Dear readers, this contest is closed. We will contact the winner offline. Peace out.
Did you see the post last month where Whitney showed how her kids used the summer fun kit from GoGo SqueeZ? It cracked me up. Our children — born at the same hospital and living only 2 miles apart — could not be more different sometimes. Her kids corralled their stuffed animals with chalk circles and balanced bean bag pouches on their bellies.
My sons prefer to run all over the place throwing things at one another. In fact, one of my favorite pregnant games to play with them is a modified version of “fetch” where they chase after what I kick or throw. Stomp rockets, playground balls, and Frisbees are the tools in my arsenal for getting them to go-go-go while I sit-sit-sit.
About that giveaway:
The prize will be a “GoGo Time in the Summertime” kit valued at about $225 like this one pictured including Flip UltraHD Video Camera – White, 8 GB, 2 Hours; play gear like throwing discs and those cherished bean bags; tasty GoGo SqueeZ applesauce; and a large canvas tote bag to carry it all.
To enter: Answer how your childhood memories of playing outside are different from what your child experiences today. We’ll choose one random commenter on August 25, 2011.
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Note: GoGo squeeZ compensated us for participation in this project.We hope you like the outdoor toys and video camera so that you can capture your family’s own special brand of outdoor fun.
When I was young we didnt have to woory as much about diseases carried by bugs, sun damage, and stranger danger. Now it seems like such a scary world!
I was a latchkey kid, so summer outings were few and far between. I try and build some excitement in our summers, tempered with some open ended free range type of play.
As an only child my sons’ childhood is already much different to mine. They are so close in age (18 months with a set of twins) that they will always have a playmate. My eldest gets outside to the park more than I ever did but I didn’t grow up in this lovely Australian climate. My biggest outdoor activity was going shopping with my Mom! Sad but I loved it!
When I grew up, I played outside, caught worms, made tree forts and was told to come home “when the street lights came on.” Nowadays kids lead such different lives. I think that their imaginations are not challenged enough, because they are not using them, instead they are playing video games.
I grew up on a dairy farm, so we had lots of open space and access to ATV’s, moped, lots of room to go biking, but we also had a lot of hard chores to do. Since I live in the city, but son doesn’t have access to go ATVing and stuff, but we go to parks and go biking.
Ditto, Ditto, Ditto about being a free-range child. My parents didn’t have the slightest idea where I was, during the day, and they were totally cool with that. I have fantastic memories of digging up nightcrawers that, in my memories, were as big as anacondas.
Back then I remember my parents just allowing me to go outside and play with no supervision. These days I would never let my daughter go outside without anyone watching her. I also remembered playing with bubbles that you would just blow; nowadays theres actually machines that can do it for you
Childhood has definitely gotten easier!
My momma always made us go outside in play but this day in time it seems all kids want to do is stay indoors. My boys are 5 months old and we go and lay on a blanket outside and they love it so I hope they will be outdoorsy like their mama!
Let’s see. Me – 2 girls, My kids – 2 boys. Then add in that we could go anywhere within a 4+ house radius without checking in at home until dinner time. Definitely not going to be happening for my kids and I think that’s kind of sad. But then again I didn’t have a stay-at-home mom and multiple playgroups so my kids are still having a blast. Just in a different way.
Playing outside as a kid was fun.we did not have many toys and
Games or computers like kids these days.for us it was hide & seek,cricket
Badminton or just prance around outdoors.playing in the rain & throwing
A pebble into a puddle to make our friends wet and slushy )amazing!! A day at the park /zoo playing ball and with our mommies and picnic baskets..)
childhood days were so much of fun that the memories are fresh as if it were just yesterday.love you childhood and so looking forward to relive it with my growing son…)
Playing outside is totally different than when I was a kid. I used to go outside in my neighborhood from the time I got home from school until the sun went down. My friends and I would go from one of our houses to the next playing and exploring. If my parents ever needed me, they would open the front door and yell out my name loud enough that the whole neighborhood could hear, as every parent did. I was just the norm. Today’s outdoor playtime is much more organized and supervised. There are details, rules, precautions, advisories, etc etc, just for them to have some fun.
My child spends only an hour or so outside during the days. The neighborhood is quiet and I often wonder WHERE have all the children gone????? It’s very different from when I was a kid, growing up in Brooklyn, NY when everyone was outside on their stoops and kids spent HOURS riding their bikes, rollerskating, playing tag, running through sprinklers in the streets! Oh how times have changed… in just 30 years.
My childhood seemed free-er: biking all over town, home before street lights came on, no seatbelts, eating dirt, 1 TV, most things were made of metal (swingsets, toys) not plastic, walking 2 miles to school.
My kids (8, 5) can bike as long as I can see them, can have scheduled playdates or play outside when I’m there, always wear seatbelts, they DO eat dirt, we still only have 1 TV, toys are plastic, and they are bussed no matter where they live.
So my boundaries with my kids are stricter than that of my parents. Yet I think I spend more time with my kids and try to simplify and declutter for a simple, fun life.
When we were kids, playing outside was what we did the most, and we loved it. We would play in the garden, in the hammock and swings, play tag in the back yard, bike to the park, grow vegetable gardens, and we didn’t care to be inside. Today, the kids are all hooked up to technology and hardly play outside, read a book, or do real hands-on things.
Sadly, we live on a busy street, so my son is not free to play in the neighborhood like I did. I grew up with my elementary school as my neighbor and at the end of a street, so I was free to run and explore for hours without my mother worrying about my safety. It’s not all bad though. We explore the many parks in our area most of the days each week!
We rode our bikes everywhere except when we took the bus. All by ourselves, all the time.
Oh, my baby will never have the chance to do many of the things we used to do when me and my brother were kids. We used to live all summer with our grandparents in the country and feed chickens and take the cows on the pastures near the Danube river and play hide and seek in the hay and run all over the village all day all by ourselves not having anyone behind us to aks what we’re doing. I used to go with my parents and grandparents and cousins to pick blackberries(not buy them at the store), the kind that grow on the riverside forests, not the ones found here in the PNW USA and fish with our hands in shallow water. I could go on and on…