Product Giveaway October 14!!

Todays product is Heidi Swapp Clear Jewels!!



Today we would like to know what is something you remember from your childhood that you think the kids of today are missing out on?

Entries must be in by midight tonight for a chance to win the jewels!!

I would have to say FREEDOM!! The freedom to walk down the road and not be watching over your shoulder for strangers, and the freedom to say what you are thinking and not be laughed at.... etc etc etc!

I could go on for ever with this!! I don't mean freedom to go out and party and that sort of stuff, but the freedom to not have to scutinize everybody you meet!!

I would have to say running under the sprinkler! In these days of water restrictions, most kids do not know what it is like to spend a whole summer's day just playing under the sprinkler...it was the best!
Another one is not being afraid of germs! These days everything is anti-bacterial "this and that" and people worry too much about keeping their kids safe from every speck of dirt. In my day, I ate dirt, rarely washed my hands before I ate, kissed dogs ON THE FACE, ate food when I dropped it on the floor and I SURVIVED! I grew up with no allergies or problems...kids these days need SOME germs!

I agree Sue!! Lets send the kids out to eat some dirt!!

I can't stop mine anyway - she eats everything she finds!!!

Walking. I know my kids do alot of walking because I don't drive but there are some kids who don't live that much further away from school than we do who have never walked to school. They get chauffeur driven everywhere. I know part of this is linked to the freedom issue Vicki brought up but some of it is just laziness or poor time management (not allowing enough time to walk to school). I've seen people drive 150m to drop their kids at school. It also means kids aren't learning road safety as much. When kids used to come home to play, when my kids were younger, some had no idea.

Re: germs - I never bothered about this too much. It's good to have some germs.

Yummy yummy
My sister sucking snails out of their shells....eeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww still makes my tummy turn every time i think about it!!
xoxo

I would walk with my friends to the corner store with change and come out with a bag full of lollies.

*Letting my DS/DD walk that far now would make me nervous (without supervision, not that I don't trust them... the stangers I don't trust)

*Not many corner stores left where you can even get mixed lollies

*Small change wouldn't get you hardly anything now!

I still drive past the shop I went to with my friends after school, "Essy's". The windows are boarded over....

decent programmes on tv.

we had such great programmes on when younger like fragglerock, jem to name some .

I'm with all of you on this one, miss having the freedoms that we had. Mind you we now live in a great street and I let the kids go down the road to a friends house but it wasn't like that where we used to live. We used to go to our school and play for hours riding our bikes and scooters. I had big Pinky-purple one, scooter that is not bike.

Sprinklers wow did we have so much fun as kids with the sprinkler.

The coners shop with the mix bag of lollies. When I go visit my Mum and Dad it is hard to drive past the shop all boarded over.

And as far as I am concerned a bit of dirt eating never hurt anyone. Mind you we used to make mud pies as well and with the water restrictions I don't let my kids do that either. Hopefully some of this spring rain we are getting will help ease the drought for the farmers. I'm not so sure about the snail sucking though!

I used to love Fraggle Rock. How good was that. That was a T.V. show I missed off the list the other day. I did see it a couple of years ago on at a really strange time on ABC.

I just think kids have to grow up so fast now days. I never had computers, game boys, DS's, playstations and the like and I sure never missed out on anything. Getting out and playing and not having so much homework to do as well would be a good thing to get back to.

There are so many things, I just don't know where to start.

The thing I miss the most is my freedom, being able to do pretty much anything and not worry about something bad happening to you.

just reading some of your answers.... its so sad isn't it?

I lived on the farm.... so my kids are living totally different to what I am.... not very outdoorsy like I was! We were always playing outside....

and it's such a shame the kids can't walk around and not be worried about strangers.... even I AM!!!

am i with you about bag mixed lollies!
Also, what about making a cubby house in the trees. I loved that, but any good bushy tree gets destroyed now.

