Eagerness to meet our cousins/ grandparents, Antakshari, late night gossips, listening to the childhood/adventure stories of grandparents and parents, relishing homemade food and becoming sad at the time of departure…
This is how summer vacations used to be at one point of time.
A close look reveals how valuable these meetings were during summer breaks!!!
Summer/Winter breaks often helped children learn and develop interpersonal relationships, tackle problems and solve issues at their levels which technically are life skills, remain fit and enjoy life in real sense.
However, when technology made an entry and dominated every space which was otherwise personal, the fun of weekends and vacations vanished. The hangover of gadget will never fade. The reason is simple. Updates every other day, new applications, increasing fan following, soaring virtual attention… with something new happening every minute virtually why would one want to limit himself/herself to those same faces and games which are otherwise so boring now?
The impacts of excessive tilt towards the gadgets are:
- Increasing ophthalmic issues
- Reduced memory space (brain space for retention of data naturally)
- Increasing obesity and allied diseases
- Reduced attention span
- Weakened personal relations and increasing gap between relations
- Excessive reliance and belief on/in virtual circles
- Selfie show off
- Eroding self confidence
- Fading street smartness
There are several other points as well which can find a space but have been intentionally left out to accommodate space for other points in the article.
Can we accuse technology only for such a colossal drainage?
My answer is, no!!!
Add to it the waning patience levels, inability to control the wails of the children and their instability to be seated at a particular place as other reasons which have made children tech-savvy from the very month of their birth.
Android must not have imagined that for the mistaken comfort that parents must be accused; the software and the hardware are being blamed, convicted and sentenced virtually!!!
What can be done/What is being done to retrieve and reposition the golden era?
- Summer camps at school levels – the participation is 1/10th of the total school strength
- Adventure sports/ games
- Reading clubs
- Art and craft crash courses
- Skating classes and a few similar activities to engage children during summer vacations.
While these are good and necessary, they fail to establish the connect with the family members as it used to be once upon a time.
What is required to be done?
A few suggestions to rebuild the lost world are as follows:
- Allow children to relive your summer holidays – recreate the scenario by planning visits to villages, reconnecting them to roots etc.
- Engage them in qualitative interactions by being a key note speaker or a moderator to the idea exchange that happens during such conversations
- Set no boundaries, let children enjoy and forget mobiles and technology
- Plan adventure tours
Let us understand that if we can give time to our kids and allow ourselves to relive our vacations by reconnecting ourselves to the world of fun and bonding we had once, vacations can be fun and value filled.
Happy Vacations!!!
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