Day 12 - Keeping kids minds occupied

My two nephews aged 13 & 9 are down from US of A for their annual vacation. They' re with us for 20 odd days before their parents join them and they go off to Kolkata for a few days and then come back to spend 10 odd days with us again.

Our days currently are spent in trying to think of various ways to keep them entertained. The issue, of course, is that their holidays do not match with our kids holidays and so they are alone in the day at home. While my kids and other kids in the apartment come back in the evening they then have their homework and other stuff to do. So weekends are busy times with various places and things to do to fill up their times.

This did get me thinking though on how difficult it has become to keep kids entertained these days, even my kids during their summer vacations!

When we were growing up there was no TV or summer camps but I don't remember a single day when I was bored or didn't have anything to do. We played our butts out in the park with different games starting from the elite cricket to the humdrum grass root level game called 'lagori'. We even had kho kho if the number of people on the ground was too large or we just climbed trees and did lots of fun stuff. We never had summer camps that we had to go to. We were just left on our own and we filled up the time.

Kids today plonk in front of the TV and expect that device to entertain them. Or they are stuck on their xBoxes or PS2/3's or the Wiis. I actually went to a store to see if I should buy a Wii for these kids but its Rs 25,000/-!!!! That's too high a price for a gaming machine. Maybe I'm old and don't realise the value of that device.

But the kids hardly step out of the house or play with their friends. They depend on technology to entertain them whether its internet or TV or game consoles. I believe that technology really cannot replace the joys of fresh air and playing with friends. The games we played with other children gave us friendships, taught us concepts of team work and sharing. With more and more single child families stuck to their technology devices, are we preparing ourselves for a more self centered workforce later on?

Then again the kids may not be the ones to blame for that. There are hardly any play areas in today's apartment complexes and parents may have to take their kids to a park or to a club to get them to play games. We are to blame for this as well to an extent as parents. I think we watch too much TV and our kids just inculcate that habit.

Its time that we taught our kids different ways to entertain themselves - reading books and playing with friends rather than sitting in front of a device or using that to communicate with the outside world.

If this trend continues it may not be far when we see a world similar to the ones portrayed by Isaac Asimov in 'The Naked Sun'.