Something I notice about kids these days and the way they interact is that everything has to be planned. Kids and teens seem to make a lot of firm plans in advance which require their parents and older siblings to drive them to various places. What has happened to the spontaneity of childhood?
I remember as a kid, especially in the warm months, there was no planning. We all just went outside to explore the neighborhood. We would meet up with a friend (who we had to call on the house phone first) or sometimes we would just randomly knock on the person’s door. There was no texting available. Once we had at least one pal in hand we would walk to local parks, schools and pizza shops and see who was around.
Being spontaneous as a kid was fun. You would never know what you would end up doing for the day: playing basketball, riding bikes or maybe even attempting to have a séance or two. As we got a little older (around 12 and 13) we would try to make sure we looked pretty before roaming the neighborhood just in case we ran into our crushes who didn’t even know we existed.
I am not sure why kids these days don’t seem to have as many spontaneous adventures. Maybe it is because more parents are working and kids are in daycare. Maybe it is because people feel the world is less safe now and they don’t want their children roaming around unsupervised. Whatever the reason may be, I wish all these technology loving kids could experience a spontaneous childhood for just one day. I loved my childhood and I would never want to trade it for a childhood filled with planned out activities and video chatting online.