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A Great Neighborhood Life for Your Kids? It’s a Lot of Work, and It Begins When Kids Are Toddlers

2008-10-26T22:15:01-08:00

Buy a house where lots of other preschoolers live and cars don’t zoom by: This year, we moved into a house that is surrounded by 12 preschoolers in a two-house radius and is on a street with very little traffic. The “raw materials” we have at this new house create fabulous conditions for neighborhood play, but even here, it still takes some work. Every one or two weeks, one street play event including kids and parents spontaneously comes together. This is great, but it needs to be a lot more frequent to become a fixture that kids around here can count on.

Keep screens (television, computer, and videogames) off until the kids go to bed: We’re radicals about this. We believe that our kids will be better off if they never even consider the option of sitting in front of a screen. So, we never watch a television or use a computer in their presence. When Marco needs to think of something to do, say, after coming home from school or after dinner, playing is pretty much his only desirable alternative. So, he plays an awful lot. If you can’t eliminate screens completely from your kids’ lives, please try to limit them. For most kids in America, screens soak up pretty much all the “free time” they have.

Take the kids outside in the neighborhood every day: After dinner pretty much every weekday evening, and during each weekend day, we go out and do something in the neighborhood. Some days, Marco and I ride bikes or play street hockey while my wife and Nico walk on the sidewalk. Other days, we all stroll to neighbors’ houses and knock on doors. It can even be as simple as hanging out in the front yard as neighbors go by so we can wave and, we hope, chat. We do this practically every evening, as a habit, regardless of whether there is something in particular to do or not. Now, we’re even doing these things in the dark, now that the sun is going down early, aided by headlamps we wear.

The crucial point is that this is a habit. It’s what we do when we don’t have something in particular to do. Kids’ habits form early in their lives - that’s why television advertising executives are so much more interested in young audience than old audience. So, it’s very important to my wife and I that our kids’ first habit for spending free time is going outside to play in the neighborhood. What do you do at home after dinner when you don’t have anything in particular to do? You probably flip on the TV or your computer, but think how much better for your kids it would be if your first impulse was to bring them outside into the neighborhood. I discuss these tactics further in this previous article.

Make our front and back yards into attractions for kids and parents in the neighborhood: One very important and overlooked reason why neighborhoods have been losing out to screens (television, videogames, and computers) and structured activities is that neighborhoods have gotten no more interesting over the past few decades, while screens and structured activities have become far more interesting. If you think about it for a moment, it’s difficult to blame kids for spending far less time playing in neighborhoods that have no more interesting attractions (e.g. play structures) today than they did decades ago when television now has hundreds of channels, videogames are so lifelike, the entire world of the Internet has evolved to become a vast global social medium, and structured activities far more sophisticated and numerous than ever are being offered.

So, we’re renovating our front yard and back yard to make them into interesting attractions for kids and parents. In other words, we want our front and back yards to be far more alluring than every front and back yard we’ve ever seen. If we can do that, then maybe, just maybe, some kids in our neighborhood will come by our yards frequently to hang out with our kids, creating a “Third Place” as described by Ray Oldenburg in his landmark book, The Great Good Place. Because few if any parents even try to make theirs into neighborhood attractions, I don’t think we’re setting an overly high bar for ourselves.

I’ve written a bit about our front yard renovation here. There’s a lot more to say, but I’m waiting to unveil what we’re doing until construction is underway after the first of next year. I’ll just say for now that it’s very exciting.

Regarding our back yard, we’re planning to build a large and elaborate playhouse that will double as a play structure. I’ll write more about this in a future entry as the plans firm up, but I’ll say here that this is very exciting, too!

Many more concrete examples of what can be done with front yards to make them attractions come from my article on front yard innovations in Portland, Oregon.

Decades ago, all parents had to do was say, “Go outside and play” to get their kids to play in their neighborhoods.

Today, on the other hand, parents who don’t take a lot of effort to make this happen when their kids are toddlers are likely to be driving their school-aged kids around to activity…

Bringing Community to Your Front Yard and/or Sidewalk

2008-10-03T15:55:00-08:00

Local Governmental Approval
It’s not clear to me why local governments should care about what we put in our front yards, but, well, they usually do care. Sidewalks are a different matter, because they are government-built and maintained, and serve a public purpose.

