I wish our kids could play outside more!

Anyone else out there think that the current generation of kiddos do not spend enough time playing outside?

I don't mean playing Pokemon Go, either.

I mean playing. Outside. With friends. With neighbors.

Hide and seek. Pretending to be explorers or pirates. Building fairy houses. Climbing trees.  Rolling down hills. Digging in the dirt.

Soon it will be winter and my kids will be stuck indoors.  Ugh.

But even with the beautiful summer and now fall weather, I feel like they still haven't spent enough time playing outside.

I remember my childhood.  I grew up in the Philippines, in Iligan City.  And my siblings and I would spend our summer days running around with the other neighborhood kids.  We played hide and seek, hiding all over the neighborhood, not just in our backyard.  We even played on the streets.

Ah, patintero.  I wish my girls could experience playing patintero.  It's a Filipino game that we literally played on the street.  We would draw lines on the ground to form giant boxes.  Two teams would play against each other.  One team would start off as the guards, standing on or running along the lines.  Their objective would be to guard the lines and block the opposing team from crossing to the "finish" line.  The other team's objective would be to cross all the way to the opposite end without getting tagged.  At least one player from the team had to make it otherwise the other team would win that round.

Here's a picture from wyxiewonderland.wordpress.com to help with the visualization of this game.

Patintero was a lot of fun, especially when there were a lot of us playing.

My parents (and most likely yours, too) also spent a lot of time outdoors with friends when they were young.

My dad told us stories of how when he was little, he and his friends would often play by the river.  They would jump off trees and dive into the water.  Sometimes, they even went eel-hunting! They would stick their fists into holes, allowing the eels to clamp onto them, and then pull the eels out of their holes that way.

I wish my girls could experience stuff like that.

It's sad that these days, most of us don't even know our neighbors. Especially those of us who live in the city and have busy lives.

My girls never get to play with the neighborhood kids.  Part of the reason was that when I worked as a teacher, we spent most of our time at school.  By the time we got home, it was dinnertime and then bedtime.  My girls never had a chance to meet and get to know the neighborhood kids and play outdoor games with them.

At least, they've gotten to know some of the neighborhood kids at my parents' suburban neighborhood. Spending weekends and summer days there have afforded them that experience of playing with neighbors. Thank goodness they've also experienced block parties over there - watching movies on someone's driveway, making tie-dyed shirts with the neighborhood kids, and playing mini golf on home-made courses.

But it's still not the same as how it was in our childhood days, right?  The complete freedom to just go biking around all day or playing outside 'til it got dark.  Now we worry about child molesters and, in some neighborhoods, gun violence.

Oh well, I guess we'll have to make do.

That's why I try to schedule camping and fishing trips and beach days for my girls.  That way they can experience and enjoy The Great Outdoors.

As for playing with other kids, well... Play dates and sleepovers will have to do.

And there's always the playground after school.

I guess I'll let them dig in the dirt with their friends over there.