I offhandedly asked one of my 1st graders today if he ever played hide-and-seek: and he shocked me to the core by saying “no.” How can you grow up in this country and never play that? And then I wondered (at the risk of sounding like an old fogey) if all the texting and video games and kid’s shows had something to do with it. What has been your experience, parents and aunts/uncles and fellow teachers?
My older two (ages 6 and 8) play hide and seek all the time. Also tag. We don’t have any video game consoles in this house, but they are allowed to have 30 minutes of computer games per day plus a certain amount of TV (primarily PBS, since we don’t have most cable channels).
Maybe the kid you were talking to just doesn’t have any kids his age living in his neighborhood, or something?
Interesting. I was reading a kid’s story about his spring break activity today, playing basketball, and the story was really confusing in part. Eventually he suggested a new beginning sentence: “Last Saturday I took my basketball game over to Denique’s house.” At that point, I made him explain: his whole basketball story was about electronic basketball.
On the playground today, I watched kids improv a game of Indiana Jones by rolling a giant ball down the slide while another kid triumphantly ran away singing the theme song. I’ve taught kids manners and problem-solving through negotiating the rules of zombie tag (“You all have to agree on whether humans can have their brains eaten when they’re lying on the ground or not, otherwise nobody will have fun”). At lunchtime I explained to students how to play rock paper scissors Spock lizard. Jump rope chants are reasonably common. Another teacher regularly organizes games of kickball at recess. After a guy from Northern Ireland visited our class, the kids tried a few games of Mr. Wolf, a traditional Irish children’s game.
Hide and seek is difficult to play on our somewhat barren playground, but I see plenty of traditional games, along with fun variants thereof.
I live close to both an elementary and middle school. While most of the playground games involve some sort of ball, I’ve seen younger kids playing hopscotch.
When I taught daycare/after-school care, we played all sorts of games, from kickball to freeze tag.
I seriously doubt that TEXTING is getting in the way of this FIRST GRADER’S hide and seek time. His parents would have to read each one to him.
Fear not, old dopers. Kids still play the games you played…probably on your lawn! Well, except kick the can. That game’s just stupid.
I’m a Brownie Guide leader. The girls are between 6 and 10, and they play traditional games all the time. Hide and seek is a favourite when two leaders have time to supervise. They also like tag, freeze tag, skipping, those games where you clap and chant, catch, shooting basketballs, duck, duck, goose and wink murder. Last week we played hockey with a plastic bottle, some rolled up newspapers and chairs for goals. (They insisted on the bottle for some reason. Apparently tennis balls aren’t good enough - too easy for me to find or something.)
Shit, I still play hide and seek in the video games I play.
Ever tried playing hide and seek in Halo, Call of Duty or Splinter Cell online? That shit’s fun.
Didn’t bother with the video games part, eh?
I would not be surprised in the least if this kid hasn’t played any traditional physical activity games more than a few times in his life. The other reason for the answer could have been that you asked the kid if he’s played Hide and Seek. Asking about Tag would have made more sense since you must have many good places to hide for H&S to be fun.
I’ve taught my great niece and a couple of her friends some hand clap games. They’re a good way to practice rhythm. She, her brother and their friends also play tag, hide and go seek and crack the whip when there’s a group of them at the park. I even taught them how to play Red Rover once and they thought it was weird. 
I think that kids will fall back on some of the standards with enough unstructured outdoor group play. Somthing that most of them don’t get much of. 
Honestly, who needs hide & seek when you have Halo?
Mine play hide and seek, tag, the horrible “Marco Polo” They don’t play kick the can. Simon Says and Red Light Green Light were popular when they were younger. There is a hop scotch outline on our driveway. About 1/2 of seventh graders at girl scout camp knoew “Chinese jumprope” My son can play marbles.
A lot of games they get in school - there are never enough kids for pick up games of kickball (my mother has always thought you should be able to get a pickup game of baseball or kickball together - I tell her she is a baby boomer and when she was growing up there were always a ton of kids - now there are fewer kids - and fewer yet outside in the public park where moms believe the child molesting boogy man live)
I know my niece and nephews don’t play any of that stuff. Hell, they don’t go outside.