In the case of my front yard in Menlo Park, first I, and then my landscape architect, have met with Menlo Park City officials (in the planning and transportation departments) many times to get preliminary approval for our draft design. This has taken a couple of months so far, not because these officials are not responsive, but because we’re proposing things they’ve never considered before. This process is going well, and I expect that we’ll get that preliminary approval very soon.

I stress the word preliminary because we haven’t submitted plans for exactly what we want to build yet. By asking what sorts of things would get approved before submitting final plans, we save a lot of time and money because creating final plans is time-consuming. Also, city planners usually prefer to have a chance to give feedback on elements of a preliminary design prior to considering a design for final approval.

Notwithstanding all this discussion of local government approval, I do not always believe that asking for approval is a good idea. Often, it may make sense to “just do it” and hope that you fly under the radar of local government bureaucrats. This is particularly the case if you believe that no neighbors will complain and if you suspect that the answer from the government might be “no” if you ask.

The history of the efforts in Portland I mentioned at the top of this article is relevant here. Mark Lakeman, one of the leaders of the first efforts at Share-it Square, told me he and his neighbors “just did it” at first, but in pushing forward, they found a sympathetic advocate in Portland city government. It was quite helpful that were able to show that a large majority of neighbors approved of what they were doing.

In fact, Lakeman and his colleagues were able to get a new law passed in Portland that allows for the kinds of changes to streets, sidewalks, and front yards in an area if at least 80% of nearby residents approve.

Neighbor Approval
Ultimately, the logic behind governments getting involved in what you put in front of your house is that they are representing the collective interests of neighbors. So, if your neighbors approve of what you have put there, it’s difficult for the government to argue against it.

In addition, you have to live with your neighbors, so doing things that they oppose would seem to be a bad idea, particularly since the whole point of the facilities I’m describing here are to promote good neighbor relations. In fact, the more neighbors see what you are placing in front of your house as theirs, the greater the likelihood that they will adopt it and even help you maintain it.

Certainly, Lakeman and his colleagues in Portland have done a masterful job in garnering community support for all their projects. The Share-It Square experience described above is but one example of the great work that the non-profit that Lakeman helped found, City Repair has done there to build grassroots support for community projects.

However, there are two primary reasons why you may delay trying to win neighbors’ approval until you have erected the new facility, or why you may want to avoid certain neighbors entirely. First, some ideas, especially very new and strange ones, are best communicated in concrete, tangible form. In other words, you may believe that, “once they see it, they’ll get it.” Of course, waiting until you have created the facility before showing it to neighbors risks the possibility that they’ll hate it and oppose it after you’ve expended a lot of time and money.

Second, asking neighbors “permission” makes them feel like they have veto power over what you’re doing. To mitigate this problem and still get a feel for what they think about your plan before you build it, you could mention it as something you’re doing, not something you need their permission for.

In the case of my front yard family room, I’m having casual conversations about what I’m doing (not asking for permission!) with selected individual neighbors, one at a time, as I’m working on getting official approval from the City.

Building and Installing the Facility
The facilities at Portland’s Share-It Square include a kids’ playhouse made out of tree branches, a stone & concrete couch, a wooden message board, a wooden tea stand, a wooden book exchange stand, and a wooden general item exchange stand. (You can view pictures here.)

These appear to be non-professionally made, yet quite functional. My guess is that neighbors created each of these in their garages from a combination of used parts and new materials.

If you have the time and inclination, creating things like this with your kids can be a very engaging weekend activity.

On the other hand, I’ve engaged a professional landscape design and build firm to design our outdoor living room and build all its components. I chose to hire a professional designer and builder because we’re creating an entire environment, not one individual item, so the task is more complex. I want everything to work together well and look aesthetically pleasing, too.

In two recent articles I described how people are putting things in their front yards and sidewalks to promote community. First, I described my initial thoughts for an ”outdoor family room” for my front yard in Menlo Park, Califor…

When Communities Take Over Their Own Streets

2008-09-23T15:55:00-08:00

The first, and perhaps still the best, example of Lakeman’s genius is the intersection close to his house now called ”Share-It Square.” On the pavement of the intersection itself is a mural painted by nearby residents and refreshed or amended every year. Surrounding the intersection on the four corners the many structures shown in the photos below:

From the photos here, you can see that these structures are made, heavily used, and well-maintained by the residents themselves. In addition, note that many homeowners in the broader surrounding area have erected structures similar to these, so the idea has spread to the entire neighborhood.

Not only do neighbors frequent Share-It Square everyday to pass away free time, but they also use it for major events in their lives. Many important events have taken place there, including many weddings like Lakeman’s last year.

Practically all members of the neighborhood have come to embrace the changes there. In a survey a few years ago, an overwhelming majority (over 85% in each case) felt that crime had decreased, traffic had slowed, and communication between neighbors had improved. In addition, Lakeman told me that real estate agents claim that properties in that neighborhood are much more in demand.

So how you do this in your neighborhood? Won’t your city’s planning department shoot you down if you erect a couch or message board next to your sidewalk? And what about the inevitable resistance from anti-change neighbors? Is this only possible in Portland? I’ll address these questions in a subsequent article.

I had an amazing day in Portland, Oregon last week. I got a tour of sidewalks, front yards, and intersections all over the city where people have erected structures for people to interact and share.

Leading me on the tour was Mark Lakeman, the father of this movement in Portland. He’s founder the nonprofit community transformation organization, City Repair, and he’s also the founder and leader of Communitecture, an architectural firm that focuses on projects that build community relations.

I was quite inspired by what I saw. You see, the other broad-based efforts I’ve identified on to increase community interactions - co-housing and new urbanism - are quite limited in reach because both usually require building everything from scratch.

The innovations I saw in Portland, on the other hand, infused new opportunities for community interactions into existing neighborhoods at very low cost. The approach inspired by Lakeman is to add simple community-friendly facilities to sidewalks, front yards, and intersections. In other words, we can implement these ideas today, right at our present homes, to increase neighborly relations.

Is Shunning Modern Technology Worth It?

2008-09-15T14:18:00-08:00

This is starting to turn out well, we think, but even if it does make them more community-oriented, is it worth it? After all, there are great benefits to these technologies. There is no doubt that some television can be quite entertaining, and driving in a car can be mighty convenient. In the meantime, very often when we go outside, there’s no one there but us because all our neighbors are inside watching screens or away from their houses in their cars.

Besides, we don’t want to isolate ourselves from our friends and neighbors who use these modern technologies. Recall that we want to spend more time with them, not less. So, are we just wasting all this effort? Perhaps all our efforts to limit our children’s exposure to these technologies will seem foolish in a few years when they start experiencing them at their friends’ houses.

My wife and I struggle with these questions. Certainly, a good argument can be made that the costs of shunning these technologies isn’t worth the benefit, and that, even if that’s not the case, we’re wasting our time trying to be different from everyone else.

So, we’re doing everything we can to tilt the odds in favor of success. First, we spent two and a half years searching for a new home in a neighborhood where it’s likely our kids will have lots of outdoor play opportunities with other kids their ages. Second, now that we’re here, we’re working very hard to build ties with our neighbors. Practically every day, we’re outside talking with neighbors.

Third, we’re investing a lot of time and money into building an ”outdoor family room” in our front yard. This will, we hope, significantly increase the outdoor fun opportunities for all children in our neighborhood, including ours.

While we’re having fun doing all of this now (house-hunting was not fun!), my wife and I do believe that we’re racing against time. Once our oldest is in school and starts hanging with friends a lot, he’s going to compare his home life with that of his friends, complete with television, videogames, computers, and car rides to all sorts of activities.

We really hope he and his friends agree that our life in our neighborhood is “cooler” than his friends’ lives. Our dream is that our house and the surrounding neighborhood become the hangout of choice for our son and his friends. We’d even settle for a tie - if our son spent half his days hanging out at his friends, and half in our front yard and neighborhood.

Televisions, videogames, and computers. Our two boys (4 and 10 months) have barely ever seen any of them. Cars? Well, yes, they ride in cars everyday, but they also ride bikes with me - the oldest on his own bike, the youngest in a trailer - practically every day to go to school, to go to a park, to pick up groceries, or just to play.

Among other motivations, my wife and I are attracted by the idea that limiting exposure to these technologies will cause them to participate in our neighborhood far more than they would otherwise. We think that’s a very, very good thing.

Facilitating Character Development in Our Neighborhood: A Different Approach to Parenting

2008-09-08T10:35:00-08:00

Our oldest is four, so we’re still trying to figure all this out. We haven’t yet encountered much of the parent peer pressure that afflicts elementary school parents.

