Grom Pea
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 2,944
Jun 27, 2014 0:21:07 GMT
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Post by Grom Pea on Jun 12, 2016 19:24:46 GMT
But what about when a big group of kids wants to play together? Say you have 3 boys and then they each have a friend over. Or the cousins come over. None of the bedrooms is big enough for a group of 6 kids to play together. They deserve a space to entertain guests just like I have the living room to have a conversation with adult guests.
There's this place where most kids have never heard of, it's FREE even. It's called "outside". Remember when you used to do that? you went outside with your friends and built a fort out of blankets or sat under the willow tree and had tea. Maybe you rode your bikes up and down the block and raced each other? Maybe you went down the road to the park or where I lived we all went to the school playground and rode the merry go round. We flew kites on the playground and played all over town hide and seek. One game would take hours.
If I had 3 friends over (which was a *party*) and we stayed inside, we found ways to play in the living room, or maybe in the bedroom on the bed with our dolls.
Children need creative play. Putting them in a situation that kinda sucks a bit (where will we play? what will we play?) forces them to be *creative*.
Children have too many toys now. There are places in the world where having ONE toy would be an absolute treasure, yet we fill our child's entire rooms with toys, then another whole room, then the family room, and then some outside. Then they go to a park with nothing but rounded surfaces and soft places to land and their school yards with carefully crafted play that's "fair" for everyone.
We're taking away children's opportunity to live creatively. To think outside the box. To learn to play for hours with nothing more than a stick or a box. That world is a very, very sad place.
Stop doing things FOR your children.
Unfortunately for my children they cannot just play outside because it's not safe. I grew up in an idyllic suburb on a cul de sac. My children live next to an attempted murder victim and a busy street, not to mention the pitbull that attacked another dog that lives around the corner. Yes I can take them to the park, but seriously it's not as easy as telling your kids to go outside in the 70s and 80s was. I would love to have a playroom and have earmarked a room in the basement for when they don't need constant supervision, but for now I live with a bunch of toys and trips out when we can.
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Post by mrssmith on Jun 12, 2016 20:49:25 GMT
When they have so many that a lot don't get played with.
I am lucky that a) DD & DS have their own rooms; b) we have a finished basement and c) they are pretty good about getting rid of stuff. Also, DD was never into dolls or sets with a lot of small parts (like Polly Pocket). Has several beloved stuffed animals and her favorite thing from ages 2 - 5 was playing dressup, so the toychest was full of princess dresses.
I put a lot of things away when she was too young to protest. Brought some of it out for DS as a baby. She no longer plays with toys at 7.5. She loves to read and play outside. DS LOVES his cars, Legos, etc. I also requested books as gifts in lieu of toys.
Both kids have to help me purge stuff and they've been good about it. Phew!
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Post by 950nancy on Jun 12, 2016 21:22:57 GMT
My kids think their lives were like those of us that grew up in the 70's. When someone will ask them what they played when they were younger the standard response is always, "outside." They were born in the 90's, but we really raised them as much as we could the way we were raised. Our neighborhood is a normal/typical one and they only had one other kid in the neighborhood that they played with. They didn't play inside when they were together. They didn't have the freedom to be gone all day like we did though. They also didn't have phones. I don't begrudge anyone for the way they raise their kids. I do feel sad for kiddos that didn't have the opportunity to spend so much time outside though. So many great memories of mine were spent outdoors and so are my kids'.
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raindancer
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,095
Jun 26, 2014 20:10:29 GMT
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Post by raindancer on Jun 13, 2016 0:00:03 GMT
I totally disagree with this statement. What's wrong with having a playroom? It keeps all the toys contained in one space and gives the kids an area to play. No toys in the way in the rest of the house. It seems like the perfect solution to me. No toys out in the living room. A door that I can hide a mess if someone drops by unexpectedly. Never feeling like tbe rest of the house isn't picked up. I wouldn't have kids and not have a playroom. In my world, that's what the bedroom in for. When the toys don't fit in the bedroom there are too many. YMMV. Wouldn't that be highly dependent on the size of the room? I feel like it no different from having an office or having a hobby room. You can work on a computer in your living room or bedroom and plenty of people do. But that doesn't make someone who has an office someone who just has too much office stuff. I personally never had a play room but for a year we had all toys in the basement living room. It was so awesome. So much easier!
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Post by crazy4scraps on Jun 13, 2016 1:57:16 GMT
There's this place where most kids have never heard of, it's FREE even. It's called "outside". Remember when you used to do that? you went outside with your friends and built a fort out of blankets or sat under the willow tree and had tea. Maybe you rode your bikes up and down the block and raced each other? Maybe you went down the road to the park or where I lived we all went to the school playground and rode the merry go round. We flew kites on the playground and played all over town hide and seek. One game would take hours.
If I had 3 friends over (which was a *party*) and we stayed inside, we found ways to play in the living room, or maybe in the bedroom on the bed with our dolls.
Children need creative play. Putting them in a situation that kinda sucks a bit (where will we play? what will we play?) forces them to be *creative*.
Children have too many toys now. There are places in the world where having ONE toy would be an absolute treasure, yet we fill our child's entire rooms with toys, then another whole room, then the family room, and then some outside. Then they go to a park with nothing but rounded surfaces and soft places to land and their school yards with carefully crafted play that's "fair" for everyone.
We're taking away children's opportunity to live creatively. To think outside the box. To learn to play for hours with nothing more than a stick or a box. That world is a very, very sad place.
Stop doing things FOR your children. I didn't have a lot of toys (or a lot of anything for that matter) growing up. I learned to sew when I was very young and made a lot of things myself from scraps of stuff from my mom's projects. My DD is very lucky by comparison. I disagree that having toys to play with makes her any less creative or imaginative than I was at her age. She sets up involved imaginary scenarios with her princess dolls and their castles or her ponies. She paints, draws, makes things with Perler beads or Play Doh or pipe cleaners. She builds stuff with Lego bricks or magnet tiles, or (gasp) in Minecraft on the iPad. At school on the playground, she is the one who regularly makes up invented games to play with the other kids. She is very creative, and her toys and art stuff only fuel that. We also regularly frequent the park/playground across the street, and we go bike riding around the neighborhood. But at six years old and with no older siblings, I don't feel comfortable letting her go by herself yet. The playground is obscured by trees on three sides and there's a big swampy pond right there too, so I would much rather have an adult around with kids that age. I remember being shuffled outside constantly by my mom when I was a kid (but we had a fenced back yard and no nearby playgrounds), and quite honestly I hated it. I much preferred to stay inside with a library book or a pad of paper and colored pencils or crayons.
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oldcrow
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,828
Location: Ontario,Canada
Jun 26, 2014 12:25:29 GMT
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Post by oldcrow on Jun 13, 2016 8:32:31 GMT
Oh, those kind of toys. I have no answer.
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