BellaOnline Forums Education Homeschooling Confidence booster

Here's a good article to boost our confidence that we're absolutely doing the right thing by our children!

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You know, there are some companies now that make play places like this and charge an admission fee. Some even call themselves children's museums.

We went to one in tampa, FL many years ago and there was a mini publix, a mini local tv station, a mini local hospital chain, etc. My kids found it kind of fun, but then my oldest (who was 7 or so at the time) said "mom, why do I want to go to a pretend store when I can go to the real store with you?" I can think of 4 places like this in the south central florida area alone.

The fact that all these kids were sharing the costumes provided (think fireman outfits, doctor scrubs, publix aprons) including hats, skeeved me out more than a little bit. There was no actual adult supervision in the town except for the parents, and most of them sat on benches while the kids played. No one spraying the hats between kid use realllllly grossed me out.

meg

Yes, and make sure you read the comments other people made about the article. A lot of those comments were even more compelling than the article itself! Like the one by the school nurse for example. It just makes you sick to your stomach!

I took my son over to a friends and the neighborhood playground was overrun with weeds and I was afraid to let him play for long on the equipment. It looked like no one had been there for years. This, even with a dozen or so houses that all back up to the playground.

I drive to different parks trying to find one that has kids so my son has someone other then me to play with. There are no kids at the neighborhood parks. He doesn't mind playing with me but he really wants to play with other kids.

I resent having to go to parks that are more then 5 minutes from my house, or having to pay so my son can go to an indoor play area just so he can be with other kids. Sadly, the one play area that has all the kids is an edutainmemnt play center. I try to keep him in the ones are are less restricted, but thats not where the other kids are.