We very much want our kids to have some measure of autonomy to decide what they do, with whom, and when. Of course, we want them to be safe and smart, but most importantly, we also want them to have a strong sense of who they are and what they can contribute to the world.

William Damon writes of the crisis of American children’s lack of a sense of identity in his recent book, The Path to Purpose. He describes today’s youth as being unusually lacking in a sense of purpose in their lives. “They report an inner life of anxiety and a sense of feeling trapped in a life that is not under their own control. They feel disappointed in themselves and discouraged by what life has offered them thus far. They despair at the emptiness and meaninglessness of their daily activities.”

Madeline Levine writes of the problems of alienation in current adolescents in The Price of Privilege. The book is devoted to discussing a swelling tide of adolescents who, “indulged, coddled, pressured and micromanaged on the outside, . . . appear to be inadvertently deprived of the opportunity to develop an inside.” Levine adds, “They lack spontaneity, creativity, enthusiasm and, most disturbingly, the capacity for pleasure.” Many end up very depressed, listless, or even suicidal.

Today, Levine writes that fewer and fewer adolescents

. . . are able to resist the constant pressure to excel. Between accelerated academic courses, multiple extracurricular activities, premature preparation for high school or college, special coaches and tutors engaged to wring the last bit of performance out of them, many kids find themselves scheduled to within an inch of their lives. . . As a result, kids can’t find the time, both literal and psychological, to linger in internal exploration; a necessary precursor to a well developed sense of self.

Wow… That’s a breathtakingly eloquent argument against the hyper-involved parenting approach that’s in vogue these days.

So, my wife and I have figured out what we don’t want to do, but that still begs the question, what do we do?

Well, our basic idea is to try to be facilitators for our children to find their own identities and achieve their highest potential while teaching some absolute guidelines for safety and morality.

As facilitators, we want to bring our children into challenging situations, model behavior for them, and then provide them with the opportunity to start doing parts of these things on their own. It’s important that we do this in our own neighborhood, so we can monitor and guide the process as we feel we need to.

I’ll give you an example. My son Marco just turned four, and practically every day he and I ride our bikes in our neighborhood. In a few short months he’s gotten very agile on a bike, and his judgment has improved tremendously.

He’s still a four-year-old, but his maturity on a bike is very impressive. He and I regularly cross El Camino Real (a large six-lane road) together, and my wife and I now let him ride the sidewalks and street in front of our house without our watching. We still check in frequently, but due to lots of maturing through experience, he’s proven to us that he can handle it.

In addition to riding with him, I spend a lot of time walking with him to neighbors houses for chats and impromptu play sessions. Because he’s become so comfortable in front of our house, we’ve encouraged him to go knock on our next-door-neighbors’ doors himself when he hits a ball into their yards and wants to retrieve it. So far, this has worked out quite well.

Finally, as I’ve written earlier, we’re working on making our front yard into an outdoor family room. The big idea here is that our kids will gain confidence and social skills as they entertain guests who come to their home turf without the invitation of parents.

So, we’re working hard for our kids, but we’re not doing the things that “model parents” around us are doing - choosing friends, setting up playdates, coaching their sports teams, working at their schools, or driving them to lots of structured activities. Instead, we’re trying to build a strong foundation in our neighborhood for our kids to develop their confidence and their own identities. Of course, since it’s right outside our front door, we can get involved anytime we feel we need to.

We’ll see how this works out, but thus far, we’re quite excited by the possibilities…

Model parents of today love their kids so much, they choose friends for them. They set up play dates for them. They coach their sports teams. They work in their schools. They plan myriad structured activities for them, and then they take them there.

This is how we define excellent parenthood in the 21st century. The more involvement in our kids’ lives, the better.

I’m a bit embarrassed to say my wife and I don’t want to do any of these things. Any. We don’t want to choose our kids’ friends, set up play dates, coach their sports teams, work in their schools, or drive them to tons of structured activities.

Does this mean we’re bad parents? Well, maybe, but not necessarily.

Screen Time Might Be Good for Kids’ Brains, But You Should Still Pull the Plug

2008-07-28T16:36:00-08:00

Johnson argues that these complex screen activities strengthen IQs considerably more than old-fashioned, less complex activities of decades gone by. I haven’t read his book closely enough to evaluate that assertion, but I do agree with the fundamental assertion that children are not wasting their brains away sitting in front of screens.

