16-11-2023, 12:04 PM
(This post was last modified: 16-11-2023, 12:08 PM by Diabolical Artificer.)
I've tried to interest my daughter in fettling things over the years. She's had a little go at soldering, but that's it.
I think the issue is that when we were kids, for me, that was the 1970's, we played in our street or mucked about in the countryside. We did the usual stuff, making dens, messing about with modifying pushbikes and what have you, so, for the most part our play was hands on, tactile, interacting with the physical world.
My daughter was born in 2007, when she was young I tried my hardest to find friends in our village for her to play with, it was a real struggle. I was trying to recreate my childhood for her, it was a culture shock to see how much things had changed. , Walk down the few streets in our village you won't see any kids at play, maybe a few older kids kicking a football about, that's it. Come school time all these kids emerge from their homes, but you won't see them them in the village apart from that. They are isolated physically for the most part from other kids their age, but "communicate" by their mobile phones.
I don't know how to reach across this immense generational & cultural divide Mike, we might as well be talking Swahili to them, it concerns me a great deal. That said, the other night I had a bonfire to burn some garden brashings, there was a clear sky, Molly came & sat with me for a while, gazing into the fire, looking at the stars and chatting, it was a moment of deep connection, I regret not doing it more when she was growing up, never too late to change.
So, it is possible to reach across the divide, light a fire, give em a knife & whittle sticks. Build a den? Take them out of the house box & do some fun stuff. Kids love fire, it's an atavistic part of humans, a fire outside beats Eastenders any day. They also like making stuff go bang: blow up a few capacitors etc, then you might be able to get them into making stuff.
In these mad times we live in, we need an activity that takes us away from all the s***, kids most of all.
Andy.
I think the issue is that when we were kids, for me, that was the 1970's, we played in our street or mucked about in the countryside. We did the usual stuff, making dens, messing about with modifying pushbikes and what have you, so, for the most part our play was hands on, tactile, interacting with the physical world.
My daughter was born in 2007, when she was young I tried my hardest to find friends in our village for her to play with, it was a real struggle. I was trying to recreate my childhood for her, it was a culture shock to see how much things had changed. , Walk down the few streets in our village you won't see any kids at play, maybe a few older kids kicking a football about, that's it. Come school time all these kids emerge from their homes, but you won't see them them in the village apart from that. They are isolated physically for the most part from other kids their age, but "communicate" by their mobile phones.
I don't know how to reach across this immense generational & cultural divide Mike, we might as well be talking Swahili to them, it concerns me a great deal. That said, the other night I had a bonfire to burn some garden brashings, there was a clear sky, Molly came & sat with me for a while, gazing into the fire, looking at the stars and chatting, it was a moment of deep connection, I regret not doing it more when she was growing up, never too late to change.
So, it is possible to reach across the divide, light a fire, give em a knife & whittle sticks. Build a den? Take them out of the house box & do some fun stuff. Kids love fire, it's an atavistic part of humans, a fire outside beats Eastenders any day. They also like making stuff go bang: blow up a few capacitors etc, then you might be able to get them into making stuff.
In these mad times we live in, we need an activity that takes us away from all the s***, kids most of all.
Andy.
