborhood in which there aren't any other children (or, well, there is one family, but they aren't very social), so sometimes DD is in daycare on days she doesn't need to be to make sure she gets interaction/play with other children.

We live on a small road (two cars cannot pass each other and stay on the road) with a 35 MPH speed limit that people often drive 50+ MPH on, so my biggest worry about her playing outside by herself is getting in the road, not being seen by a driver and getting run over. My mother, on the other hand, is afraid she will be abducted.

DD often gets on the computer so she can find music to dance to and loves to plays games where she can draw and create (like the Barbie website has fashion designer games). But she also plays with her LPS toys, the Little People house, etc, and does a lot of imaginative play.

As for bday parties, mine aren't very structured, but I don't spend tons of time in planning since I'm lucky if I have two other kids show up...and those kids are cousins. (This year, I had three!) Granted, we don't really have the room for a party at home, so we've had parties elsewhere.

For DD's 1st and 2nd bdays, we had it at the local park/playground. The kids ran around and played until food was ready and/or we were ready for cake. Then more play on the playground. It was great the first year, but we have a summer bday, and it was just too hot to be outside the second year.

For her 3rd bday, Mom encouraged me to have her party at McDonald's. She had one of my brother's bdays there a long, looong time ago. There was a party coordinator who organized some games for the kids to play. For us, they roped off a too small section for us, every child got a soda and a frozen yogurt and an old happy meal toy. And for that, I was charged $70.

The next year, we had it at a place that is like a Chuck-E-Cheese. I paid $180 for a private room for an hour and a half, a few pizzas, sodas, chips, and tokens for the games. And two other children came.

Last year, for bday #5, I just said forget it....we're going to Disney! No party.

This year, no Disney...so party at the bowling alley. They played a couple of games (should have stuck with one) and had cake, pizza (provided by me) and chips and soda (provided by bowling alley). Everyone had fun, although still only 4 kids (was expecting at least 4 more...)

 

[bigbabyblues]

I think a lot of it these days depends on where you live if they can play outside like we did. We live on a dead-end street full of mostly older people (in their late 70's/early 80's), but there are a few families with children--we know all of our neighbors. The houses aren't new, most were built at the same time, late 1930's/early 1940's, but we are lucky to still have a close neighborhood. We live in a very small town, not that it equals safe, but still.

My boys play outside, and DH and I do not go out with them unless we have yard work or something like that to do. They play with the girl from next door and one from the house on the other side of her. They go from our yard to her yard, there is no fence in between. We check on them every half hour or so if we can't see them out the window, and neighbor mom can see them from the windows in her house that she is in during the day; we call each other if we see something the other needs to know about. Several of our older neighbors are outside during the day, working in their yards/gardens/flowers, or just sitting outside talking, etc.

They don't play the same games I did when I was growing up, but they play out there for several hours every day during the summer or when the weather is good. They play soccer, hook the water hose up to a sprinkler, jump on neighbor's trampoline, etc. They argue sometimes, sometimes they come home from it, and it's usually not long before they're all playing again. Not much choice, there aren't other kids around to play with. My boys can play in the house when they want to (not the neighbor kids though, they don't go in neighbor houses, and neighbors don't play in our house) but they can't sit around and play video games.

Our boys have a Wii, and each has a DS; but they are only allowed 30 minutes a day on video games. They can use that whenever they want. Sometimes, they take their DS outside and the neighbors get theirs, and they all play together--for 30 minutes. The neighbor girl (she's 8) told me the other day I couldn't make the boys put theirs away because it wasn't very long and that was mean, but I took them anyway.

I'm glad we live in an area they can do it.

 

[bumbershoot]

I'm part of the generation that was born in the mid-late 80s and early 90s. Sitting in front of a computer or a TV was pretty much unheard of.

That might have been so for your area, but it doesn't translate to everyone. I'm older than you, and as soon as videogames for the home were invented, those games CRIED OUT to be played with. So if I went to a friend's house that had videogames, we'd do it all. Play some Barbies, play some Asteroids, and depending on who the friend was, either go out and play with a dog or ride the friend's horse. We were all over the place. My brother and I would play archaeologist or detective for hours at a time when it was just the two of us at home.

But I certainly do remember LONG LONG summers spent hanging out all day with my brother, while our mom was at work, and we would certainly sit on the couch and watch reruns of the Monkees (reruns, not original-run) for hours at a time. Why? Because San Jose CA, in the middle of summer, in a tiny house with no air conditioning and ONE floor fan (why did we only have one???), was just too stinkin' hot sometimes.

But I don't think that was the proble
with the children in the other thread. (didn't she say they did play tag?)

I think folks are giving prior generations too much credit sometimes.

I agree with both of them.


I was going to reply in that thread, because DS just attended a surprisingly fabulous birthday party where they had no games planned, nothing scheduled, just a big backyard and LOTS of kids (they invited all 40 from the kindergarten class that the twins were in, and there was a 3rd b'day kid who had his friends there too).

