Have children wasted their summer?

Summer is almost over and in a couple weeks time children will be packing their school bags and heading off for another year of education. So what did they do all summer? When I was a child I used to spend all summer building a Go-Cart which I would race against other children down my road who also built Go-Carts, then we would make race courses out of sticks and race them around that. We would climb trees and make swings out of sticks and old rope. We would have water fights and build little ramps out of bricks and planks of wood and ride our bikes over them. But it seems today children don’t find the same things I used to do fun anymore; when a child looks at a stick they don’t see it becoming a part of a swing of a Go-Cart they see it as just a stick. I asked Alexandre Smith, aged 8, what she has been doing over the summer and what she finds enjoyable. “I go to my friend’s house and we play on the xbox” she said “or I’ll go out with my mum and dad”. It’s upsetting to think that children would like to spend all summer sitting indoors on the xbox instead of playing outside with their friends. Is the technology of today making children less enthusiastic to use their imagination and make their own enjoyment out of small things like I used to do? Or am I just old fashioned and still living in the 90’s? Children don’t realise how important their childhood is, and I would hate to think their wasting it sitting indoors playing computer games. Should parents be more encouraging to their children and try and to get them to play outdoors? Or should you let your children do what they want? In my opinion, a bit of fresh air never hurt anyone.