on feeling incendiary, with full disclosure
I have these visions of Evan at eleven or twelve or twenty with jeans that slouch down to show the crack of his butt. I see the vacant expression and some god-awful device permanently fused to his hand, his head slouched down, his thumbs all flickity, his body pitching and yawing with whatever weapon he remotely controls.
I imagine every person within a fifty-foot radius weeping for the future.
These visions translate into the current-day as for every fifteen minutes you spend sprawled on the couch playing Pokemon’s Revenge, you’ll spend three hours splitting wood, reciting French conjunctions, and hosing out the compost bin.
Not that my kids don't sprawl. I'm a little ashamed to admit they both know that the Millennium Falcon made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs. But television's different. Television is big. Heavy. Not pocket-friendly. Only operable by grownups. Almost always accompanied by lego construction and crayola art. Television is pot. Pot makes you relax. Video games are heroin. Heroin makes you think you're a rock star. Then it makes you a ward of the federal government.
Game-addicted kids bleed time, plugged in at the expense of formative input. Screw fresh air and conversation. Those things get in the way of… what? You tell me. I can't imagine how anyone articulates the perceived value of video games other than it's awesome, all I do is charge up the PSP and the kid won't eat or speak for a week.
Actually. That does sound kind of awesome.
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Wait. That's not the right one.
Christmas morning. He saw this and became an instant addict. I was busy lolling with my pants unbuttoned, because that's what Canadians do on Boxing Day, and my conviction followed suit. By the time I snapped out of it, ready to take it into the woods for ritualistic drawing and quartering, it was too late.
I hid it in the car. He broke in with a crowbar and disappeared with it for three days. The police picked him up slouched against a construction site on Agricola Street at level 27 of WALL-E's Axiom Adventure. So I set a timer for fifteen minutes or twenty or five. After the beep he would convulse and wail and post-extrication, there was a mushroom cloud above our house and a toxic stench. Tantrum fallout.
For Evan, there is no such thing as justified moderation of what he thinks is fun. Not this kind of fun. So we hid it again. We are officially on pause, not knowing how to proceed. Ban it outright? Hope he forgets? Let him have it and hope the novelty wears off? A video game built to ensnare five-year-olds—and marketed with the tagline 'MAKES KIDS REAL SMART-LIKE'—is buried in my underwear drawer. But it smells a five-year-old. And it wants to return to its master.
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DISCLOSURE: circa 1986. It's how I learned to type. Doesn't matter that this is the most recent video game I've ever played. I've seen enough to know it's NOT THE SAME THING. If today's gaming is heroin, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was ketchup.
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My kids can have blue hair and moderately discreet tattoos as long as they're not I LUV KAYLEE 4 EVR or I AM A TOTAL KNOB in ancient Mandarin script. They're welcome to explore who they are in any flavour or colour they prefer as long as they're healthy and kind. They're in the living room right now moshing to Stiff Upper Lip. But if they turn out to be chronic gamers I will send them on a Yukon gulag and I will send the bill to fucking Disney.
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DISCLOSURE: With the exception of anything that simulates blood-splatter, no ban applies to the arcade in the basement of Gepetto's restaurant at Sugarloaf Mountain, Maine. Because they earn it with sore muscles and rosy cheeks. Because it's totally skunky and vintage and gloomy. And because you can't fit the ride-on Miami Motosquad Racers into the palm of your hand and take it with you to play while you're sitting on the frigging toilet.
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Just before he falls asleep, Evan whispers up a perfect balance of sweetness and defiance and OH MY GOD evil has taken root and all is lost and would it help if we became Mormons? Or hippies? Or Newfoundlanders? We will move to the wilds of Labrador. That is what we will do. In the wilds of Labrador there is no such thing as blipping electric green. Only brown.
"I might not have my Leapster, mommy, because you took it away, my Leapster. But you know what about my Leapster, mommy? I still have my Leapster IN MY HEART."
(My own, my only, MY PRESHUS...)
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If you're bristling at this because you let your kid(s) play video games, let me be completely clear. Yes. I do believe that you are equipping the next generation's parking lot attendants with everything they need to be productive and interesting people. KIDDING.
I waver, both hysterical and justified. Video games are probably not as bad as I think they are. Video games are probably not as okay as some think they are.
Does everybody do it? Will his friends in grade five talk of nothing else? Will we make him feel excluded? Are principles doomed by osmosis? Am I too fucking prissy? Does this amount to me presuming to dictate his interests? Is it ever okay or fruitful to do that, or at least to try and nudge? Am I wrong about ketchup and heroin?
