Youth Comment

Now that the holidays have arrived, many parents leave their
children to entertain themselves with computer games and television
for extended periods of time. Not only is this detrimental to the
development of their social and communicative skills, but it can
also result in poor posture, eyesight deterioration, and repetitive
strain injury.

This apparent lack of parental and community responsibility towards
the applied development of children of all ages seems to be coupled
with the over-rigorous examinations and disproportionate
orientation towards academic, rather than practical, education
offered by schools.

Growing up in a rural area, I feel I really benefited from the
opportunity and space to meet my peers, interact with them and
create my own ways to play, instead of relying on a TV screen to
entertain me.

Young children need to learn through experiencing and performing
practical and applied actions. I wonder whether local governments
do enough to promote such activity? There seem to be many local
museums, historical sites or even walks around the country that are
educational and interesting, but these generally require the
company of a parent to be enjoyed and can be expensive.

Local communities should be providing safe and interesting
environments for children, especially older ones who are striving
for independence. In the wake of events in London last month,
surely it is time to focus on strengthening communities rather than
the competitive qualities of the individual?

Whatever individual games or activities I enjoyed when I was
younger, I now realise I value the imagination and social skills I
gained. These qualities are vital to providing the nation with a
unified future generation, something which needs to be addressed by
parents and local government before the situation deteriorates
further.

Alec Stephenson is a student