New Age Kids!

     When I was ten we didn't have cable.  In 1974 many people on my block were also riding the antenna, and we were all at the mercy of the weather.  A clear sky meant good reception, a cloudy sky meant none.  In those days cable meant a clear picture (Clouds or not) with a maximum of 12 channels.  Saturday mornings found kids my age in front of the TV watching cartoons till about noon.  After school we had the same lineup until dinner time...Tom & Jerry, the Three Stooges, Wee Willy Weber!  Saturdays, and after school were the only two times mainly geared to kids and TV.
     Everyone on my block did share one item...land line phones.  We had the standard rotary phone upstairs, and a NEW, streamline, push button model that hung on our kitchen wall.  Unless our grandparents wanted to speak with us, we kids had no need of the phone...we called no one, and no one called us.  We really didn't care about the phone at all.
     We played Hide and seek, Red Rover, King of the Mountain, and Red light - Green light.  We rode our bikes everywhere. We played every game of tag we knew of (Freeze, TV, etc.) and built forts in any room my mom allowed us too, with anything we could find that wasn't off limits.  Sometimes I would play my 8-track tapes to pass the time, or really loudly to annoy my sister.
     I ran down, or up to a friend's house.  When it was time to go in (When the street lamps came on in the summer...dinner time in the winter) I left my friends and went home, not seeing them or talking with them until the next day.  Dinner time was 5:00, and bedtime was 9:00 sharp (I was the oldest, all of ten years old...I got to stay up late!)
     Was it a simpler time?  Certainly it was.  Comparing what we had then with what we have now is like comparing an apple to Apple (You know...the computer company?)  Was it a different time?  Again...certainly it was, but in what way different?  George Carlin (Loved him), in one of his stand-up masterpieces, stated that we have simply acquired too much stuff!  Everywhere there is stuff, and more and more people are trying to get more stuff!  Mr. Carlin was right.
     In the last 38 years technology alone has blown up exponentially; expanded to the Outer Limits, and has become integrated into nearly everyone's life in one way or another.  The stuff that we crave and acquire today can instantly message someone from anywhere to everywhere, find a restaurant at a click or a flip, play a wall-sized movie in your home, allow you to call someone without using your hands, play video games that rival major theatrical productions, surf an invisible-all inclusive-informational-entertainment in all forms web that encircles the Earth in the time it takes to press a few keys.  We have major cable conglomerates that give us access to hundreds and hundreds of channels for television viewing, and we have portable devices that allow us to do everything from chat to friends in other countries in the blink of an eye, to finding the exact location of a friend via a GPS satellite link-up!  In 1974 we had the board game Operation and sticks (Don't chuckle at sticks...I had some real fun pretending to be King Arthur!)
     The above paragraph pertains to everyone...including kids!  Kids are doing and experiencing everything stated above, and they are doing it far better than this old Irishman.
     I have heard scholars and politicians....educators and administrators state that our youth has become desensitized.  That our children are exposed to every kind of information that is available in the world!  Whether it be from the Internet, or television NOTHING is sacred any longer.  A kid can google anything they want.  If parents have imposed Parental Control on the TV or computer...chances are real good that the kid involved can hack the system when the parents are asleep and cyber where they want! 
     Communication is no longer person to person, it is smart-phone to smart-phone.  Bullies are no longer on the playground, or hidden in a hallway nook...they are on FB or Twitter!
     Video games take kids through gory, epic battles with aliens, or zombies, or pimps!  Kids can choose how to kill an enemy, or simply choose to kill any character any way they wish.  Online gaming allows kids to play these games over the Internet with other kids from all over the globe using headsets so they can talk, argue, or cuss at one another.
     Desensitized?  When the cavemen were exposed to tools, I doubt they ever looked back to the time without.  When ancient explorers breached the horizon to find they did not fall off the earth...they traveled to new horizons, did they not?  With every innovation comes human change as well...right?  Do kids know more about the world; what is in it both good and bad?  YUP!  Do they have the means to find out whatever they want at a key stroke?  Is it a good thing...darn tootin!  Could it be a bad thing...darn tootin!  Either way I believe desensitized is a harmful, inaccurate way to describe our kids, our NEW AGE kids.
     The kids today are different from the kids of yesterday.  Technology rules the kingdom, and the kids of today wield the power.  It isn't their fault that each of them were born into the world of today.  They, like all of us have done in turn, are taking what is available and surviving, thriving and future striving!
     Now...go back 50 years...60 years.  Kids went down into mines where adults feared to tread.  They worked for 12 hours a day in factories, and even fought in wars!  Kids are far more resilient than most of us give them credit for.  Let us NOT diminish there importance, or their differences by using words like desensitized.
     Here is what I know about my kids...my ten year old fifth-grade students.  Not just from this year...from every year I have taught.  In so many ways what is available to my kids is far and above different than what was available to me.  In countless ways my NEW AGE kids are different from my generation of kids mainly, almost entirely, because of all the STUFF.  What IS the same...what my New Agers and my generation have in common...what we share about being ten?  We share being a kid.
     My ten year olds giggle at inappropriate things.  They are afraid of ghosts, and even though they each will deny it...they all sleep with a light on.  They play tag, and hide-n-seek.  They cry when they are hurt, and want friends to play with.  They make forts, and play dress up.  They have sleep overs, and play outside till the street lights come on.  They ride bikes, and scooters and run races competitively.  They mostly know that Santa is a myth, but harbor a hope that he IS out there...somewhere.  They want attention, some need attention.  Some fidget in their seat, others fidget out of their seat.  They play their I-pods to pass the time, or while doing homework.  They rejoice, they fight, they make-up, they love to eat candy.
     My kids are still kids.  Highly advanced in technology (Hell of a lot more than I), but still kids.  They all have stuff, but internally they are all as I was...as you were.  Just as it has always been, and just as it will always be...kids will be kids!