Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Kids outside?

I made an observation while skiing this past weekend. It was a beautiful winter day (in fact everyone on the trails that I skied by said "Nice day, huh?" There was not a single teen or child on the trails with the adults. This was weird to me. I started x-country skiing when I was 4. I always went with my parents when they strapped on their skis.

Perhaps the kids were:
-Doing gymnastics
-Playing indoor soccer
-at a friend's house while the parents excercised

Most likely the kids were hiding indoors. A coworker recently told me her youngest son *hates* going outside to play in the snow. This has been the perfect winter for snow forts, snow tunnels, and massive quantities of sledding.

Check out the snow fall totals in Boston proper (that's a fun interactive graph for you). There's even a story here about 'nature deficit' disorder. The fact that there's a club where parents drop the kids off to play in the woods amuses me. And it charges $$ to do this 'drop off to play' behavior.

What do you think about this? Do parents really need to drop cash to have their kids enjoy the outdoors?

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