Monday, April 17, 2006

WHAT is Wrong with Today's Children?

Seriously! WHAT is wrong with them?  Especially at times when they don’t have school, like this past Easter vacation period, and the summer vacation that’s right around the corner, we get gaggles of children in here. Often pairs or groups of boys, sometimes girls too.  Now, many kids will know exactly what they want, or want so many things they take a while to pick the one or two mom or dad is buying for them.  But, at least once a week we get a child who comes in and actually says he or she doesn’t want ANYTHING! Come on!! Have you seen this place? Did you look around?  There are boys and girls your same age who would buy hundreds of dollars in stuff if only mom and dad were independently wealthy.  But no, you look around and SERIOUSLY don’t see a single thing you want????  That just doesn’t make sense.  We have Barbie, Betty & Veronica, My Little Pony, She’s So Raven, and a ton of manga that should be interesting to a young girl.  Then there’s Star Wars, Simpsons, Spider-Man, Justice League, GI Joe and tons of other stuff that boys should enjoy.  We also have lots of games, even the widely popular Yu-Gi-Oh.  We also have action figure toys from a variety of genres—something for almost anyone.  Yet somehow, kids can come in and say there isn’t anything they want.  

WHY is this?  Because we don’t have video games or movies?  Because mom and dad are making them use their own money, so they don’t want to spend it?  Because they’re on too much Ritalin?  Maybe there’s just too much and they’ve got sensory overload?  Or maybe today’s children are just stupid.

Sure, there’s plenty of grown-up stuff here, but there’ lots of kid stuff too.  We’ve got a great chunk of it right by the front door, so you can’t possibly miss it.  I had a big group of kids come in today, 3 boys and 2 girls. The girls didn’t seem to even want to look around – they were young teens or almost teens.  The boys were a bit younger, probably between 7 and 10.  They Ooohhed an Ahhhed over the Yu-Gi-Oh cards and looked through a Star Wars book, but when mom asked what they wanted, they quietly said “nothing.”  If my mom was going to buy me something and brought me into a cool store like Neptune Comics, I can promise you I’d find something to get!  Parents, seriously—comics and card games are NOT a bad thing.  They teach some rather useful skills like READING and MATH.  They help kids use the creative side of their brains, and get their buggy eyes off of the TV set and GameBoy.  When you were growing up, didn’t you read a comic book at all?  Did you sit and watch cable TV and play video games all night?  Why not encourage children to read?  Or let them play a game that teaches math and strategic thinking?  They can learn and not even realize they are because both are very non-threatening way to learn.  We’ve got Free Comic Book Day coming up in a few weeks – pick something out for them and let them see how fun comic books are.  And then when you stop in with them the next time maybe they’ll actually want something.

No comments: