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Highlands Today

Do Kids Ever Play Anymore?

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Joyce Minor

Published: December 2, 2007

When I was a kid we played outside all day. And in summer, all the kids in the neighborhood, (usually at least ten or twelve kids, ages five to fifteen) would gather every evening after supper to play Kick-the-Can. First we'd draw straws from somebody's broom. The kid who drew the shortest straw was "it" and the kid with the longest straw got to kick the can.

Any old empty tin can would do. It would be placed in a central location then kicked as far as possible. The moment the kicker's shoe hit that can, all the kids would scatter and hide. The one who was "it" had to chase the can and bring it back to the home base, then cover his/her eyes and start to count.

When the counter reached 100, he or she would give a shout, "Here I come!" and strike out to search for those hiding. Usually it was easy to find the young ones, but often the searcher would make the game more fun by pretending not to see them. Older kids could get pretty creative about finding hiding places, and when the searcher was looking elsewhere, they'd move from one hiding place to another, so the searcher would have to check and recheck each potential hiding place.

Meanwhile, the hiders would try to sneak back and kick the can again. Sneaking back was hard because, if the searcher caught you before you could kick the can, then you were "it" and the game would start all over.

If a hider succeeded in sneaking back to kick the can without getting caught, the kicker would yell, "All-e-all-e-all's-in-free-ee!" and everyone still hiding could come in free. Then the game would start all over with the same person "it" again. It was great fun - a nightly ritual, till school started and we all had homework to do after supper.

You may have played a similar game, but chances are the rules were different, because they were reinvented in every neighborhood across America.

Do kids today play? I'm not talking about video games and watching TV. I mean actually play - outside. Oh, I know they play sports like Little League Baseball and Pop Warner Football. But that's not really "play." It's serious business, and somehow it's more about the parents than the kids.

Play is where kids make up their own games. It's where the only rule is imagination. Where there are no age limits, no skill levels, no uniforms or equipment, except what a kid can scavenge, and that's part of the fun.

We played House. We played Cowboys and Indians. We played Tag and Tug-of-War, Red Rover and Dodge Ball. We rolled downhill and buried each other in the sand. We built a go-cart out of an old wagon and a huge cardboard box. We named it "Little Joe," worked all day painting on windows and handles, and lettering the name on the side. Then we piled six kids into it and raced downhill till it crashed and we all fell out laughing till our stomachs ached.

We tossed water balloons out of upstairs widows onto the heads of neighbor kids. We had pillow fights. We climbed trees. Now that was play.

Too bad today's kids are so busy staring at computers and video games, practicing how to steal cars, kill spies, and blow up buildings, that they've never spent the whole summer, nor even a single day, in that magical world inside their own imaginations. Do today's kids ever just play?

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