I was scouring through my past Sun.Star articles when I stumbled upon this March 18, 2007 piece (which I slightly edited) that’s as relevant today as it was eight summers ago:
When I grew up as a young boy in Bacolod City in the 1970s, our family owned one 14-inch black-and-white TV set. Voltes V was my favorite show. I also loved how Popeye gobbled up that can of spinach, turned muscular, punched Brutus, then won over Olive. How often did I sit fronting the boob tube? Once a week. For 30 minutes. Maybe less.
The PlayStation 4 did not exist. The XBox 360 wasn’t produced by Bill Gates. Instagram wasn’t invented. (Mark Zuckerberg wasn’t even born yet!) The iPod was a thick box with a cassette tape twirling inside named Walkman. The Internet? It was decades away and the only “surfing” people understood was on the beach above a surfboard.
That was the 1970s. Today, young ones clasp with 10 fingers the iPhone. Cable channels boast of thousands of TV shows. Today, six-year-olds do “txtng” with their eyes closed.
What has this made the world? It has made our children fat. Lazy. It has made them think less. Sweat less. Do less. It has made them crawl to the computer to chat with their friend instead of calling and talking over a landline for two hours. It has made our children reclusive. Introverts. Like turtles, they turn inside their shells, inside their rooms, inside their computers, inside their Facebook accounts. Take this example: Instead of going out to join a karate class, today’s children would rather play a martial arts video game.
Sad? Very, very sad. So here we are, once more, back in this season called Summer. The question is asked of every parent, “What do I let my children do?”
My advice? Go out. During the next 60 days, when the sun is burning and the skies are light blue and it’s 36 degrees outside and the clouds are puffy and white — take your child out. Literally. Take her out.
Enroll your son on an aikido program. Buy him those white martial arts overalls, let him kick, jump, block and punch. Let him do all those acts in front of a teacher, beside other children — and not on some Android game.
Go out. Enroll her in a swimming program. Basketball? Badminton? Tennis? Football? Bowling? Every sport that has a field or a pool or a court or an alley will have a summer program. What to join? It’s all up to you. It’s all up to your child.
Not interested in sports? No problem. There are other choices available: classes for painting, cooking, dancing, acting. The point is obvious: Before June arrives and the next thing you realize is your daughter has memorized all the TV shows, do something. Plan out her summer today.
Go out. I know, I know. Very often, the words “summer” and “expensive” are synonyms. That’s true. But you can also be creative.
When I was no older than 9, my dad Bunny and mom Allen did the wisest move any parent can do: They bought me an inexpensive bike. And so I biked. Each morning, I pedaled. Each afternoon, I pedaled. Together with my brother Charlie and our neighbors, we drove our BMX bikes, cycled nonstop, raced the asphalted roads, scouted for “damang” (or “kaka,” as spiders are called in Ilonggo) crawling the electric lines; we shot hoops at the village court and pulled our “tiradors” (slingshots) to target birds. We weren’t inside. We were out.
Finally, here’s one last tip: Summer’s the perfect time to bond with your child. Buy a plastic kite and drive to the Family Park. Throw the kite up in the air while your son maneuvers it upward.
You play golf? And want your daughter to learn the game? Enroll her in a JunGolf program. Drop her at the morning’s start. Pick her up. Compliment her swing. And when she’s good enough to play a few holes, be her partner. Or her caddy. By summer’s end, guess what: Your daughter will be all-smiles, tanned, tired. And she’d have found a new best friend named Dad.