All this doesn’t mean that you should give your kids as much screen time as they want. In spite of my acceptance of Johnson’s central thesis, I still maintain that parents should severely curtail or eliminate screen time for young children, and ration it for tweens and teenagers. Here’s why:

Very little kids - e.g. pre-reading age kids - need to get a firm grasp of the physical world before they explore “screen worlds.” More 10-year-olds than ever, I’d conjecture, have a hard time dealing with real people and real world situations. That’s a big problem.

If left to do whatever they please, many children will not acquire adequate social skills to deal with real people in the real, physical world. After all, the default in most communities is for kids to stay inside and escape into screens. I’d argue that all kids will end up getting exposed to screen activities whether their parents like it or not, so parents are wise to embargo or at least ration these.

Our bodies clearly prefer physical exercise to the sedentary lifestyle of a videogame nerd. As kids mature into adults, and then to middle-aged adults, their brains are going to need their bodies to be physically active. A brain of massive intellectual capacity is of little use if it’s attached to an obese body with diabetes on dialysis.

Anytime too many people start agreeing with each other, I get suspicious. So, recently, I’ve grown a bit uncomfortable with the fact that many parents agree with my assertion that screen time (TV, videogames, and computers) is bad for kids.

I started to think about all the benefits of screen time. Steven Johnson has written an entire book making this case entitled, Everything Bad is Good for You.

Essentially, Johnson’s argument is that a great deal of kids’ screen activities today are quite complex. Videogames like World of Warcraft or online social networks like MySpace or Facebook demand cognitive skills beyond the reach of most middle-aged adults. I would add, parenthetically, that the least complex screen medium, television, is falling out of favor among children at a rapid rate.

High Gasoline Prices are Good for Children

2008-07-09T22:59:00-08:00

Three recent articles illustrate this point. First, this article in The Wall Street Journal discusses how housing prices in the central cores of large American cities are not dropping while prices in surrounding suburbs are.

Second, this article in The Atlantic Monthly contends that suburbs without compact town centers or efficient public transportation links to the city center are falling out of favor, to become, the title suggests, “The Next Slums.” Home prices are dropping rapidly, with many homes remaining unoccupied while waiting to be sold.

Third, this Wall Street Journal article details the city of Sacramento’s new plan for “smart growth” - i.e. clustering the places where people live more closely with the businesses where they work and shop.

In essence, there is currently a movement away from car-dominated communities toward walkable communities. The Atlantic article discusses how residential developers these days are responding to these trends in demand by building not only lofts and condos in city centers, but also new communities in suburbs that are compact and walkable. The latter are often dubbed “traditional neighborhood developments” or “new urbanism.”

A few months ago, I wrote a series of articles on one such community called The Waters. In the article on Kids’ Lives, I describe how the design of that community creates a great environment for children to grow up. It seems like every child plays outside practically every day with friends. The community was designed to be walkable - with all sorts of places of interest within a 5-minute walk, and with streets that strongly discourage fast car traffic.

If $5/gallon gasoline convinces even a small percentage - say 10% - of Americans to move to communities like this, I think it’s well worth it. It’s just a shame that it’s taking an economic crisis for us to consider a lifestyle that’s so much better for our children.

Adults drive cars. Children don’t. They walk or ride bikes.

In suburban areas built mostly for cars, adults in cars dominate. On the other hand, children suffer. They usually stay inside or wait to get driven by their parents because: 1) most places of interest are not within walking or biking distance, and 2) the streets are unsafe for young pedestrians or bicyclists.

Fortunately for children, high gasoline prices are making adults less interested in driving their cars, and more interested in walking.

Reason #1 to Talk to Neighbors - It’s an Investment

2008-06-19T04:15:00-08:00

I have two different approaches to answering the question, “why talk to your neighbors?” I’ll discuss the first, the investment rationale, in this article. I’ll discuss the other, the serendipity rationale, in another article.

So how is neighbor relations a rational investment of time? Simply put, close neighbor relations can make your life better, so time you spend on it today should pay off well in the future.

Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone is full of examples of how high “social capital” in local communities creates safer communities and extends the lives of inhabitants.

So, there is ample evidence that your kids will be safer and you will live longer if your community has high “social capital” - i.e. a sense of social trust and mutual interconnectedness, which is enhanced over time though positive interaction and collaboration in shared interests.

