Its a beautiful September day in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the temperature is low for a summer day but higher than normal for fall. The leaves are starting to change colors and slowly sway to the ground. The birds are chirping and the wind whistling, the sound is relaxing, but its too quiet. Something is missing. There are no children playing outside. Its only four thirty in the afternoon. There should be children running, yelling and playing with each other. Today, children do not play outside as much as they use to because they live in a world that revolves around a new plugged in lifestyle, but its not technology that is at fault- it is fear and lack of parenteral involvement. Unfortunately, this shift has created a loss of community and as technology and crime increase and parental involvement and neighborhoods decrease the number of children seen playing outside will continue to decline. .
As recently as a decade ago, children could be found playing outside. However, with each year the number seems to be decreasing. In 2012, the Alliance for Childhood, a nonprofit advocacy group, complained that, Compared to the 1970s, children now spend 50 percent less time in unstructured outdoor activities. Children ages 10 to 16 now spend, on average, only 12.6 minutes per day in vigorous physical activity. Yet they spend an average of 10.4 waking hours each day relatively motionless (Marlys Harris). .
Children use to be seen playing outside with their siblings and were often pushed out the front door by their parents with strict instructions not to return home until the street lamps turn on. Kids of varying ages, genders and ethnicity would be outside playing for hours. Tag, hide & seek, and red rover were the favored past times among children. Imaginations ran wild with new games and different rules. Whatever the weather, children were out having fun. The neighborhood kids designed rival "gangs" and built clubhouses.