Come Leh We Play Outside

The tide of technology is flooding every facet of our lives. On one hand technological inventions have made our lives easier, and on the other hand, have made us somewhat lazy. It has polluted our lives to the extent that we cannot think of living without our televisions, computers and mobile phones.

Children nowadays are not like the children of the 80’s and earlier years. Back then children were lean, mean and healthy. Today, the majority of children are obese with associated physical challenges. In the old days, children spent most of their waking hours in the yard, doing something outside. In the late 90’s children started to disappear from the outdoors and was found glued to the television. Today the situation has gotten worse, children are addicted to the latest gadgets, computer games and the Internet and are spending a lot less time outside. In developed countries, some schools have made it mandatory that children be involved in outdoor activities. Playing outside has a lot of benefits, not only physical benefits, but children are able to better develop their social skills. There is a strong need for parents and guardians to cultivate situations to ensure that children play outside.

It is sad and detrimental that swimming, running, jumping, riding, climbing, laughing and crying have been replaced largely with clicking, scrolling and screen-touching.

In the 80’s, as children you played with anything you could find in the yard, old tires, tins, leaves (play money :)), branches, dirt, sand, rocks – you name it, the children in those days were physically active and creative. They even ‘cooked’ mud in coconut shells as ‘play’ food when they played ‘dolly house’.

There was a ‘season’ for everything. They had ‘rubber-band season’ and marble season, ‘Kite season’, ‘fishing season’,  ‘cricket season’ and ‘football season’. Small days back then was a ‘good good’ time.

The games outside were many, “freeze n’ melt”, “war break”, “hide n’ seek”, “chur”, “ketcha”, “bun house”, “123 red light”, etc.

Gavin Mendonca, sings it nicely in his song “Come leh we play outside”.

However, to highlight the issue is only the first step, the second step will be to devise a plan to fix it and the remaining steps would be to implement the plan. Make your suggestions in the comment area below. Come leh we play outside.