I grew up on a farm as well and I agree with you Charm. My life was totally different. We didn't even have TV until I went to high school and we had no problem entertaining ourselves. The kids of today have so many electronic toys that they don't know how to use their imagination the way we used to...

fullofscrap wrote:I grew up on a farm as well and I agree with you Charm. My life was totally different. We didn't even have TV until I went to high school and we had no problem entertaining ourselves. The kids of today have so many electronic toys that they don't know how to use their imagination the way we used to...

I didn't have TV as a kid either and its amazing the difference now with my girls. They just take it for granted that they can come home and watch Roller Coster with Elliot each day. One day when the power was off they wanted to know what Ihad done to the TV so they couldn't watch it!!!!!
xoxo

I think children are missing out on appreciating the simple things in life. Like when I was a kid, I spent the majority of my time climbing trees, scraping my knees and generally using my imagination to the hilt. In general, I find children today have so much less unstructured time than kids did 20
years ago that the benefits of this playtime are unfortunately being lost. There is actually a form of "peer-group pressure" at my daughter's school as to how many after school activities one can jam into the week. It's pretty full-on and the majority do run on a tight schedule. I'm on the opposite side of the scale - I think just let kids be kids and if they develop an interest in something then I'm sure it's worthwhile looking into. But a six year old doing gymnastics, swimming, dancing, netball, and little athletics is (in my opionion) just a little OTT. There just wasn't this competitive nature "in my day". Things just seemed more relaxed, and kids weren't scheduled like they are training for the Olympics or whatever!

Everything that I thought of has already been mentioned. I agree that kids just cant do what we used to do as it just isn't considered safe anymore.

Because I think this is put so well I thought I would share it with you - but it isn't mine - just something that has been sent by e-mail to me several times....Hope you enjoy!

According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the 50's, 60's, and 70's probably shouldn't have survived!
Our baby cots were covered with brightly coloured lead-based paint which was promptly chewed and licked.
We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, or latches on doors or cabinets and it was fine to play with pans.
When we rode our bikes, we wore no helmets, just flip flops and fluorescent clackers' on our wheels.
As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. Riding in the passenger seat was a treat.
We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle - tasted the same.
We ate dripping sandwiches, bread and butter pudding and drank fizzy pop with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside playing.
We shared one drink with four friends, from one bottle or can and no one actually died from this.
We would spend hours building go-carts out of scraps and then went top speed down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into stinging nettles a few times, we learned to solve the problem.
We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back before it got dark. No one was able to reach us all day and no one minded.
We did not have Playstations or X-Boxes, no video games at all. No 99 channels on TV, no videotape movies, no surround sound, no mobile phones, no personal computers, no Internet chat rooms. We had friends - we went outside and found them.
We played elastics and street rounders, and sometimes that ball really hurt.
We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits. They were accidents. We learnt not to do the same thing again.
We had fights, punched each other hard and got black and blue- we learned to get over it.
We walked to friend's homes.
We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate live stuff, and although we were told it would happen, we did not have very many eyes out, nor did the live stuff live inside us forever.
We rode bikes in packs of 7 and wore our coats by only the hood.
Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law. Imagine that!
This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever. The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.

I agree about the feeling free...I think it is safety.

It's all true!!!! But I do have many memories where Sue and I would get home from primary school and disappear for the afternoon on our bikes. We would come home when we knew dinner was ready!!

We had to be home when the street lights came on. i think today we place too many pressures on our kids. school, sports,this, that, and everything wlse. We are getting them to lead busy lives already and theyre JUST KIDS.

karennarelle wrote:We had to be home when the street lights came on. i think today we place too many pressures on our kids. school, sports,this, that, and everything wlse. We are getting them to lead busy lives already and theyre JUST KIDS.

I totally agree!! What happened to just being a kid??? Most of the kids we know do something each night after school and on the weekend too!!! How do mums and dads who work keep it up??? No wonder most of us are always tired and grumpy!!!