In addition, while I know of no specific scientific evidence to this effect, I’m absolutely sure that kids who with other neighborhood kids are happier, better socially adjusted, etc.

So, since we are all rational people who want our kids to be safe, happy, and socially adjusted, and since we all want to live longer, we should all be active members of our neighborhoods, right? Well, the fact is that we aren’t. In fact, fewer and fewer people have any real substantive neighborhood relationships.

The problem is that the social capital of an active neighborhood is a “public good” because a neighbor can enjoy the benefits of it without “paying” the costs of organizing the neighborhood. In other words, he or she can be a “free rider.” Economics tells us that there may be a tendency for societies to provide too few public goods (too few from the point of view of overall social welfare).

Years ago, parents and children spent a lot less time cooped up inside their homes than they do today, so having relationships with neighbors was easy. In a previous entry I show a video of my interview with my father, in which he talks about growing up in a day before television, computers, or air conditioning.

These days, for most great neighborhoods, it takes the heroic, selfless hard work of one or a few neighbors to organize their neighborhood into a real community. These neighbors organize block parties, neighborhood watch groups, or frequent playdates between local children (however, when playdates are between just two children, the neighborhood at large hardly benefits).

So, if you’re not one of these “neighborhood organizer” types and you live in a neighborhood where neighbors don’t know each other, what can you use for motivation to get out there and meet your neighbors? Isn’t the rational investment approach - i.e. kids will be happier/safer/more social, and you’ll live longer - enough for you? In the next article, I’ll describe another way to justify getting involved in your neighborhood, the “serendipity rationale.”

Many families these days have decided to essentially “blow off” their neighbors. Their members walk out of their houses only to get into their cars, and later they drive their cars home and walk inside their houses. They give zero to their neighborhood and ask for zero in return.

I’m sure you know families like this. Perhaps yours is one of these. Before saying, “No, not us!” ask yourself how many times in the last month you have had a real conversation with a neighbor. Merely waving or saying “hello” doesn’t count.

So, why should you take the time to get to know your neighbors? After all, most, if not all of us despair that we don’t have enough time to do the things we know we enjoy - get together with our friends, play sports we love, read books that interest us, go to events that interest us, etc.

Reason #2 to Talk to Your Neighbors - Mindfulness

2008-06-25T11:18:00-08:00

So, we live our lives with our blinders on, largely ignoring things around us that might interfere with the next appointment or the videogame we’re so intent on playing.

What does all this have to do with neighbors and neighborhoods? Well, I contend that there’s nothing in our lives that we Americans pass over “with blinders” more than our neighborhoods. Our neighborhoods are our immediate environments outside our houses. Most of us pass through them multiple times a day, barely noticing a thing.

So what would you gain from opening your mind and senses to your neighborhood?

You’d Find Things You’d Enjoy: If we just gave our neighborhoods a chance, we’d surely find things to enjoy. I recently walked around my block collecting flowers with my 4-year-old son. I was amazed by all the varieties of flowers. Now, I actually see all the flowers in our block, and I really enjoy seeing them as I pass them every day.
Moreover, we shouldn’t discount the people in our neighborhoods just because they seem to have different interests than we do. You’re quite likely to meet at least a couple of people you enjoy talking to. In any event, your neighbors don’t have to be your best friends. If you exchange a few words and a real smile with a neighbor once every few days, that’s enough.

You’d Create Better Habits of Living: If you have blinders on as you pass through your neighborhood every day, you probably have blinders on most of the time. It’s pretty difficult, if not impossible, to open our mind and senses sometimes but not at other times.
Buddhists call the mode of consciousness I’m describing here ”mindfulness." They argue pretty convincingly that mindfulness is very difficult to achieve, so that it must become a way of life, not merely a behavioral choice that can be turned on and off.
Although I can’t prove it in this article, I believe as Andre does that “if you’re just living mechanically, then you have to change your life.” Jim Valvano, former coach of the North Carolina State Wolfpack basketball team, expressed a similar sentiment in a different way at an electrifying speech at the ESPY Awards in 1993. He advised the audience that they should strive to do three things every day: laugh, think, and cry (see the video below).

Your Children Deserve Real Childhoods: Even if you don’t completely buy what I say above about how you should live your life, I think you’ll agree that your children would benefit from experiencing a rich life in your neighborhood. As I said at the beginning of this article, young children are naturals at finding wonder in every place and every thing. If they are constantly stimulated, either in front of screens at home or in structured activities away from home, you have contributed to quashing their natural abilities for mindfulness.
Of course, your kids will be more engaged in your neighborhood if you are. So, do it for your kids. In the process, you might resurrect a little of that child-like wonder in yourself.

