No Screen, No Problem

I’m going to share an anecdote, one that will seem unrelated to today’s product, but I swear, it’ll make sense eventually. Here goes:

At my house, I have a screened-in back porch. It’s small and it gets a lot of sun, which is why, in the summer, it houses most of our plants. Also, in the summer, it becomes a retreat for our cat. She asks to go out; we let her out; she lounges around, napping and enjoying the heat. Eventually, she asks to come back in, gets some water, gets some food, uses the facilities, and then, five minutes later, asks to go out again. Our old dog, though, could not be trusted. He would ask out, and we would let him, but we had to make sure to check in with him at intervals of five minutes, because, otherwise, he would get too hot, and he wouldn’t have the good sense to demand re-entry into the air-conditioned home.

I share this all to say: adults are mostly like my cat. They know their limits. They know to pace themselves. They know when to relax and soak in some heat. They know when to come inside. Children, on the other hand, are like my old dog. If you leave indoor-outdoor regulation up to them, they will screw it up and end up tired, cranky, and dehydrated.

To put it another way: yes, summer is a great time for kids to get out and get some fresh air, but if that air is hovering around 95 degrees, you want to make sure to build in some breaks.

And yet, it’s not as simple as bringing your kids inside. Because the television lives inside. And the game console. And the tablet, and the phone, and the other game console, and a whole bunch of other stuff that an old like me can’t even name because I’m such a saggy-brained geriatric millennial loser.

Summer should not be going from near heat stroke to screen time back to heat stroke back to screen time. You need stuff with which to lure your kids out of the sun that doesn’t require wifi and/or a username and password to play.

That’s what this tabletop soccer game provides. You build the board, you drop the ball in, and then you and your kid (or your kid and your other kid, or your kid and their friend, or whoever) enjoy some simple, brainless, non-enriching, yet entirely pixel-free fun.

So get it, and give your kids a break from screens, sunshine, and thinking all at once!