What are we doing to our kids

What are we doing to our kids?

Having been involved for a while now in junior sport it has concerned me that each year more and more kids turn up who are lacking basic skills that we all took for granted when we were growing up. Skills like throwing, catching and even running. I know we probably got our skills from throwing rocks and running away from the scene but still we never had computer games so we had to go outside and do physical things and I think we were way better off for it. I read of one prestigious school who could no longer put a Senior Rugby Team together because they had “too many smart fat kids” at their school. The other thing I have noticed is how much more prevalent allergies and other similar afflictions are.  Coaches from other sports tell me that parents turn up at the start of the season actually bragging about little Johnny having this wrong and that wrong and having to take various medications. Its almost cool to have a kids with health issues? They get phone calls just before the games start to say “Johnny was on the computer all night and wont get out of bed” or “he cant be bothered playing today” – if that was my kids……….. Half these “sick” kids seem perfectly healthy to me and I sometimes think maybe the parents see it as a way for them and their kids to get attention. We once set up a recruiting drive in a local shopping centre. They put us right outside a games store! I have never seen so many pale faced, sickly looking children and with zero social skills! How many kids did we recruit – none!

We have written, tongue in cheek, about how being too clean is having a detrimental effect of our health (read article here) and I recently found this article to support what I am saying about the physical effect our lifestyle is having on kids. There has also been a number of articles written about how new “safe” playgrounds are just plain boring and this can then lead to kids playing in hazardous places like railway lines for the adventure they need: See article

Children ‘getting weaker because they don’t climb trees’

Children have become weaker and unable to do physical tasks that previous generations found easy, a study has found.

Experts said today’s 10-year-olds had less muscular strength than children born a decade before, because instead of spending time climbing trees and climbing ropes, their leisure is spent indoors playing on computers.

The findings, published in the child health journal Acta Paediatrica, found children could do fewer sit-ups and were less able to hang from wall bars in a gym. As well as the decline in arm strength, the study found they were less able to grip an object firmly.

Read the full article here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/children_shealth/8528464/Children-getting-weaker-because-they-dont-climb-trees.html