Summer has always been the season of discovery for those growing up. Discovery of one’s autonomy, of a new love, of new places explored during a trip or simply by moving around the city following routes different from the usual ones, which lead to school or to the gym where one learns a sport. Summer is the season in which the time is not already completely occupied, as happens in the rest of the year. So there is free time, that is, there is the freedom to decide how to fill it. This freedom often also leads into the territory of passions: one has the freedom to engage in activities that are not prescribed by obligation. In this season, creativity marries idle time; curiosity creeps into the meanders of the day that have empty and suspended spaces.
Saying these things today, however, often means not taking into account the fact that even as children, boys and girls have their room and house invaded by a very cumbersome guest: the online world. And therefore, almost without realizing it, free and empty time immediately becomes full and overstimulated time. A time where our children choose nothing, because everything is established by the force with which the algorithm closes them in the bubble of virtual experiences that enter their lives with the force of an irresistible magnetic field, tearing them away from the desire for more. In recent weeks, we are often struck by seeing children at the seaside playing with the tablet, sitting on a deckchair. They are in a natural children’s paradise, they should enjoy the irresistible call of water and sand, but instead, for many hours, they continue to do the same things they would have done if they had remained in their bedrooms in the city.
And many parents are, in fact, worried because they realize that their children spend endless hours interacting with a screen, often declining the proposal to participate in summer camps, GRESTS and sports campuses. It should be reiterated to parents that, at least until the age of 14, their children should not be guaranteed what they like, but what they need. The risk of complying with their desire not to go out into the world, participate in oratory or scout activities because “they don’t feel like it” is to authorize a digital drift in the use of free time which is then very difficult to convert, because processes are triggered that lead to real phenomena of addiction to screens.
The importance of not giving in to requests to leave them alone in their rooms must be reiterated to parents, because “I don’t have fun at the oratory”, “that sport no longer interests me”, “scouts are boring”. To make it easier for your children to participate in activities that take place in the real world, pair up with other families, arrange for them to leave the house because a friend rings the doorbell and says “I’m downstairs waiting for you, shall we go?”. During the weekend, plan outings in nature or explorations in cities of art, also bringing a friend of your son/daughter with you. for high school teenagers, parents cannot decide what to make them do or not do, because at that age it is autonomy and self-determination that must guide them. Many are leaders and animators in the oratory… but the offer of projects in numerous territories that offer adolescents experiences characterized by an educational and socially useful dimension is increasingly growing (an example is Useful in the summer which develops in the summer months in the municipalities of the Lecco and Bellano area). These are summer proposals usually aimed at children between 15 and 18 years old who, with the guidance of adults with educational and technical skills, carry out a specific work task such as the redevelopment and maintenance of common goods, graphic and artistic activities, experiences in farms, agritourisms and social gardens.
The objectives? Promote the acquisition of skills that will be needed when they enter the world of work, (punctuality, teamwork, respect for authority, ability to self-organise work, keeping to schedule…) and promoting socialisation, which is today so reduced and impoverished precisely at the age that needs it most. In exchange for their time and commitment, young participants are given a shopping voucher to use in shops in their area. I think this is the direction that we adults – parents and allied educational communities – must see: allowing adolescents to involve themselves, during the summer, in experiences that give them the concrete perception that outside their rooms there is a real world that is waiting for them to help them grow and at the same time to make the energy and vital spirit that characterizes this age an instrument of growth – for them and for their community.
