KidWorld

OK, this blog doesn't really have anything to do with writing, but in our Sunday paper today there is a huge article about how "KidWorld" has taken over adult world. That is, kids and their sports activities are the focus of every family's life, in a way that didn't exist 10 or 20 years ago. This, of course, doesn't surprise me, as everywhere you turn you will see 3 year olds on the soccer field or moms and dads coaching on the sidelines or minivans racing down the road in an effort to get to the next game on the schedule.

Sports--heck, any kind of organized activity--is great for kids. Don't get me wrong. They learn all kinds of things about life and cooperation and hard work and goals and dealing with victory and failure. But at what point does it become too much? According to this article, the majority of families have sacrificed any adult time to be with their kids on the playing field rather than taking an afternoon to read an adult book or a Friday night to go to dinner with a spouse or, God forbid, a Sunday morning to go to church together.

What concerns me is that, as a teacher, I see the negative effects of KidWorld way too often. My students have been told, and shown, that they are the center of their parents' world, since the day they were born. Their events, and really, their wants and needs, are more important than Mom's or Dad's. Here's the problem with that: they begin to think that their wants and needs are more important than anyone else's in every other arena, too.

Newsflash: this isn't really preparing kids for the adult world. Once they leave the cozy nest of home, their employers or college professors aren't going to buy into the whole notion of the world-revolving-around-Johnny.

And what then?