Cyprus-Forum.com

[CBBB]

Just posted a video on Youtube of my new ball game.

This one will definitely get the kids off the computer and out to the yard.

No it won't...

I tested this game in Canada(Toronto) and the Dom Rep. Meant for kids, the game went on pretty well till teens & guys in their 20's jointed in. They played into the late afternoon and quit at nightfall. All the players asked to play again tomorrow... some of them asked me to make a game board for them to continue playing in the future.

Footnote. The "older" players actually tried to "hurt" the others by throwing the ball very hard which made the players run faster to avoid the hit. Typical behaviour I might add.

I took a course in computer languages back in 1981. COBOL, RPG, assembler, basic compiler etc... literally dealing with bits... used punch cards to run programs... really old stuff.

We always played outside when I was a kid - games such as this or 'cricket' with a bit of old wood, a tennis ball and stumps painted on a wall. Seemed like if we had a ball of some sort, or even if we didn't we could amuse ourselves... Perhaps it was because there was never anything on the telly except for the 'test card'...

Nowadays it seems that sports shops are packed with every type of bat, racket and club. Kids are decked out in the most amazingly expensive football shirts and clearly money isn't an issue for the purchase of sports equipment.

Yet they prefer for whatever reason to spend their time in front of a TV screen or computer console.

I'm not sure why it is so but I don't believe the revelation of your 'new' game will bring thousands of kids back outside to play.

This game might be one of many out there to entice kids for outdoor activity. Child obesity is now at alarming levels.

Another game is 'Lingri'. Did you hear about it?

No, I don't know Lingri...

As PAP says, we used to make up all sorts of games - many without props or equipment...

My point is that the kids don't need a new game to entice them outside - they already have plenty of games, plenty of imagination...

The whole mindset needs to change.

Our governments and the media need to stop the scare stories that would have us believe that a paedophile lurks behind every tree and every adult is a potential child killer or terrorist...

The UK (I can only talk for the UK) has gone to extraordinary lengths to 'protect the cheeeeldren' - you have to have a certificate proving you are not a paedophile to walk your neighbour's kid to school - and in doing so has produced a fear among parents that believe their kids will only be safe at home in front of the telly...

You need to break this culture of fear before kids and parents will see outdoor activities as viable, safe alternatives to the TV and games console.

Excellent posting Grump.

You are right that TV, internet etc planted fears in parents heads about their kids being targeted while playing outdoors by all kinds of "bad seeds". Great input, point well made, thanks.

I was down in Cyprus for the last 2 weeks, back in Toronto now. While there, I took 6 of my nephews (boys & girls) for an outing to collect mushrooms, snails & agrellia in the Alethrico hills (Larnaca outskirts). The kids were so excited that demanded another excursion for the next day. All of them confessed their parents never took them out in the countryside before... Lesson learned = Who is to blame for kids locked into the house, staring on PC screens? Perhaps some of the blame should be shouldered by the adults...

I am now the "cool" uncle" in the face of the kids, got a goodbye card from them which reads - Sorry you are leaving (back to Canada), thanks for the "field tour".

I was reading a favourite blog of mine this morning and came up with this: -

More reasons - they don't play outside any more because if Gary Glitter's Gang doesn't get them, they might get knifed, shot, force-fed by burger shops, dragged into seedy drug dens or smoked at. Parents are too scared to let them outside. They stay in, they get computer games and TVs of their own, they get fat and they get lazy and they get rickets. Kids are well equipped to burn off any calories they consume but they are not allowed to - and no co-ordinator will ever fix that. It would take a government with the sense to say 'Well, yes, there are nasty people in the world, but not really all that many so you don't have to be permanently terrified' and 'You know, maybe it would be a good idea to actually lock some of the nastiest ones away instead of giving them a stern talking-to and sending them home'.

Source

I'll drink to that! My wife's granddaughter (I am too young to be called a grandfather, so she is the wife's granddaughter) who is nearly 5 plays out in the street (a quiet one) with her friends without any constant supervision, as did my kids when they were that age. It is still safe to do this in Cyprus, if you aren't looking, there will be a neighbour that is. If there is anything Cypriots love more than money, it is children, and not in the Paul Gadd way!

[quattro]

For those born between 1940-1980
H truth is that I do not know how we managed to survive.
We were a generation in waiting:
we spent our childhood waiting. I had to
wait two hours after eating before swimming, two
lunch hours sleep to rest, on Sundays
had to stay hungry all morning to commune.
Even the pains went away if you wait ..

