Monday, November 16, 2009

Keeping kids occupied......

Because, apparently, there has been a lot of vandalism in our and other isolated areas of the shire, there is going to be a meeting to see what can be done to create entertainment for the kids of these areas. This seems to presuppose that kids need the entertainment that kids in the cities also require often take for granted and even abuse in many instances, though even they vandalise various things in various ways in their communities. People consider graffiti vandalising, and maybe that's true of just tagging, because tagging is rather brainless and shows neither skill nor talent but just that someone can wield a spray can in a certain movements to create a line form that could possibly, but most likely not, be considered clever? Real artwork with spray cans should be considered art and facilities made available where these could be created and displayed. Even have a yearly prize for the best creation?

If we presuppose that kids of today are not happy building cubby house and playing in trees and using their imagination to create physical forms of entertainment on their own, what do these children of the modern day want or need? To “hang” out with their peers to do what? Vandalise things, smoke cigarettes, experiment with drugs, bully weaker members of their group, try out sex in various forms - or what are they looking for? There are swimming pools, but swimming and learning to use water as an entertainment medium and as a way of being cool in the real physical sense and at the same time challenging the ability to swim on top or underwater is not enough. many of these facilities are just another meeting point where kids can get ideas to do something else, like smoking taking drugs or just vandalising the facilities to obtain the buzz of doing forbidden things. Kids in areas like our own could gather to tag or graffiti train carriages or steal fruit, but there being no fruit and less trains in this isolated area, kids must find something else that gives them the buzz, the rite of passage that confirms to their peers that they should be taken seriously.

This is an ongoing problem which cannot be solved for the main body of young people, much less the individual that could be considered the most difficult to amuse. Even with organised activities like bike rides or trekking, there will be the need for some of doing something daring, a bit scary, like hiding in the bushes as everyone passes by, to smoke or take a chance at showing each other their genitalia and such things.

Is it that we cannot identify with our children any more. That we are lost to the way things were when we were young, the things that we felt and had to try out, that are now old hat and out of fashion or appears tame by comparison to the expectation of young people of this generation and what they think they want or need to do in this day and age. Is there a need to bring back boxing gyms so that boys and girls can learn something that might tire them physically and challenge them mentally, but has the problem of pitting one against the other? Do we really want something like this to be part of our children's growing up, or should there be again something like the sea cadets, and is the YMCA still relevant, and if so why aren't children flocking to these? Scouts, cubs, brownies and guides and venturers and such have gone by the board, though they do exist in some places still. These could be reincarnated here possibly and then these groups could do work for the community? Have these activities and groups vanished not because there are no children interested, but rather because there are no adults willing to take on the supervision of children or the activities and if the lack of adult participation is to blame, why has this happened? Is there the element of adults being afraid to take on that kind of responsibility, the fear that children might be physically hurt and all the problems associated with that?

Do our kids still go to picture theatres to see the movie or to do something elicit, because we were much that way inclined ourselves, depending on the movie being screened, the opportunity and participants in anything that was going to give us the excitement we craved; if we had such a facility close at hand. We have to ask if building facilities like pools and picture theatres and such, if the money were available, is the answer to even a small part of this problem. Trying to find a way round this dilemma is well overdue, not only here but everywhere in the country.