Summer Alternatives to Childhood Electronics

Last week I viewed a video by Buzzpo.com ("So Incredibly Sad: This is How 3 Generations Answer the Same Question") that was shared on Facebook.  It interviewed three generations of Americans and asked them how they spent their summers as children.

The grandparents mentioned berry picking, fishing, and helping in the garden.

The middle-aged parents said they gathered together neighborhood children to play baseball or build forts.

When today's children were asked how they spend their summer days, they described their love for video games, texting, and hours spent on their tablets.

They said they wouldn't know what they would do with themselves if they couldn't have their electronics.  

Their video games relieved their stress and made them forget about everything and everyone else around them.

While I agree with the message that was sent from this video---that children should spend more time in nature---I think that American families were misrepresented.

I know that my children are not the only ones who spend their summers building forts, making sailboats, and wading in creeks.  One of the blogs that I like to read describes what a summer day at her house was like when the children spent their afternoon and evening outside instead of being plugged in: thistlewood farms.

Amongst my friends, I see teenagers baling hay, raising animals for the fair, fishing, and kayaking.  Younger children are designing their own comic strips, sewing their own clothes, decorating cakes, reading numerous books, camping and swimming.  Some families are going to foreign countries to give aid to the needy.  The children that I know personally are not spending 6 hours in front of a screen daily.

While it can be challenging for parents to pull children away from their electronic devices, it is being done.  There are plenty of American families living a summer alternative to the hollow gaming and texting filled days portrayed in the video shown by buzzpo.  Even if the media doesn't show us, there are plenty of us throughout our nation.