Reality bites: Why you need to get your kids on the golf course

If you’re a golfing parent, do this right now: Unplug your kids’ computer and get them on the golf course. Because your kids are getting out of hand.

Ok, please note I’m talking the collective “your kids” here. I’m sure Your kids are just wonderful, intellectual dreams who could easily find, say, Australia, on a map. If not, here’s a hint: It’s not in Europe.

And sure, I understand that a guy writing on the Internet that kids are on the Internet too much comes off as, well, Chris Baldwin. Hey, I’ll take the hypocrisy up a notch – I don’t even have any kids.

Here’s the point, however. Recently, I had the good fortune to visit and do some work at a plush seaside resort in Salvador da Bahia, Brazil, called Catussaba Resort Hotel. There was the beach to frolic at, there were four interconnected pools, there were ridiculously attractive staff members creating activities for kids of all ages, all day long. It is a place that should be a kid’s wildest dream.

Instead, most the kids aged 12-16 spent the vacation hanging around the computer area, instant messaging their friends. These are young teens, easily the most boring creatures on this planet. What could they possibly have to chat about, while on vacation at an amazing resort that caters to them?

It is an interesting dilemma, I admit. Today’s young parents are the first generation to have the Internet as an issue. I imagine writers of yesteryear etched columns into stone about how the radio was the devil.

I don’t think the Internet’s a terrible evil, however. I think it’s a fantastic tool that can help broaden kids’ perspectives and give them access to unlimited knowledge. But to use it – for hours – as a telephone surrogate while physically in paradise just seemed nuts to me.

Not that I have any fantastic solution, mind you, but it probably wouldn’t hurt parents at all to get their kids on a golf course with them. Or at least get them to do something, because reality, regardless of how fantastic it can be, just doesn’t seem to be cutting it for a lot of kids these days.

–WKW