Tuesday, February 26, 2008

BBC NEWS | UK | Children 'damaged' by materialism

BBC NEWS | UK | Children 'damaged' by materialism

I dread the thought of Oliver (or Lucy) turning into a head-down game-playing addict on whatever is the latest console or games machine of the day. I went to a Christening recently where a boy walked in and sat down at a table without lifting his eyes from his Nintendo. Nice.

I long for my children to appreciate the less materialistic side of life. My best childhood memories are of hot days traipsing across some mountain in the Lake District or of building dens in the local woods. I feel lucky that I was born before computers became small enough and cheap enough to become such pervasive toys.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Get the Townlettes musical instruments and pronto! There's nowt wrong with a bit of computer gaming, as long as it doesn't take over, but you can't beat time spent playing music.

Anonymous said...

grrrr last comment was from me but I forgot to put my name in. It's me age, you know.

Anonymous said...

I agree, this has to be done!

Steve said...

You are so right. And we have made a start already. Don't you remember this post? Also I should have pointed out that the cheap half-sized guitar that I bought for going camping has now been adopted by Oliver... that's when he's not trying to play my Simon & Patrick! Not to mention the set of (plastic imitation) musical instruments he got at Christmas. But this week he has forgone playing instruments for brushing up on his dance moves. Hayley has bought some CDs of anonymous artists doing covers of Bee Gees "Night Fever", Madonna's "Holiday" and more S Club songs than you can shake a stick at. Thanks to Hayley's demonstrations I came home to find Oliver literally reaching for the stars.

Anonymous said...

I agree with you on the computer front....my 5 year old is already asking to have a hand held computer as he sees his friends with them. We're trying are best at the moment to steer him away from that but i'm sure at some point he get some sort of computer and then it will be up to us to ration it, just like the TV. I think the more time kids play outside the better.
As for the musical instruments...as you know i'm not exactly musical but the kids love jamming...Guitar and Piano....very noisy but cute :)

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