Understanding children today

Unlike my generation, where we used to be outdoors most of the time when we were at play, today’s children are more used to watching TV at home or being cooped up in their rooms in front of their computer screens for hours on end.

Where our social skills were groomed by interaction with each other through flesh-and-blood face-to-face communication and physical engagement in outdoor or indoor games, today’s children are happy communicating with each other through their mobilephones, computers and the Internet.

Mobilephones, video games, MP3 players, computers and the Internet have captured the attention of our children so overwhelmingly that their learning and social skills are now geared around these digital media/devices, rather than from actual interactions between human beings that my generation is used to. These digital media/devices have become their passion, as books and outdoors games were ours.

As adults, if we can understand, harness and innovatively manage this passion, there is a chance that we’ll be able to engage our children more productively in learning and play… and understand them better.