Family Time -- Steve Smith

Our recent baseball game started at 5:30 p.m., just when several local

school open houses were also to begin. One player didn’t show up for the

game, his parents opting instead to have him usher them around his school

to show off his handiwork.

Two other kids with open houses made it to the game, which was

fortunate for us because our team would have been reduced to eight

players and forced to forfeit.

As it was, we staged a late rally and beat our opponent. Scheduling is

about to become trickier for many parents as the end of the school year

nears. The Smiths are busy trying to fill the empty slots for the months

between the end of one school year and the beginning of another, but it’s

not easy.

Camps cost money. Some of them cost lots of money and parents are

forced to limit those. And if kids aren’t sent to a camp, they are

sometimes sent to visit Aunt Zelda, whose house smells of mothballs.

This summer, one of our “camps” includes a trip to New York and

Washington, D.C. We’ll be in Manhattan about three weeks before the

anniversary of the World Trade Center attack and, yes, we plan to visit

ground zero with our children.

If the last few days are any indication, our home is about to be

turned into Camp Smith this summer. On a couple of days in recent weeks,

Roy has had about half the neighborhood over for water balloon fights,

thanks in part to a bag of 200 water balloons he received from family

friends. Some friends.

And only three days ago, neighbor Ryan Christopher, the pitching

“closer” for our baseball Cardinals, showed up with another 200. Oh, joy.

Ryan was accompanied by his sister Caitlyn and neighbors Josh and Chris

Alexander and they all had a blast. The kids managed to keep the water

off nearby cars but not off their clothes, which were soaked by the time

they were done.

It was the kind of fun that was routine not so long ago. Unscheduled

but not completely unsupervised, there was no grown-up telling the kids

how to have fun and no uniforms to wear to signify the start of any fun

activity. Just kids playing without parents paying.

We’ve seen the same kind of play at friends Kathy and Dave Miller’s

house, which seems to be the base station for fun in their neighborhood.

For far too long, it has been harder for kids to enjoy the pure

ecstasy of free play. Parents today are much too concerned about harm

coming to their children. In terms of a stranger becoming the source of

such an event, the fear is unwarranted. Statistics prove that our streets

are safer now than when I was a kid in the Pleistocene era.

The other big reason kids no longer get much free play is because

their parents feel compelled to use every spare minute to help them get

ahead. It doesn’t really matter what it is they’re trying to help them

get ahead in, they just have to be supervised at something.

Whether it’s sports or academics, these kids are always monitored. One

soccer parent recently gave me his family’s schedule for their

involvement and I left the room with a headache. Yes, they enjoy soccer

as a family activity, that is true, but the dad also told me without a

prompt that the extensive soccer commitment kept his kids occupied.

Too often, that’s how it is. Kids cannot be left out of sight of a

parent for 20 minutes lest they become hooked on smack or get arrested

holding up a convenience store.

I’ve stated before that nearly 100% of the kids we see going through

the soccer, baseball and other organized sports will never play

professionally and not many more will play in college. Still, they are

pushed to excel. That’s not a bad thing unless there is far too much

emphasis on this in the child’s life.

Kids at free play broaden their imaginations. It’s is absolutely

amazing how resourceful and happy they can be with so little.

Last weekend, for example, our son Roy and his friend Kohl Jones had

two basketballs but no hoop. No problem. The boys took a cardboard box,

set it on the ground and started shooting the balls into it. Then they

made up a game in which one person can block a shot attempt but only by

throwing one basketball at the other.

No parents telling them what to do or making up rules. Kids in charge,

making fun their own way.

And in the case of Roy, Ryan, Josh and Chris, sometimes all they have

to do is just add water.

* STEVE SMITH is a Costa Mesa resident and freelance writer. His

columns appear Saturdays. Readers may leave a message for him on the

Daily Pilot hotline at (949) 642-6086.