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Thursday, August 14, 2008

Sometimes, you have to go back to the basics

posted by BOFarrell at 13h01

by Suzanne Korf

Recently, in a moment of frustration, I asked my kids: If they had to make a choice to give something up, would they choose the dog or their portable PlayStation?
While I am pleased to report that they chose to keep the dog, I have to admit that they hesitated, and I am not entirely sure if they were giving me the answer they thought I wanted to hear.
When I was a kid, I spent hours with my dog. Admittedly, I didn’t have cool electronic games or computers. My family didn’t even have colour television, let alone cable! Fast food outlets like A&W and McDonald’s were a new (and exciting) phenomenon, as were microwaves and frozen dinners. We didn’t have answering machines, email or ATMs.
All these things have changed and, for the most part, improved our lives. But there are downsides. We didn’t worry about child obesity.
According to health surveys, the number of children who are overweight and obese has doubled in the last 30 years. Almost a third of kids ages 2 to 17 are overweight!
We also didn’t have to worry about Internet porn. I recently read that experts estimate that 90 per cent of kids between the ages of 8 and 16 have viewed cyberporn in some form, and one in three kids ages 12 and 13 have friends who regularly view pornography on the Internet.
So what’s a parent to do?
How do you encourage physical activity and limit the evils of sedentary activity?
Luckily, this summer my kids spent one week at a lake and three weeks by the ocean. But that left a few weeks of hanging around the house with not much outside activity.
When my sons started complaining of headaches and with my wallet starting to feel the strain of too many purchases of electronic games and videos, I decided it was time to get the kids to accompany me on my evening dog walk. As we passed the park, it was with shock that I realized that my kids hardly ever go there.
When I was a kid, I spent most of my summer outside. The park was my favourite hangout and my friends and I would spend hours throwing a baseball or a Frisbee around.
When I wasn’t at the park, I would be off exploring on my bicycle and coming home in time for supper, only to go outside after dinner for a game of hide and seek or chase that would often last until well after the sun went down.
But there aren’t many kids outside any more, at least not during our evening walk. The people we pass are mostly adults and, aside from an occasional game of baseball going on and a few people on the tennis court, the park is basically empty.
This tells me I am not the only parent struggling with electronics-dependent children. And it makes me feel a little better.
The fact that the kids seem to enjoy the walk once I get them out there makes me feel better, too. And while we’re walking, we can talk – about things like the Internet and what we might find there.
Sometimes one solution leads to another.
If you have ideas, let me know. Hope to see you out and about!
Suzanne Korf is a professional fundraiser who has worked for
non-profit organizations for more than 25 years and is a director
of development for the Montreal
Children's Hospital Foundation.
She is a mother of two and a resident of Pointe Claire since 1991.