With all the technology we have now and the way kids embrace it i believe in 100 years the human race will develop further.

Huge thumbs,constantly bent over necks and stone deaf from listening to I pods and the like

The flying cow is a classic.

Kick the can?? TIS, you are showing your age! I grew up in the city, and kids were always outside. We played Red Rover, or jump rope, stoop ball (with a Spaldeen, which I haven't seen in years), or sometimes the girls would just sit on the parked cars and watch the boys play stickball (it never occurred to us to play!). We also used to walk to the candy store and someone with a nickel would buy a Turkish Taffy (definitely no longer exists). We would go back to the stoop and slam the taffy until it broke into little pieces, and then share it out with the other kids.

Mothers were always yelling out the window to their kids. Sometimes they would call you, then throw money down in a handkerchief and tell you to go to the store for milk or bread. If I ever opened up the back door to call the girls in, my husband would be upset with me for disturbing the neighbors. What neighbors? They're never outside.

I think it's funny when people try to blame lots of heavy school books in backpacks for childrens back problems, but they don't think sitting on the couch or floor hunched over in front of the tv for hours has anything to do with it.

My wife is friendly with the woman next door and i speak to her husband when i occasionly see him. He is a decent sort but he is tee total....so what hope would we have at being good friends

Of all the houses in the street i know,or speak, with maybe 5? My wife knows a few more but not by much. The kids are a different matter,they have friends all over the place.

These days you gotta keep an eye on the kids when they are outside. You have to watch out for the petifiles and people who will steal the kids.

Actually, that's not true. It's a state of fear caused by the media. The truth is, child abductions have decreased significantly over the years.

The FBI, in fact, insists that child abductions by strangers actually have declined. In the 1980s the number of such child abductions averaged annually about 200 to 300, according to the FBI. In 2000, the number of cases dropped to 93 compared with 134 in 1999 and 115 in 1998, when the FBI first began tracking these statistics.

You still have to keep an eye out cuz you never know who's moving in the neighborhood.

Pretty soon we'll be giving our kids tiny GPS implants.

It could happen.

i think they do that in japan actually.

Couldn't that be because people aren't letting their kids roam the neighborhood anymore?

Hello stranger..

Or because the kids don't want to go out and play anymore when all they have to do is stay inside and watch tv and play video games.

told ya things were fine bud, just been busy.

Good to see you check in...

Let me get this out real quick. Server problems again??? This site seems to come and go, but mostly...it's gone.

Good luck Geoff. Stay cool!!!


TIS

Geoff, move these freaking servers, will you???

As for the statistics on child abductions, I would think that the opportunities for pedophiles have never been better. More and more children are on their own as latchkey kids. Also, the internet has broadened the field for them considerably. I was actually surprised that the statistics had gone down.

Edit: Top of page with a triple post!! I deleted the other two.

I think vigilance is on an all-time high.

I'm a little late on the "playing outside" topic. But I'm happy that my kids spend a lot of time outdoors, especially my daughter, who can find a million things to do outside. My younger boy usually is out the door the minute he gets home to play basketball or football with friends. He comes home sweaty and filthy. He still finds lots of time for the Playstation and X-Box though.

I think one of the worst things is that there is never any spontaneous play for most kids. They have to make "play dates". I guess that suburban living has contributed to that. I just remember going outside and there were literally hundreds of kids to play with. In my apartment building, there were 60 families, and mine was one of four such buildings on the block. It was terrific.

Thank you. One of the new concepts that drove me nuts as a young parent was this new phenomenon, "the play date." When I first heard parents referring to it, I thought it was a joke. I can see if you have three or four-year olds, you may have to arrange play times, but I continue to see parents of fifth graders discussing play dates. I think in many cases the parents have a need to control and manipulate. I'm the opposite, my kids control and manipulate me, like it should be.

