Thursday, March 6, 2008
Reading...a lost art??
This week I was at Malia's school volunteering. As I walked down the hall, I stopped to read some of the sample writing on one of the classrooms bulletin boards. The kids were writing about how active they were, what their favorite activity was, etc. Every single paper that I read said, "I am not very active...my favorite activity is watching tv/playing video games." One even said "I am not very active because my mom won't let me go outside and play." (I bet the mom is loving the fact that this is posted for everyone to read!) I remember thinking how sad this was. Today I took the boys to the library. We try to go around noon, because the library is nice and quiet. On the second floor, the kids/young adult section was practically empty. I then realized that it wasn't empty, but that every single youth that was on the second floor was on a computer playing video games. There were five youth playing video games and three more youth lounging in chairs listening to their i-pods. I just thought it was so ironic that here they were in a huge building filled with thousands of books....yet they choose to play video games and listen to music. Growing up my afternoons were filled with sports practice...volleyball, basketball, and softball. If I wasn't at practice I was doing homework or reading a great book. (Okay, I never missed an episode of "little house on the prarie.") Don't get me wrong, I enjoy tv. I am addicted to American Idol and the biggest loser. But I also love to read. I just hope that our youth realize that there is so much more out there than tv and video games. And it makes me realize how important it is for me to instill my love of books and reading in my kids.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
It's one thing that I really do like about the schools down here - there is a HUGE emphasis on reading. I guess that's one perk of living in an impoverished area - lots of grant money for reading programs. I'm so happy to see Zack come home with a new book and is excited to read it. I'm an occassional reader - I kind of go in spurts where I read a lot for a few months and then don't read anything for a few. Rich is an avid reader, so I hope our kids lean more towards his influence. I am bound and determined to keep our kids from wasting their lives away in front of video games/computer games etc.!
Great point!!
Don't even get me started on the evils of computer games, ipods, cell phones, etc. I think they're all good and useful and have their place, but when they are taken to the extreme (which is where most youth take them), they play a key role in the dumbing down/bratting up of America.
Amen! There was a really good article recently in the church news called, "Hi-tech no substitute for family communication." It was great. It said what you did - technology is great, but if we're not careful it will consume all of our time - and there are always "better" things that we can be doing with our time.
Amen is right! Chloe thinks I'm crazy because I won't let her have a Nintendo ds, or whatever it is called! We have friends that have twelve year old twins, and every time I see those girls, they are either playing with that, or texting on their cell phones. Granted, they are in Girl Scouts, and have piano and art lessons, but there down time is all tv/computer/cell phone based. I am EXTREMELY happy that Chloe loves to read! She definitely also likes her tv time, but she is a fabulous reader and I love that about her. I am very happy she picked up my love of reading. Hopefully Koben will also. Craig is very much not a reader. Unless it is a truck magazine. He loves those! I may be an old fashioned mom, but my kids don't have tv's in their rooms. Chloe does have a laptop, but she ends up bringing it out to the kitchen table to use it, instead of being holed up in her room. I read an article saying that even those of our generation have a smaller amount of memory being used in their brain, because we keep everything in our cell phones. Makes me want to memorize all my phone numbers in there!
Well, I think their is hope because I grew up in a tv loving family and now I prefer reading to watching tv or playing video games. I did play video games with my brothers, occasionally. I did not like reading as a kid even though my Mom pushed me to read more often. So as soon as I left home I started reading more for entertainment. I'm such a rebel. But I didn't grow up with all the handheld devices we have now-a-days. We try to teach our kids that anything in excess in not healthy. Hopefully we are good examples.
My niece caught her daughter in the shower with her cell phone in a
zip lock bag!
And, you can read on a computer, but it just isn't like sitting down with a "real book".
MOM
Post a Comment