Dear Dr. Laura,
This subject has been a stump I get on often over the years. When I was a child I was so blessed to live in the country. We didn't have a TV and my mom stayed home. She would kick us out of the house to go play in the yard. She was a woman with many fears, but her simple act of making me go outside to play ended up helping me to face a host of my own fears. By having to use my imagination to entertain myself, I found out a lot about the limits of my strength and creativity. This gave me confidence to try new things or to know about cause and effect, thus eliminating a lot of fears about what "could" happen.
Allowing children to truly explore and test their abilities is vital to helping them learn to think logically, rationally and sensibly. I believe our society would be much better off if kids were outside playing instead of rotting their bodies and minds in front of computers, televisions and other electronic devices.
C in TX