Looking back, it's hard to believe that we are still
alive .. We traveled in cars without seat belts and airbags. We travel 10 to 12 hours, five people
in a Fiat not suffer from the "economy class syndrome." We did not have doors, windows, cupboards and
bottles of drug safety for children .. Climb on
bikes without helmets and protective, we were auto-stoppers
rode motorcycles without a license. The cribs were
made of metal and had sharp corners.

Even our games were violent. He spent hours
constructing makeshift vehicles to do
slumping to a downhill and only then
discover that we had forgotten to put brakes. We played
"Long donkey" and none of us suffered a hernia or dislocation ..

We left home running in the morning, play all day and
there would return home only after the lights were lit in the
streets. Nobody could find us. Then there
were no mobiles. Squashed bones and teeth and there
there was no law to punish the 'responsible'
Open heads when we played war with stones and wood and this was just something of the ordinary
It was not uncommon for children and all
treated with iodine or just a few stitches .. There was
no one to blame except yourself. We
fights and we joked each other and learned to
surpass.


We ate cakes and drank soft drinks, but we were not obese. Maybe some of us were fat and that was it. We shared bottles of water or soft drinks or any drink and none of us hurt. Sometimes got lice in school and our mothers washed our head with hot vinegar ..

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo 64, 99 TV channels
video with sound surround, computers or the Internet. We had
friends .. Arrange to get together and go out .. Sometimes you do not arrange anything, just go out on the street and we met there to play chase, hide and seek, prisoner's base ... that mach was our technology those days. That was our day out, running and playing. We made our own toys from wood .. We lost
thousands of footballs. Drank water directly from the
tap, not bottled, and some put their lips
on the tap. Hunted lizards and birds with airguns
in the countryside, despite the fact that we were minors and were not
adults to supervise us.

We went by bicycle or walking to the homes of
friends and shouted through the door. Imagine! Without
ask permission from our parents, all alone out there in this
"hard world"! Without anybody in charge! How could we manage all that
Participated in school plays and all those who took part had to come to terms with the disappointment. Some were not as good as other students and had to stay in the same class. No
special tests were to spend all .. What a horror!

We have three months vacation in the summers and spent endless hours on the beach without sunscreen with sun
30 protection and free sailing lessons, tennis or golf ..
But we've made imaginary castles in the sand and fish with
a hook and a line. chasing girls in the real word no texting in a pc or iphone

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and through all that we learned and matured.
If you are from the "old" ... Congratulations! You were lucky to grow up as a child ....

[denizaksulu]

For those born between 1950-1980
H truth is that I do not know how we managed to survive.
We were a generation in waiting:
we spent our childhood waiting. I had to
wait two hours after eating before swimming, two
lunch hours sleep to rest, on Sundays
had to stay hungry all morning to commune.
Even the pains went away if you wait ..

Looking back, it's hard to believe that we are still
alive .. We traveled in cars without seat belts and airbags. We travel 10 to 12 hours, five people
in a Fiat not suffer from the "economy class syndrome." We did not have doors, windows, cupboards and
bottles of drug safety for children .. Climb on
bikes without helmets and protective, we were auto-stoppers
rode motorcycles without a license. The cribs were
made of metal and had sharp corners.

Even our games were violent. He spent hours
constructing makeshift vehicles to do
slumping to a downhill and only then
discover that we had forgotten to put brakes. We played
"Long donkey" and none of us suffered a hernia or dislocation ..

We left home running in the morning, play all day and
there would return home only after the lights were lit in the
streets. Nobody could find us. Then there
were no mobiles. Squashed bones and teeth and there
there was no law to punish the 'responsible'
Open heads when we played war with stones and wood and this was just something of the ordinary
It was not uncommon for children and all
treated with iodine or just a few stitches .. There was
no one to blame except yourself. We
fights and we joked each other and learned to
surpass.


We ate cakes and drank soft drinks, but we were not obese. Maybe some of us were fat and that was it. We shared bottles of water or soft drinks or any drink and none of us hurt. Sometimes got lice in school and our mothers washed our head with hot vinegar ..

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo 64, 99 TV channels
video with sound surround, computers or the Internet. We had
friends .. Arrange to get together and go out .. Sometimes you do not arrange anything, just go out on the street and we met there to play chase, hide and seek, prisoner's base ... that mach was our technology those days. That was our day out, running and playing. We made our own toys from wood .. We lost
thousands of footballs. Drank water directly from the
tap, not bottled, and some put their lips
on the tap. Hunted lizards and birds with airguns
in the countryside, despite the fact that we were minors and were not
adults to supervise us.