But as I read further, I realized that this party was a far cry from what the OP was describing. After all, this was a huge backyard on a cool NW day, there was a big swing/play/slide/climb structure, there were sticks on the ground, a shed and some bushes that they could go behind, and some of the dads at the party found some various balls that they started games with. So while the end result, kids running around up and down the yard for 3 hours, was what some wanted the OP's party description to include, the actual situation was very different.

 

[EeyoreEma]

My 2 (2 and 4) LOVE to play hide and seek - they would play it ALL DAY LONG!!! Which is great, but you run out of places to hide They also have wonderful imaginations for their ages. They are so neat in the games that they come up with - I LOVE watching it! And now dd is getting to the age where she can play games, like Uno and Bingo, and she LOVES it - I have so much fun playing games with her!! It just gets to be more and more fun - I just can't wait until she's ready for Monopoly! As for outdoor play, they both love that too. It's too hot where we are to be out much, as neither one of them can handle the heat very well, but autumn, winter and spring they'd be outside all day if they could. The only thing I feel sad about at all is that we don't have any neighbor kids for them to play with. We're in the country, with no other houses in sight, and no kids their age. Oh well - they have each other right?!

 

[golfgal]

Well, we just had 13 kids spend 6 hours with a kickball and a pinata and they had a BLAST. They had all kinds of things to do and no "I'm bored" whining.

 

[PollyannaMom]

Do kids nowadays play in the same manner as a generation or two ago?...

I'm thankful to live in what I call a "time-warp" neighborhood, where there are 40 kids in 20 houses, and a bunch of parents at home, and they do have that open-ended play experience. But in general, no, I don't think most kids play the same way as they used to, for several reasons:

1) Safety issues (real and media-enhanced) - many kids aren't allowed to just run out and play.

2) Overscheduling - a lot of kids have after-school/evening activities on more days than not, and homework on top of them. Free play time is simply getting edited out of kids' lives.

3) Different playthings - video games, etc. do make for different play experiences than in previous generations, but I think that sort of evolution has happened before, as new toy fads replaced older ones. This is just a more dramatic example.

3.5) I also think kids have more toys, and more specific toys, than they used to. If you've only got a Lego set, for example, it's going to be a lot of toys on different days. But if you've got all those toys pre-made, you're not going to bother building them yourself.

4) Family dynamics - many children are in organized care during the day, or at a different house on the weekend. This exercises different social skills than being with the same kids all the time does, and so fosters different kinds of games.

 

[ilovejack02]

Well, we just had 13 kids spend 6 hours with a kickball and a pinata and they had a BLAST. They had all kinds of things to do and no "I'm bored" whining.

Sounds like fun! I didn't hear I am bored once either. 6 straight hours big boys ran the water slide, the 3,4,5 and 6 yr old girls played legos on our lego table for several hours too. Once it got dark hide and seek was on . Not once did anyone turn on tv or ask to play video games.

 

[HelenePA]

Hi all OP of bday thread again. Yesterday my brother had a big 4th of july party. 3 other kids besides mine were there.. THEY HAD A BLAST Give the kids 100 glow sticks and it will keep em busy for HOURS. lol We did bring 2 wii games with us because it was 104* out when we got there at 5pm but by 6 things had cooled down enough for the outside playing to start. We also had silly string and some coloring books and stuff but the hit of the night was the glow sticks. The adults were begging the kids for them as well. They were still playing with them when we left at 1am (yes it was a long night!) but there was no I'm bored. No whining. I didn't see them most of the day See it doesn't have to be expensive to keep em occupied! 10$ and they were happy as clams for 6 hours. Hope everyone had a good 4th of July!

 

[golfgal]

Hi all OP of bday thread again. Yesterday my brother had a big 4th of july party. 3 other kids besides mine were there.. THEY HAD A BLAST Give the kids 100 glow sticks and it will keep em busy for HOURS. lol We did bring 2 wii games with us because it was 104* out when we got there at 5pm but by 6 things had cooled down enough for the outside playing to start. We also had silly string and some coloring books and stuff but the hit of the night was the glow sticks. The adults were begging the kids for them as well. They were still playing with them when we left at 1am (yes it was a long night!) but there was no I'm bored. No whining. I didn't see them most of the day See it doesn't have to be expensive to keep em occupied! 10$ and they were happy as clams for 6 hours. Hope everyone had a good 4th of July!

Where did you get 100 glowsticks for $10??? Our marching band uses them for their evening practices (the drum majors use them for batons). They would LOVE that deal!!

 

[HelenePA]

Where did you get 100 glowsticks for $10??? Our marching band uses them for their evening practices (the drum majors use them for batons). They would LOVE that deal!!

Dollar tree! They come in tubes of 10. They are still playing with them this morning even though they aren't glowing anymore. I will be sure to stock up on more of them. Dd7's party it is in 2 months. I think they would be great for in goodie bags. Each kid getting a tube of them.. it would be like heaven right?