The out of date yellow school bus and why I want to ride it

Notice anything strange about this picture?

It’s clearly way out of date. Not because school buses are no longer yellow or less rectangular. But more like those kids. Earbud-less kids looking straight ahead and peering out a bus window. Where are the buried heads?  (We won’t ruin the comparison by noticing how overly crowded that bus is or the fact that the kids are just way too happy about going to school at 7:00am. And since when did policemen drive leaning school buses?)

The whole thing cracked me up but then got me thinking about how different things really are today.

Used to you’d play the license plate game in the car or bus. It was the only time you might could get away with saying a naughty word because if the license plate had three of a four letter not -so-nice word you just filled in the rest to make your word. So FRT693 could easily have been “F-o-RT” but it was more fun to put an “a” in there and get the evil eye from your Mother. Or you’d scour the highway looking for “hug bugs”. Silly games to make the time pass with the people around you. But in the car or bus you were actually talking to the person next to you with your head up. You were engaged with those around you.

But it’s different today. Who wants to spell words on license plates when you can play words with friends on your phone? I get it but I don’t like it necessarily.

 We strategically work hard in our household, and car, to keep our heads up like these goofy kids on this school bus that is so yesterday. Myself included. I hear the bloop of the green text bubble coming through and I want to go see it right then even though I’m in the middle of checking homework. It takes restraint to keep my head up at times when that email comes through even though I’m having a conversation with my kids. I’m tempted to check the latest on fb at the same time as listening to a never ending made up story from a certain sweet six year old I love dearly.

Games can become addicting to the point of aching necks and tense shoulders. Not to mention attitudes of entitlement and depression that can flare up as a result of chronic gaming. Games aren’t my thing but keeping up with people is. My head goes down when I see a good read on a blog or some updated pictures. I have to fight it for myself and for my kids until they’re old enough to moderate for themselves. We do that in different ways. We talk regularly about real face time and interaction with people being more important, in general, than digital face time or electronic communication. We don’t allow electronics at any meals and we limit time on electronics. It’s not a right to play any electronic device (ipod, ipad, computer, tv, etc) and some days we unplug completely not because of punishment but just because. It doesn’t make everyone happy but it’s a battle worth fighting in my opinion.

Helping our kids and ourselves fight for personal moderation and integrity in our electronic world is critical. There’s too much at stake to throw up our hands and say, “It’s not a battle worth fighting. You don’t know the hell my kid would give me if I pulled hours or any amount of game time/electronics away from him or her.”

But it is a battle worth fighting.

And let’s hope our kids learn to fight it now so that their kids won’t be tech zombies. Imagine our Grandchildren at age two  coming to Grandma’s house and all they want to do is keep their head down in their Ipad because nothing or no one can really compete or satisfy with that kind of technology. We must be teaching and talking about the value of real life relationships. And pointing out that there are other ways to have fun and enjoy life besides being stuck to a screen.

We encountered a hard lesson this summer with our 12 year old as he was given several days worth of  5-6 hours of time to play a game he loves and it only made him want more of it. By the third day of consistent playing his attitude was extremely argumentative and disrespectful and he was on the verge of tears because he couldn’t keep playing. Later we were able to talk this through and point out that that was not normally like him. That something good ended up having such a hold on him that it changed him in some ways –  mainly because it was done in excess. We all learned a lesson in that. We had sort of set him up for failure by allowing the excessive freedom but also realize he’s still 100% responsible for his responses.

So I’m mocking this cheesy out of date school bus that no kid or adult in their right mind would want to ride yet I kind of long for it in a weird sort of way. I long for a group of kids to look and act like a group of kids interacting with each other and able to enjoy life without heads down and thumbs in overdrive.

Maybe it’s worth hopping on that  out of date school bus and learning a thing or two from those goofy wide eyed but heads up kids.