My three-year-old plays both video games and hide-and-seek. She doesn’t text yet. . . 
I don’t have, or really know, any kids. But I see my neighbours’ kids playing fairly traditionally a lot. When they aren’t chasing each other around or jumping on the trampoline, they are deep in the midst of roleplaying type scenarios.
I don’t know if they specifically play (or did play, they may be a bit old for it now) hide-and-seek or tag etc.
My boys (4 & 6) play traditional outdoor games, but they don’t have any video games (no Wii, no DS, etc.) and their tv viewing is pretty limited. We take them outside to ride bikes, play soccer, etc. At the bus stop every morning, the kids play tag or have running races. My son is involved in a daily soccer game at recess - the same kids play every day and I always get a recap when my son gets off the bus in the afternoon. When my son started school, there was a bit of adjustment to the games the kids play at recess. There is a group of kids that play the more traditional games - soccer, kickball, tag - and another group of kids that play elaborate re-enactments of Transformers and Pokemon. My son has never seen those shows/movies/games and he didn’t understand what the kids were talking about, so he found his place among the traditional game-players.
My hide & seek story: my kids wanted to play H&S in the house one afternoon and they asked me to hide. I got in the bathtub and pulled the curtain shut, they counted, and the seeking commenced. I was in there forever and was very proud of my clever hiding place. Eventually, though, it seemed very quiet so I peeked through the gap to see what was going on. Both of my boys were sitting on the couch, one coloring and one reading. Apparently, it was all a plan to get me out of the way for awhile.
My nieces, ages 2 and 3.5, play hide-and-seek.
Are you creepy/scary? Maybe he thought you were messing with him.
John DiFool- "Do you play hide and seek?
Child- “Sure I do”.
John DiFool- “Cool. Here, you hide in this trunk…”
cue ominous music…
My daughter is five and loves tag and hide-and-seek. Her little school friends also chase each other around this tree until I drag her away almost every afternoon.
I’ve seen her play Superman using a towel as her cape. She has chalk for drawing on the patio, and about half the time she has a hopscotch grid set up. We have a baseball and bat, pretend golf, a trampoline, swings and various big balls for her to chase with the dogs. She’d rather be outdoors than inside.
Until it’s time for Kidzui, that is. Kidzui is a Firefox-for-Kids browser. I swear if I let her, she’d stay on all day and night. I allow one hour every day she brings home a good report from school (2-4 times a week). She can’t play on the weekends unless she earns it. She also loves some fight game she plays with her daddy on the PS2. I think it’s kickboxing. And then there’s her VTech console with the various educational games. And every time she gets her hands on my phone she plays that simple shooter game. And then she has her Thomas “laptop”, and her VSmile Smartwriter. And some alphabet electronic game.
I guess we’re pretty well-rounded here when it comes to playtime.
At home, my son plays tag, hide and seek, teeball (he’s 4), soccer and pirates outside, or he helps me with the garden. Inside, it’s drawing, more hide and seek, sometimes flash light tag, board games or whatever pretend games he wants.
We took away TV and video games for a month as an experiment, and I’m beginning to think it’ll be permanent, or at least until he’s a little older. For a while, his behavior was really going down the toilet - screaming, hitting and spitting at preschool, whining at home when we turned the TV off. And he wasn’t even watching that much TV or video games at home. At first, I assumed all his negative behavior was due to the birth of his little sister. But as soon as we axed the media, he began to improve. At one point, I felt like I was getting notes from preschool a couple of times a week. I got the first one in two weeks last Friday. Yeah, it’s not perfect, but it’s a huge improvement.
overlyverbose, we found the same thing with my oldest son. We would allow him to play games on the computer - things like hockey or games on the Nick Jr. website. When he started throwing fits when his time was up and when he was waking up way too early so that he could play before anyone else was up, we took the privilege away. We have seen a marked improvement in his behavior. He plays better with his little brother, cooperates more when it’s time to switch to another activity, and is generally in a better mood. I liked that he was comfortable with the computer and knew how to navigate, but it was like he was addicted to it. When he’s a little older, we’ll try again.