3 Things Kids from the 70s & 80s Can Teach Today's Kids

As a kid growing up in the 70s and 80s summer held a magical allure for me. It meant playing outside from sun-up to sundown, endless games of hide and seek, double-dutch and jacks. I loved the muggy summer walks to the corner store with my friends, to purchase Grippo’s Chips and hot pickles. It was the best of times. The laughter of children filled the air and freedom was sweet and sticky, dripping down our arms like an ice cream cone in overflow. Unlike today, darkness carried no fear. Jars in hand, we engaged the night in boldness, warning all lightning bugs to beware. There is something to be gleaned from those kids, from that time, something that they could teach the youth of today.

The Outdoors are a Good Thing

The virtual world is fun and it can get you moving, but there is nothing like the real thing. Running, jumping, learning about nature and our place in it, help to define our appreciation for the earth as well as engender a sense of boldness and exploration. Nothing against the Wii, but there is something that happens when you actually kick a ball, hold a tennis racquet and grab the metal handle bars of a bike and engage.

It’s Okay to Lose

Now a days kids get a participation trophy just for showing up. As a kid growing up in the 70s and 80s, you only got a trophy if your team won. We kept score and it taught us how to enjoy victory as well as to accept defeat. I can honestly say that I learned more about competing when I lost. I learned that I had the ability to become better and to stretch myself in ways that I hadn’t before. Character isn’t born when everything goes your way. Character is cultivated in the losses and in the trenches when you learn to work as a team and overcome.

Be Fully Present in the Moment

Modern technology is great. It gives us the ability to connect with people anywhere, 24hrs a day, 7 days a week. It can also, unfortunately, be a distraction when we are more focused on it than the life that is happening around us. In the 70s, 80s and even the 90s if you were at an event you didn’t stop the fun to inform the world “Hey I’m enjoying myself!” You were too busy actually enjoying yourself to advertise it. Don’t get me wrong; sharing is good, but fully experiencing all of life’s great moments is even better. Telling the world electronically that you are having a great time with a friend should not be more important than savoring the moment and actually having a great time with a friend. Share, but be there, in that moment, one hundred percent.

May the memory of those 70s and 80s kids remind us all to experience life beyond our technology.