Goldendale Sentinel Editorial

In the fight for creative rejuvenation, I say: "Let's take it outside"

A column by Rachel Cavanaugh
News Editor

     When I was six or seven, I remember going to one of my mom’s friends houses for dinner.
While the adults chatted, I ran off to explore the house. Her son, who was away for the evening, had this new thing called a Nintendo.
     It was amazing. You held this little controller connected to the T.V. and by pressing tiny grey, red, and black buttons over and over, all sorts of adventures would unfold onscreen: princesses, dragons, magical stars and mushrooms.
     I was hooked.
     That night, I played Super Mario Bros - with only brief stops for a round of Duck Hunt - for about six hours straight before my mom came in to take me home.
     From there on out, everything was Super Mario Bros.
     My friend Liam and I set up this elaborate, daring obstacle course in the backyard. In one particularly bold section, Mario (me) had to scale along the neighbor’s fence using only his toes while      Luigi (Liam) would stretch a leg across the gap to a concrete block on the other side.
     Each player had to do a spinning jump to get down and if either touched the grass/burning sea of flames at any point, they were dead.
     Of course, a simple request for Nintendo for Christmas would have saved a lot of exertion and twisted ankles, but, to be honest, the outside version had turned out to be more fun.
     Psychologists will tell you not only was it more fun, but it was helping develop important life skills.
When kids play, they are learning how to think creatively, be innovative, and solve problems.
It is a natural part of life.
     Unfortunately, today, rather than an hour of video games (or in my case six), that will then spur endless hours of backyard play, the opposite trend has emerged.
     Video game, Internet, and television usage has skyrocketed in the last two decades and with it, creative drives have plummeted.
     A recent report in Utne magazine linked economic drops in America to a decline in innovation.
The article quoted the China Sphere, defined as the “Confucian world from Vietnam to Japan,” as holding a $60 billion surplus in technological trade with the United States - and that was in 2004.
It appears creativity is a critical part of economic well-being. When we lose the play, we lose the ability to think outside the XBox, so to speak.
     The technology argument is no longer about inertia or childhood obesity, but about our pocketbooks.
     Now this is not to sound preachy or imply technology does not have its place. I have been known to spend hours on online social networks like MySpace and Facebook, and can say without a hint of sarcasm I find Netflix to be one of this century’s great innovations.
     Nevertheless, I believe a compromise can be found.
     According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, children today watch two hours of screen media every day before they even turn six.
     In 2003, a study found 43 percent of kids under age two watch television daily, and 26 percent have one in their bedroom. Again, this is for children under the age of two.
     To me this seems like too much.
     Electronic games have all but completely replaced free play, imagination, and make-believe.
     The answer, I think, is a simple dose of moderation –- a stab at least at reasonable portions.
     Encourage your kids to play these games but in limited increments. Then, seek other outlets of fun.
     There is no reason to stop playing Super Mario Bros. Just play it in the garden sometimes.

Op/Ed

When fear should be a factor

A column by Karen Henslee

     Fear or common sense?
     Sometimes common sense can tell you that it’s right to be afraid. But when exactly is that? When being chased by a lion? While walking down a dark alley?
     As a kid, I was a bit of a daredevil. Most kids are, I suppose. We never wore bike helmets or knee pads when riding bikes or roller-skating. There was no time in my memory that I did not have a black eye, skinned knee or a lump on my head. Mom said it was because I was always running with my head up, never watching where I was stepping. (And always standing too close to the edge)
     But, I don’t think that’s such an odd thing. Kids are pretty fearless, unless experience tells them different. (When I was only five years old, I remember a commotion at the corner of the street where we lived in Seattle. My dad took us to see what was going on, and there, in the middle of the street, lay a teenage boy who had ridden down a steep hill on a skateboard, which, when coming to the bottom of the hill, stopped abruptly, throwing him into the street. He died. And I never got on a skateboard.)
     When my niece was about eight years old, she stated that she wanted to go skydiving. Her parents agreed that when she graduated, they would pay for her to go, and I boldly said that if she went, I’d go with her.
     Common sense should have told me that she would indeed grow up past eight years old, and that odds were pretty good she would eventually graduate from high school.
     As the time grew closer, I remembered my proclamation and hoped that she’d forgotten. (My common sense was finally beginning to overcome my childhood daredevil-ism.)
     Though she did not forget my offer, fortunately for me, she had at least grown to realize that skydiving with her old aunt was not a cool thing to do, and said I could just give her the money I would have paid to go. (That didn’t happen either)
     And so she went. And I did not.
     A few years ago, a reality-type series became very popular. “Fear Factor” was an opportunity to display on national television, complete lunacy with regards to common sense.
     It wasn’t being suspended from a wire above a 10-story building that got to me. I probably could have done that. It was the grotesque dare to eat living, crawling worms; or lying down in a box full of snakes or mice.
     Just thinking of it makes my skin crawl. Yuck...
     And for what? The chance that everyone else will chicken out and you’ll win $50,000.
     No thank you very much. If nothing else, getting older has given me time to pay more attention to the God-given ability to recognize when fear is appropriate.
     And maybe, in my second half-century of life, I’ll start responding accordingly.
Maybe...
     But I sure hope there are still more waterfalls ahead for me.