Kids today. It’s a statement I feel too young to say, and yet here I am at 21, griping already.
The other night, I’m sitting at Maggiano’s, getting ready to eat a big bowl of spaghetti and meatballs. A family of three walks in, and as the mother and father sit down with their son, he takes a portable television out of his bag and turns on some cartoon. In the middle of the restaurant. His mother orders his food for him, and when she tries to turn the TV off and include him in the conversation, he snaps at her and tells her, “I need to finish my show first!”
How did we get here? Walk into any toy section at a Target or a Walmart, and almost all of the toys for sale contain some sort of electronic something or other. LeapFrog learning “tools” and Little Einstein DVDs have almost entirely replaced children’s books. Barbie comes complete with her own cell phone now. And there’s a separate section in the iPhone App Store designed for kids’ games.
When I was little, Mom practically pushed me outside, even when all I wanted to do was sit in front of the TV and watch “Winnie the Pooh.” I would grab weeds from the garden and leaves off of trees and make potions in the backyard with my sister. We became characters from stories or movies — I always wanted to play the hero, while she wanted to play the caring mother with the helpless infant. It was a good system.
Happily, I still see children playing outside. But very rarely do they play make believe, dress up or “war” anymore. Usually, they’re bouncing a ball around in their hands or playing tag — all good things in a country where as many as 33 percent of children and adolescents are obese. But it seems that their ability to imagine, to create worlds for themselves, is slowly slipping away. And this may be detrimental to an America that’s going to need creative thinkers in the future.
Creating new stories and situations helps build critical thinking skills necessary to leading a successful life. If a child develops the ability to think up plots and play them out, then he or she may grow into an adult capable of figuring out how certain actions may produce a particular outcome. The ability to think ahead — and think quickly — seems to come from the ability to imagine.
A study published by Illinois State University stated that imaginative play is also crucial to children developing self-regulatory skills — mastering their own emotions, gaining a sense of morality and developing the ability to cope in a variety of different situations.
We’re college students, and most of us don’t have kids yet. But it’s vital that we start thinking about how we want them to grow up. The world is becoming more and more digital. As our electronic gadgets get more advanced, it’s going to become harder to remember how important imaginative play in this very real world can be.
Let’s remember what it felt like to pretend to ride a dragon or play with fairies. And let’s work to make sure that when we have our own children, they know what that feels like, too.
