My kids were watching a DVD from the library, 'It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!" I still love it when Charlie Brown looks in his trick-or-treat bag and sighs, "I got a rock."
I grew up watching that cartoon. It was our annual tradition. We looked forward to it because we knew that around Halloween, that would be the only time the TV channel would broadcast it.
Like Christmas specials at Christmas time.
And Saturday morning cartoons on Saturday mornings.
We had to wait for it.
As I see more and more children with their own iPhones (I don't know how any parent can afford that!) or pocket video-games-DVD-player-thingamabobs, the children so engrossed that they cannot stop even when they are walking, I have this growing sense that we are losing something intangible and valuable with this generation. It's something that I myself will never fully understand, because I grew up with videos, microwaves, and basic computers. But it's slipping through our fingers. And we don't even know it.
There are many things I could say to parents out there, but I won't. This is all I'm going to say:
Think before you choose your default setting of entertaining your child with the TV or smart phone, or when you feel the inclination to buy your child a new gadget. Look past the immediate gratification and try to grasp the repercussions down the road. Be intentional with your children.
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