September 19, 2017
How The Woods Wins Over WiFi And Kids Unplug
There’s something about the woods. They’re wild, and open and seemingly undiscovered. They’re waiting to be explored, ready for fresh footprints, hiding supplies for secret forts and home to crawling creatures that fascinate little minds.
And the best part? They don’t have any electrical outlets, or Wi-Fi.
The woods are that great escape, something we’re all too familiar with at Pine Canyon, where aspens and ponderosa pines reach for the sky in this mountain community.
Sometimes, in an era of endless social media notifications and streaming video, it’s nice to remind kids how to be kids. To encourage them to play with sticks, to collect rocks, to squat down and get a closer look at the bug that’s crawling along that fallen log. It’s important to show them how to disconnect, how to play under the stars, how to keep an eye out for a cool-looking bird or the puffy tail of a sweet little squirrel.
Just like you did as a kid. Before YouTube and Snapchat.
It’s quiet at Pine Canyon. The night sky is a new kind of dark, lit only by the countless stars that dot the sky. The air is crisp. And the forest is at your doorstep, promising adventure.
And here’s the cool thing. Once they learn how to be vintage kids, they remind you, too. You see the excitement on their faces and hear it in their voices, as they make new discoveries. And, explorers inevitably come home with stories, so you may quickly find yourself harvesting childhood stories that likely begin with, “When I was a kid, we…”
So, unplug your kids at Pine Canyon, for their own good. Push them out the door. Encourage them to get their sneakers muddy and dare them to capture worms. Because, they’ll come back with stories that they’ll be dying to tell you, and ones they can hold on to, to tell their own kids in the years ahead.