Pokémon Go: The Children are Back Outside

This post is dedicated to all my Facebook friends who have posted or shared the following: “whenever you feel stupid, remember there are people outside looking for Pokémon.” I might be the only person who haven’t played the game yet, but I think it’s pure genius. You can’t argue with success. Since its initial release Pokémon Go has officially become the biggest mobile app in US history. And it’d getting our kids to play outside. It’s been years since I have seen so many kids walking around in our neighborhood.

Nostalgia is definitely coloring my perspective thinking back to the ancient times growing up when our mothers practically locked us out to clean the house undisturbed and do whatever moms were doing back then. We spent hours playing outside with our friends going on “expeditions” running around the neighborhood having fun and occasionally getting into a little mischief. Ah, the sweet freedoms of an unsupervised childhood. Growing up, being bored was not an option. My mother admonished that if we were bored we just hadn’t thought about something useful to do, and if we couldn’t find things to do, she could assign us plenty of chores to keep us busy until our next birthday.

As a young mother raising my kids in the 90s, I felt sad that my children didn’t get to have the same freedom to roam around as I did; to ride their bike, play with friends in the park, and walk to the swimming pool and school. But it seemed that not only were my friends horrified by the idea of leaving our children unsupervised, but our children showed no interest in being on their own without parental central entertainment services. As much as I tried to encourage my kids to go for a walk or a bike ride, they were more inclined to stay indoors and play video games. Strolling around the neighborhood, there were no kids to be seen as if the pied piper had taken them all. Unsupervised children playing outside became but a distant memory. Hide and seek was lost and couldn’t be found.

So I am happy ugly Charamander is making a comeback. Kids, go outside, explore the world and collect as many different kinds of these exotic creatures as you can. Be sure to use the correct plural form of Pokémon. And don’t forget to go to the “gym….” Parents, you got it. This is all a big ploy to get our children to get out and move around. All we need to do is give them unhatched “eggs” and they will walk for miles to “incubate” them. Apparently, it works much better than bribing them with baseball cards, ice cream, or additional TV time.

I am not blind to the dangers of children roaming the streets unsupervised. I, too, share the innate parental fear playing out the worst case scenarios in my head of all the horrible things that could happen to my children. But here’s the bottom line, indoors or outside, alone or with their friends, we need to start to loosen the outer covering of bubble wrap and leave our children to their own devices to explore and organize their own activities. Once we leave the kids alone without telling them what to do or try so hard to keep them entertained, they will learn to problem solve, imagine, invent, and create. It is indeed a scary proposition. I am not advocating child neglect but rather letting our children enjoy age-appropriate autonomy. Let’s transform ourselves to be hummingbird parents who hover at a distance instead of being overly involved smothering our kids by making a lot of noise, a lot of wind, and a lot of racket hovering over them. Let Pokémon Go launch the revival of an era in which with common-sense safety rules for our tech savvy children, they will get plenty of fresh air and exercise running around with their friends to catch Pokémon.