Yes ! A time without phones, computers, iPads and laptops ! Music on the LP player Playing on the road with all the kids in the street. going to the forest building tree huts, iceskating on the canals in wintertime…whole Netherlands would be on the iceskates and we would get free from school.

Totally agree.. I have beautiful memories from my childhood which I enjoy sharing often with my cousins etc. Although I didn’t often do those things with my children, I loved that my parents often took my children off to do the things I loved as a child. Going for walks, leaf fights in Autumn etc.

Totally agree. No one goes and pretends to play outside with sticks as swords or whatever they all just want to play video games, watch YouTube or be on social media!
We try and take our kids out as much as we can and go exploring so that they like going outside rather than being in.

Perhaps you should try intorducing those things you think the kids would find boring. They might surprise you. I found my kids loved the basic things like paints, chalk boards, arts and crafts, play dough, the trampoline, swings, cubby house and on rainy days the indoor cubby house where we covered the dining table with blankets and filled the cubby with pillows and cushions and set it up with some LED lights. We then had to have a picnic dinner in the lounge because we couldnt wreck the cubby which would stay in place for the weekend or even a week during school holidays if the weather was shocking.

School holidays seemed so long and I would go into the bush near my house with one particular friend. We would drag branches and logs around and build huts that we decorated with flowers we’d gathered. We’d name the bends in the creek and little islands and create our own little town. We were big Anne of Green Gables fans. We’d be gone all day, just nicking home for lunch and supplies. We collected tadpoles and caught butterflies

Yes, time certainly has changed but it’s good to teach our kids to appreciate the beauty in simple things.

Each generation seem to have a similar feeling about childhood and reflect on the good and the bad. It is quite normal to do this reflection about childhood and life. I like to take on the best bits of each generation and happily leave the bad alone!

I think life has changed a lot since we were kids but I still try and do the simple things like walk to the park and explore the plants and bush walks along the way. I have started a veggie patch and we watch them grow, I make time to cook with my daughter too. So if I look back I think I still do a lot of the things my mum did with me it’s just that we have so much more to going on than maybe our parents did

Our family life is a combination of all; exploring the old and embracing the new. There is merit in both ways.

We are raising our children just how we were raised where we play with cardboard boxes and make mud pies ????