School-age children of all ages need playground recreation. Kids get so little playground time these days they can’t even resolve conflicts among themselves but must appeal to teachers and staff for assistance. The problem gets worse as they advance through the grades. All these meek, unassertive high school graduates will never be happy or reach their full potential as human beings, at work or in their private lives.
What’s the solution? Lobby school boards to schedule more outside recreation for your children. Physical Education classes are expensive, and cutting them is the #1 way schools are cutting costs. That’s unacceptable! Kids don’t just learn lifetime athletic skills on the sports field but interpersonal, relationship, and assertiveness skills as well. PE classes do more to help young people than any other single class!
Parents can help their children at home, too. Take away their smartphones and video games – unplug the television and computer. Limit their screen time – use it as a reward for roughhouse time outdoors with their peers. Force them to go outside to play. Conspire with other parents in the neighborhood to take away all their electronics and drive them outside to enjoy healthier activities.
Install a kid’s basketball goal in the neighborhood park or in your own driveway. If you live on a quiet street, put a b-ball goal curbside so kids from the whole neighborhood can enjoy it. (If you’re not a parent, litter your yard with activities!) Buy your children sports toys instead of more electronics. Drop them off at the local YMCA instead of a passive daycare center. Find the nearest YMCA.
Do these “electronic kids” really grow up to be meek and unassertive? Consider the tech hub of San Francisco and its environs: tens of thousands of brilliant young people who build all your fav apps and millions of awesome internet sites ~ earning so little they must live in group homes. While their employers rake in effortless billions from their timeless creations.
Young adults don’t even have the gumption to join a union, to let their union representatives lobby for the pay and benefits they deserve. Exactly how Big Business wants it ~ otherwise they’d sponsor sports teams and fund athletic leagues like they did for the Baby Boomers.
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Excerpted from Going Green, available as an eBook at this list of eBook retailers online.