JoanneKates
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May 14, 2007, 11:59 AM
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The Hub of the Modern Household?
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By Joanne Kates
When the fabulous new Apple all-in-one phone/entertainment center rolled out, there was a lot of talk about it being “revolutionary.” At Microsoft, Bill Gates defended his empire by reminding us that (in his world) the hub of the modern household will the gaming console.
Not in my world. Not now and not ever. The center of my household is the kitchen and dining area. Because my husband and I are “foodies,” we do a lot of cooking together with our kids, and family dinner just follows naturally. It’s not the cooking that matters. A family could sit down to something ordered in or defrosted, and still cherish the same experience of connection and communication. The dinner table is the hub of our household because it’s where we connect with each other.
A computer console, whether it has two joy sticks or not, is a place where people dis-connect from each other. They’re connected to the game, and they may look like they’re playing together, but just as when they’re on MSN or Facebook or MySpace.com or any other computer-based gizmo, where is the human contact? The computer kids are engaging in “parallel play,” a throwback to their toddler years when they played beside but not with their peers in the sandbox. It’s a legitimate and important developmental stage – till you’re about two. After that, your social gears get kinda rusty if parallel play comprises the majority of their exercise.
As parents it’s hard for us to wrest our kids away from the computer. We struggle to set various kinds of limits on their computer time (how much time, where the computer is in the house etc.), but the underlying truth is that it’s generally a losing battle.
All of which is why Camp Arowhon is a “computer-free” place for kids. It’s their opportunity to relate face-to-face 100% of the time, with no gizmos mediating. Their cabin group is their “camp family,” where they’re forced, by the absence of screens ‘n’ keyboards, to relate directly to each other. They get to practice the old-fashioned skill of playing with their friends, which makes the camp environment rich with “social learning.” This is the stuff that used to come more naturally to kids, pre-computers, when they rode their bikes around the block and hung out with the neighbourhood kids…….. The social skills that used to be “invisible” include: keeping friendships working, how to manage small conflicts with your friends and stay friends, how to integrate new kids into the group…. This is the true gold that glitters at the heart of the summer camp experience.
Joanne Kates is a highly successful freelance writer in Canada and the US and is the Director of Camp Arowhon in Algonquin Park, Ontario
She is the author of Exploring Algonquin Park: The Personal and Complete Guide
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(This post was edited by JoanneKates on May 29, 2008, 8:47 AM)
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