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| A map of Erie and Niagara County |
Remember when you were a kid and your parents told you to go "make your own fun"?
I remember looking around the same old neighborhood, kids, dogs and bikes and wondering how I was going to make 'fun'.
That’s when I first learned that fun is different from entertainment.
Fun is a feeling you get when you’re enjoying something.. Fun happens when you play. When you play you discover, explore and try new things.
In our neighborhood we explored other people’s yards and found blueberry bushes, we discovered how fast you could ride down the hill with someone on your handlebars (before you crashed into the telephone pole), we built forts in the woods and, on rainy days, we walked to the library. All pretty good fun.
Rosa Brooks has a hilarious article in the Los Angeles Times called “Please, Go Outside and Play” that reminds people what it was like when we (the gray haired generation) went outside and played ALL DAY, everyday and, somehow survived the perils of our neighborhood. She pokes fun at modern kids who are overprotected, overscheduled and undercreative. “We’ve managed to turn childhood into a long, hard slog” she writes.
And then, to appease our guilty consciences, we try desperately to entertain our kids so they’ll forget about all the homework, lessons and nagging and, instead, remember the great trip to Disney or the new video game system..
Entertainment is an activity intended to be fun - you don't make it, it happens to you.
As kids we were entertained by Gilligan’s Island, occasional trips to an amusement park and walking downtown for ice cream.
Entertainment is fleeting and ends as quickly as it started. The curtain comes up, the park closes and the ice cream melts. When I was a kid my parents were busy working and doing grown up stuff and didn't have the time or the money to overly-entertain us and we didn't expect them to.
We have taught our 21st century kids that fun costs money, requires packing and will entertain them. That’s why kids don’t describe the library as fun or entertaining. Instead they use the words boring, lame or stuffy. It’s hard to have fun at the library without an imagination.
Last year a family in Buffalo bucked the trend and decided to go on a library quest. A road trip to visit all of the 37 branches in Buffalo & Erie County Public Library System. At each branch the mom and her two daughters (and sometime dad, dog and grandparents) took pictures, had their log book signed and checked out some books. Then they posted their pictures and a description of the library on their blog.
The blog makes it clear that while they enjoyed all the libraries, they also made some fun in each little community they visited by checking out something new; an ice cream parlor, a nature preserve, a unique shop, a bakery or a local museum. Nothing crazy, just a little added adventure.
What turns something so simple into fun?
I think it’s the unknown, not knowing what you might find, how it will look or what it will taste like.
I was impressed by this mom's creativity - she took something ordinary and made her own fun for herself and her kids.
It wasn't a huge project and it didn't cost a lot of money. The biggest cost was time.
What could be a better use of the weekend than going to the library with my kid and having some ice cream?
In the process her kids learned how to write a blog. They learned a little geography, some map skills, library appreciation, and, most importantly, how to enjoy the simple pleasures that life makes available to us each day.
What are you going to do today to make your own fun?
I remember looking around the same old neighborhood, kids, dogs and bikes and wondering how I was going to make 'fun'.
That’s when I first learned that fun is different from entertainment.
Fun is a feeling you get when you’re enjoying something.. Fun happens when you play. When you play you discover, explore and try new things.
In our neighborhood we explored other people’s yards and found blueberry bushes, we discovered how fast you could ride down the hill with someone on your handlebars (before you crashed into the telephone pole), we built forts in the woods and, on rainy days, we walked to the library. All pretty good fun.
Rosa Brooks has a hilarious article in the Los Angeles Times called “Please, Go Outside and Play” that reminds people what it was like when we (the gray haired generation) went outside and played ALL DAY, everyday and, somehow survived the perils of our neighborhood. She pokes fun at modern kids who are overprotected, overscheduled and undercreative. “We’ve managed to turn childhood into a long, hard slog” she writes.
And then, to appease our guilty consciences, we try desperately to entertain our kids so they’ll forget about all the homework, lessons and nagging and, instead, remember the great trip to Disney or the new video game system..
Entertainment is an activity intended to be fun - you don't make it, it happens to you.
As kids we were entertained by Gilligan’s Island, occasional trips to an amusement park and walking downtown for ice cream.
Entertainment is fleeting and ends as quickly as it started. The curtain comes up, the park closes and the ice cream melts. When I was a kid my parents were busy working and doing grown up stuff and didn't have the time or the money to overly-entertain us and we didn't expect them to.
We have taught our 21st century kids that fun costs money, requires packing and will entertain them. That’s why kids don’t describe the library as fun or entertaining. Instead they use the words boring, lame or stuffy. It’s hard to have fun at the library without an imagination.
Last year a family in Buffalo bucked the trend and decided to go on a library quest. A road trip to visit all of the 37 branches in Buffalo & Erie County Public Library System. At each branch the mom and her two daughters (and sometime dad, dog and grandparents) took pictures, had their log book signed and checked out some books. Then they posted their pictures and a description of the library on their blog.
The blog makes it clear that while they enjoyed all the libraries, they also made some fun in each little community they visited by checking out something new; an ice cream parlor, a nature preserve, a unique shop, a bakery or a local museum. Nothing crazy, just a little added adventure.
What turns something so simple into fun?
I think it’s the unknown, not knowing what you might find, how it will look or what it will taste like.
I was impressed by this mom's creativity - she took something ordinary and made her own fun for herself and her kids.
It wasn't a huge project and it didn't cost a lot of money. The biggest cost was time.
What could be a better use of the weekend than going to the library with my kid and having some ice cream?
In the process her kids learned how to write a blog. They learned a little geography, some map skills, library appreciation, and, most importantly, how to enjoy the simple pleasures that life makes available to us each day.
What are you going to do today to make your own fun?
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