Anyway, I'll expand upon this rant. In our area we have one particular development where the moms, dads and kids are always smiling, well dressed and squeaky clean. The moms dominate the school PTA and coordinate activities around the schedules and interests of their kids. When I was president of the local Little League baseball and softball association and served on its board, these parents without fail would approach me en masse and tell me that certain kids had to be on certain teams. One dad, who was selected to be a coach, was brazen enough to come to the player draft with a list of 12 boys that he decided would be on his team.

Klyd, My former boss used to refer to those parents as "gifted parents". It's disgusting, and they always monopolize the school committees, etc., and do NOT like to let people into their little club.

We were building a new playground for the elementary school, and it was going to take quite a bit of fundraising. I dutifully went to the first meeting, which was attended by the usual cast of characters. At the time, I was VP of the local economic development corporation and, quite frankly, knew more local businesspeople than anyone. I offered my services, signed up for the fundraising committee, drew up a contact list of businesses that I felt would be amenable to being tapped, and guess what? I was never invited to one single meeting.

You've got them too!

Here's another concept that goes with the "play date": the "team snack." This has been a staple for years in the youth soccer leagues when my kids played. There was always a parent with a sign up sheet at the beginning of the season, making a different kid each week be responsible for bringing a snack and a drink for each of his teammates after the game. This was fine when the kids were 5, but as they get older it can get a little embarrassing. I actually had a parent ask all the other parents exactly what the snacks were going to be weeks in advance. On our weeks for snacks, we'd often be approached by parents to see if we had extra snacks for their other kids who were watching the game. Some of these kids were 13.

I always found it comical that throngs of young kids arrive at the fields in their minivans, play soccer for 40-50 minutes and return to their vans, slurping juice boxes and crunching Oreos.

Did you also have a list of "permitted" snacks?? Our school did. We had to send in a snack, but it had to be a "healthy" snack. We weren't allowed to send in cookies or chips. It had to be fruit or carrot sticks. If we were feeling particularly adventurous, we could send in popcorn! Also, only milk or juice. One of my daughter's friends actually had her chocolate milk taken away from her.

I remember telling a coworker (a childless one) about the list of permitted snacks. She was appalled, and wanted to know when our schools began to be run by fascists!

wtf is up with that...i mean yea kids should be healthy, but i dont think the school systems should have to do that really though i think the parents should tell them to be wise in what they eat...not force them to eat this and not that.

Well the schools are trying to do the parent's job since so many parents don't.

which is sad, and stupid at the same time.

All this talk about lazy kids etc......

Lucky I still have a while before my kid enters this new age technological world..Good luck buddy.

Woke up with a migraine this morning.

It's called the "economy".
Seriously, feel better, Mig.

We haven't had permitted snacks per se, but there were strong suggestions about keeping it wholesome. My wife got upset with me once when I secretly slipped those little packs of candy cigarettes inside the snack bags. I was just happy that i found a store that had carried old-fashioned candy.

I love your co-worker's depiction of "gifted parents." In our elementary school there is so much teacher shopping and lobbying for inclusion in the gifted program. There are approximately 6-7 classes within each grade and there are large groups of kids, who always are placed in the same homeroom every year because of the "gifted parents." They always end up with their teacher of choice too.

The school always worships these people too. When the after school bus for the "gifted parents'" kids was running late, the school administration hurried to empty a bus, which was pulling out of the school to take home the kids of the "less glamorous" parents, and then filled it with the kids from the gifted neighborhood, so they could get home on time.

SB, did you ever see the episode of "Everybody Loves Raymond" where they were entertaining the obnoxious parents of a rude, obnoxious and manipulating kid, whom they labelled as gifted. Nobody was allowed to discipline the brat because he was gifted. The phony smiles dropped from the parents' faces when Raymond's wife referred to him as "special." Anyway, those are a perfect depiction of the gifted parents.

"Gifted parents". What is that all about i ask?

Is it not truly a gift just to be a parent in the first place?