“You see, the trouble . . . with always being active and doing things, is that I think it’s quite possible to do all sorts of things and at the same time be completely dead inside. I mean, you’re doing all these things, but are you doing them because you really feel an impulse to do them, or are you doing them mechanically? Because I really do believe that if you’re just living mechanically, then you have to change your life.”
- the character of Andre Gregory from the film, ”My Dinner with Andre” (See clip here.)

Young children are amazing for how they can find wonder in almost any place and any thing. Those who do not spend much time engaging in over-stimulating “screen activities” - i.e. television, videogames, and the Internet - do not get bored.

Starting sometime in childhood, most children unlearn this skill of deeply sensing and experiencing our immediate environments. Most (all?) of us tend to live hectic lives, children included. Our calendars fill up with school, work, and myriad outside activities, so that we have very little free time. And, the free time we do have is often dominated by those over-stimulating screen activities that force us to tune out the environment around us.

Being a Weirdo Family - Is It Worth It?

2008-03-14T22:56:00-08:00

Billy’s father, ‘Rick,’ has told me before how he feels about parents who raise their kids differently than others in a community. Rick’s mother was ahead of her time forty or so years ago, raising Rick to eat organic foods and to not follow a Judeo-Christian religion. Rick told me he always felt embarrassed by his mom, and longed to just have ‘normal’ parents.

Rick’s message is simple: kids just want to be like everyone else at school. Parents who try to swim against the tide are, for the most part, satisfying their own egos. They’re not doing what their kids would like them to do.

My wife and I wonder if we will, in fact, follow through on childrearing principles we have which are quite different from those of other parents around here. Basically, we believe kids should have lots of free time outside of organized activities, and we believe kids should spend most of that free time outside with other kids, not inside in front of screens (videogames, computers, and television). If we follow those well, we believe our kids will be happier and will have no lesser chance to succeed in school and later in life.

Will our kids feel like weirdos? How will they feel if they’re the only kids at school who have never watched American Idol, played a Wii, or played on a traveling soccer team?

In a way, this is like religion. Orthodox Jewish kids can’t play sporting events on Saturdays and have restricted Kosher diets. Religious Catholic kids are in church every Sunday morning. Mormon kids have their own rules (e.g. caffeine and special undergarments).

However, there is a key difference between those religions and our philosophy - let’s call it “the Playborhood philosophy.” In order for the Playborhood philosophy to be successful, we need other families to believe in it and adopt it. In other words, we need to proselytize, or else our kids will have very little to do when they go outside to play.

This concerns me. What if the Orthodox Jewish family down the block decided that they wanted all kids, not just theirs, to avoid playing sporting events on Saturday? That might turn from just weird to downright annoying to the non-Jewish families on the block.

So, we risk being both weird and annoying, and we therefore risk that our kids will be singled out as weird and annoying (or at least as having weird and annoying parents).

Of course, if we’re right about the Playborhood philosophy, in that it does increase kids’ quality of life and does not sacrifice achievement later in life, maybe we’ll be heroes. Maybe our kids will have great childhoods, better than most others around here, and maybe we’ll convince a few other families that we’re right, making the Playborhood philosophy more viable for everyone.

But what if we’re wrong? What if we just end up being a bunch of annoying weirdos?

Some family friends who are also neighbors came to our house last night for dinner. We had a great time, but I had a slightly sad feeling at the end when they left. You see, I think I alienated them a bit.

At some point in our conversation, I expressed my desire that our young kids - 3-1/2 and 4 months - spend a lot of time playing in their neighborhoods when they grow up, rather than having scheduled activities every day. My friends’ son, an 11-year-old boy who I’ll call ‘Billy,’ replied, “But that’s me!” It certainly is. Billy has at least one sports team practice or game every day, so that the family rarely has dinner together at what one would normally consider dinner time. “I never hang out with anyone in our neighborhood. I’m either at practices, games, or play dates all the time.”

Don’t get me wrong: Billy’s a great kid - as smart and polite as could be - but I don’t want his life for my kids. In fact, I don’t want the life I see 90%+ of kids having. Articulating that was a bit uncomfortable for me.