We went by bicycle or walking to the homes of
friends and shouted through the door. Imagine! Without
ask permission from our parents, all alone out there in this
"hard world"! Without anybody in charge! How could we manage all that
Participated in school plays and all those who took part had to come to terms with the disappointment. Some were not as good as other students and had to stay in the same class. No
special tests were to spend all .. What a horror!

We have three months vacation in the summers and spent endless hours on the beach without sunscreen with sun
30 protection and free sailing lessons, tennis or golf ..
But we've made imaginary castles in the sand and fish with
a hook and a line. chasing girls in the real word no texting in a pc or iphone

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and through all that we learned and matured.
If you are from the "old" ... Congratulations! You were lucky to grow up as a child ....

Could you stretch the date to 1946 to encompass this old Gero.

[quattro]

For those born between 1950-1980
H truth is that I do not know how we managed to survive.
We were a generation in waiting:
we spent our childhood waiting. I had to
wait two hours after eating before swimming, two
lunch hours sleep to rest, on Sundays
had to stay hungry all morning to commune.
Even the pains went away if you wait ..

Looking back, it's hard to believe that we are still
alive .. We traveled in cars without seat belts and airbags. We travel 10 to 12 hours, five people
in a Fiat not suffer from the "economy class syndrome." We did not have doors, windows, cupboards and
bottles of drug safety for children .. Climb on
bikes without helmets and protective, we were auto-stoppers
rode motorcycles without a license. The cribs were
made of metal and had sharp corners.

Even our games were violent. He spent hours
constructing makeshift vehicles to do
slumping to a downhill and only then
discover that we had forgotten to put brakes. We played
"Long donkey" and none of us suffered a hernia or dislocation ..

We left home running in the morning, play all day and
there would return home only after the lights were lit in the
streets. Nobody could find us. Then there
were no mobiles. Squashed bones and teeth and there
there was no law to punish the 'responsible'
Open heads when we played war with stones and wood and this was just something of the ordinary
It was not uncommon for children and all
treated with iodine or just a few stitches .. There was
no one to blame except yourself. We
fights and we joked each other and learned to
surpass.


We ate cakes and drank soft drinks, but we were not obese. Maybe some of us were fat and that was it. We shared bottles of water or soft drinks or any drink and none of us hurt. Sometimes got lice in school and our mothers washed our head with hot vinegar ..

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo 64, 99 TV channels
video with sound surround, computers or the Internet. We had
friends .. Arrange to get together and go out .. Sometimes you do not arrange anything, just go out on the street and we met there to play chase, hide and seek, prisoner's base ... that mach was our technology those days. That was our day out, running and playing. We made our own toys from wood .. We lost
thousands of footballs. Drank water directly from the
tap, not bottled, and some put their lips
on the tap. Hunted lizards and birds with airguns
in the countryside, despite the fact that we were minors and were not
adults to supervise us.

We went by bicycle or walking to the homes of
friends and shouted through the door. Imagine! Without
ask permission from our parents, all alone out there in this
"hard world"! Without anybody in charge! How could we manage all that
Participated in school plays and all those who took part had to come to terms with the disappointment. Some were not as good as other students and had to stay in the same class. No
special tests were to spend all .. What a horror!

We have three months vacation in the summers and spent endless hours on the beach without sunscreen with sun
30 protection and free sailing lessons, tennis or golf ..
But we've made imaginary castles in the sand and fish with
a hook and a line. chasing girls in the real word no texting in a pc or iphone

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and through all that we learned and matured.
If you are from the "old" ... Congratulations! You were lucky to grow up as a child ....

Could you stretch the date to 1946 to encompass this old Gero.

ok pappou your in check it

[Get Real!]

Just posted a video on Youtube of my new ball game.

What are you doing? Nobody plays with kids anymore!

These days, responsible parents simply buy them plenty of electronic gadgets and lock them up in the room!

[georgios100]

Just posted a video on Youtube of my new ball game.

What are you doing? Nobody plays with kids anymore!

These days, responsible parents simply buy them plenty of electronic gadgets and lock them up in the room!

I actually enjoyed that... come to realize how far is the "link" of old timers VS kids. In the other hand, the kids went nuts when a grown up offered the time with them.