Children's Entertainment - Who needs entertaining?
What price to entertain our children? How much entertainment do
our children need? At the risk of sounding like an old fuddy
duddy, how were children entertained a 100 years ago when there
were no television or computer games? Very simply I would
imagine.
Imagination - The key to all adventures. Babies and small
children will play with simple things like empty boxes, clothes
pegs, pots and pans. To them they are all sorts of things
because they use their imagination. They don't expect to be
entertained with expensive toys or computer systems they just
need to touch and feel things to have fun. Simple songs with
actions will be remembered well beyond childhood years and
hopefully be passed on to the next generation of children
needing to be entertained. Dressing up, making things out of
cardboard and paper, the possibilities are endless all that is
needed is a little imagination.
Birthday parties used to be simple affairs, nowadays our
children expect to have an entertainer or bouncy castle at their
parties. Whatever happened to pass the parcel or blind mans
buff? The more entertainment we provide for our children the
more they seem to need.
Today's society seems to dictate the trend, maybe we should all
try and steer our children gently back to simple entertainment.
Switch the 'telly' off, dig out the board games, if you can
survive the moans and groans of your children then you might
just be able to persuade them that entertainment needn't be just
by means of televisions and computers. You can have fun
together. You can talk and communicate and entertain each other.
Go out to the theatre, see a pantomime, all good fun ways of
entertaining the whole family. Memories are precious, if you
have a great family night out and have fun together, you will
keep the memory for a long time.
Small children used to be given colouring books and pencils, now
the trend is to plonk them down in front of the television and
let it entertain them. Who knows what information they are
subjected to. Children will learn to be inactive, not a healthy
pastime.
How often have you heard the words "I am bored". Does this mean
the child needs to be entertained? Certainly not, if you were to
suggest that you can find something for them to do you will find
that your child miraculously finds something to entertain them.
Something as simple as playing with a ball can be healthy,
amusing, fun, and the more people taking part in the game the
merrier. Which one of us hasn't been involved in a football game
or game of cricket or rounders, which has grown into an
incredible amount of people on both sides. Who cared who won?
Playing and entertaining you was all that mattered and it was
healthy!
Interaction with others will stand our children in good stead by
teaching them social skills and encouraging them to lead a
healthy active lifestyle. So encourage your children to go on
out there, go with them, entertain, be entertained and have fun
!!!