Photo by Mike B
When people asked children before where they wanted to live when they grew up, answers were alike. They want to spend time in the countryside, somewhere quiet. Perhaps, a humble home with a small farm with a wide variety of animals. But with the changes in the world, children now won’t want to live anywhere outside the city.
Children spend most of their time indoors today. If not for the necessity of going out for school, they wouldn’t take a step outside and would rather spend time sedentary, playing games or watching TV. Gone are the days when children desired to frolic under the sun or splash puddles, days when they would cry when they weren’t allowed outside. Now, they’re mostly inside, preferring to stay inside. While they still play with other children, it’s not done physically. Instead, it’s through the internet and technology.
This lifestyle may not pose evident damage to parents. In fact, it would sound safer, with children away from possible stranger danger. However, this sedentary lifestyle increases children’s risk of obesity and other illnesses. The lesser they move their bodies and stay stationary for hours, the less likely they’ll build their immune systems.
With gadgets, games, and entertainment as the common means of keeping them company, children have become highly dependent and perceived as not lasting a day without these. While taking technology away from children can be challenging, parents must impose boundaries.
What’s Life Without Technology?
Technology is everywhere. It has massively influenced how people live, so even adults might find it nearly impossible to imagine a world without it. How much more the children who, for all their lives, have been exposed to it?
Over the past years, society has progressed beyond imaginable heights. While this birthed great inventions and devices, helping people throughout their lives, it has also brought some drawbacks. Cities have now covered countries, tall buildings, and skyscrapers decorating their streets. This provides lesser spaces for forests and greeneries to thrive. These rapid developments have prevented people, especially children, from enjoying and being one with nature.
Life with technology may seem impractical now, but it was achieved before. People lived with little to no technological assistance before and with no regrets. Even without technology and all the entertainment it provides, people were still satisfied with their lives. What’s stopping people from returning and enjoying that lifestyle, even for a few moments? How can one experience a life detached from technology now?
Welcome to the Countryside
When one hears the word countryside, one immediately associates it with the words antique and vintage, a place where everything looks old and cranky. An image of a small hut without electricity, a small farm that has a wide variety of animals, and mud-filled paths pop out of one’s mind.
This is what most people might imagine the countryside as. This imagery might be accurate in the past, but the countryside has also progressed with time. Time in the countryside now doesn’t immediately connect with isolation or everything old-fashioned. Instead, it has become a stop where people can be in tune with nature and unwind.
Spending time in the countryside benefits more than just adults. It also has positive effects on children. Compared to the former, children have lesser ideas about managing their emotions. Instead of successfully controlling them, children typically end up having outbursts which are frowned upon and punished by parents. It’s been scientifically founded that technology isn’t a good tool for children’s emotions since too much exposure to it can lead to emotional problems.
Hence, time off their gadgets can go a long way for their emotional development, and the countryside can help with that. This doesn’t mean parents must take their children to some bootcamp and take their gadgets away. Instead, taking them to the countryside means encouraging them to take a moment out in nature and reap its benefits.
Slow Down
Children need to slow down every once in a while. This isn’t just to help parents take a breather and keep up with them, but more so for their benefit. Children might have become accustomed to instantly getting anything they want, especially with technology’s aid. This has led to some of them becoming impatient and always rushing.
However, time in the countryside moves slower. This gives children room to develop patience and embrace this pace’s comfort. It also allows them to experience nature more intimately, which can help ground themselves and be more mindful.
Room for Imagination
Technology feeds children every information they need. This also applies to the games they play. Everything is more or less laid out for them, leaving them fewer chances to imagine. Nature offers a quiet space for children to cultivate problem-solving and creative thinking.
In the countryside, children are thrust to experience life closely. They aren’t only controlling characters and observing these receive consequences. Instead, they’re maneuvering around the field, doing activities, and experiencing consequences, if any. They’ll be in positions they never have and will never encounter in their games, forcing them to think of solutions.
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