Focus On Easing Stress…

We live in a stress driven society. Always in a hurry to get somewhere. No one has any time to just stop and breath. There seems to be so many more demands on our time compared to when I was growing up. The kids of this generation are far more prone to having stress, anxiety, and depression. I know of so many children that are on some kind of medicine for various stress related mental (emotional) disorders.             

Years ago, when I was growing up, we lived for running around and playing games outside of the house. I remember as a young child during the summers off from school, I would want to get up early every morning to have some breakfast and watch my favorite cartoons like Tom and Jerry, Bugs Bunny, and Scooby Doo, just to name a few. After my friends knocked for me, I would be out the door playing for hours until my mother called me in for lunch. Then once I was finished eating, I would dart back outside with the rest of the kids running around, playing jump rope, hop scotch, red light-green light, and all of the wonderful games I cherished playing. Same thing would happen at dinner time and so on... I also made up scenarios in my mind and played in the land of make believe. I would pretend my bicycle was my pony and I was a cowgirl in my backyard.  One of my favorite make believe ideas was dressing up as a teacher by putting my hair up, wearing fake plastic glasses and handing out lessons to some of my friends as I wrote on my miniature green chalkboard. Those were the days my friend. Talk about having no stress or any concerns about life other then who I was going to play with the next day. 

Unfortunately, we are living in a different world today. Now if kids are not being transported around by their parents to the various activities like being on different sports teams, dance recitals, boy scouts / girl scouts clubs, etc...then they are at home playing on their video games and texting their friends instead of spending actual time with them. I'm not down on joining sports teams or any other activity, I think it is an extremely positive experience that helps children learn to work together and build friendships while having fun. But, I also believe that there is a limit to the number of group activities a child should be involved in outside of the home - especially while they are still in school. I've seen some children literally burn out and begin to hate the very organization that they used to love being apart of just because they were involved in too many extra curricular activities. Why don't kids enjoy the simple bliss of playing outside?  Has the technology boom during this generation stopped our children from experiencing the truly marvelous and simplistic approach to having fun? And more importantly, will they be able to maintain real 'face to face' social relationships as they get older? 

I will remain hopeful that this generation will find out sooner than later that being overly busy is not the key to success in this world and that technology will only get them so far and that it shouldn't be used as a substitute for actually spending quality time with family and friends. Then maybe, just maybe, they won't need to be put on any medication for stress related problems. They can be free to be happy with cherishing the simple things in life, because God knows that it will be too late once they become adults.