Monday, January 4, 2010 in mama conundrums
Reader Comments (79)
Hitchhiker's was a gateway drug for me. Actually, My Commodore Vic 20 was the the real gateway. After learning to make my name flash across the screen, it was just downhill from there. I was so entranced by computers I was programming by the age of 10. My parents didn't know what to do, so they limited the time I could spend on the computer. 1 hour a day (or something like that), if it wasn't school related (ie/ making title pages on the Commodore 64 for the new unit in S.E.S).
I still play a tonne of video games, and so does my husband, but we cap our gaming and only start after our son goes to bed ("Left 4 Dead" isn't really kid friendly). I'm glad I was taught to moderate my gaming when I was young, I think that was the key for me.
We have a "Leapfrog Click Start" computer for my son (from my brother-in-law and his wife) and James loves it (he's 2.5). But we cap the amount of time he can play on it. 1/2 hour MAX, and then it's back to trains or books or blocks.
Sometimes that's just enough time for me to read blogs and check my email :)
But I spent many more hours reading.
I've got boys now and I'm not sure that any of them are going to be "readers".... but they sure seem inclined to be gamers. And I am completely stuck on what to do about it. Limit times and play with them when they do is my only solution so far, but I think there's change a'comin' and they are not going to like the smell when it gets here.
Well put Megsie, this is what I wonder... but Evan is an obsessive type. I worry that he would never ease off and then we'd be stuck. Slippery slope. Then again, so is outright banning - I don't think there's any more potent appeal than something that mommy says is bad. I may as well spray the thing with preschooler pheromones.
I'm hoping your readers have answers to your questions because I need to know, too!
I want her outside on her bike, or a scooter, or something. Go play with friends, read a book. I know that the computer and the internet are all encompassing and cannot be avoided, but I'm trying for as long as possible!
My nephew loves that stuff (he's 5) and I have to say he's very smart and funny. He's much less social than my daughter though. But then, is it a chicken or the egg question? Is he different personality wise and therefore gravitates toward the computer games or do the games make him that way? or is it a bit of both? I have no idea. . . .
In our house, we bought a couple of kid-friendly games for our PS2 (a Cars racing game, Star Wars Lego). Isaac has been allowed to play them for over a year now, with the understanding before he starts that the time will be limited by me. And I look at total screen time during the day - so he can't watch Kids CBC for an hour and then have an hour on the video games. Once he understood that concept, it's been fun watching him decide which he wants to do, and allocating the time accordingly.
When he is playing the vids - especially Star Wars Lego, which is a great cooperative game and fun for parents, too - one of us either plays with him or sits nearby, to poke him if he starts going tharn.
I set the timer and if it beeps while he's halfway through a level, I let him finish it out and then turn it off. If a tantrum ensues, he's not allowed to play it again for a week. In the early days there were probably three or four "you're groundeds" handed out before he understood the system.
I don't think video games are tools of the devil - that would be hypocritical of me. And yes, there will be MASSIVE exposure to the idea of video games in his life from here on in; don't kid yourself. If he learns reasonable limits now, as one of the other commenters said, it'll serve him well later on. I liken it to parents who never ever never let their kids have sugar, and then they get to public school and can't understand the concept of moderating their junk-food intake.
*end assvice*
But maybe wait until his ardor cools before reintroducing it?
I'm alright. It's all about moderation and variety, in my opinion.
Great post, Kate.
But frankly, at five, I would rather have my son playing with pretend guns. And he does. And we tell him he has to eat any animals he "kills."
He loves to read for hours on end, build and re-build with legos, cook things from scratch, play in the snow, skateboard, bike-ride, build forts, does really well in school and is respectful and interesting to talk to. A perfect kid? Not even close. However, he's pretty well-adjusted child who also happens to play video games. I'm not the hugest fan either, but I think in moderation, they're fine. He has friends who have no limits imposed whatsoever, and they're not my favorite kids, honestly. I believe there is a correlation.
(I realize that he's still on the young end of gaming, and we have many years ahead of us of ensuring he balances it out with other interests, and probably taking the controls away 5 or 20 times, but I still have faith he'll be a contributing member of society. And if his pants hang below his bum I will staple rainbow-colored suspenders to the waistband.)
He also received quite a lot of Christmas money, with which he was planning to buy a new DS, which has a camera built in. After we explained just how much his money was worth, I think he's changed his mind and wants to buy a digital camera, a far more worthy investment than another handheld, in my mind. (and he even suggested he could save the remainder for the future--I don't even think I'd be able to be that strong!)
(Apologies--that was a whole lot of bragging, which I normally shy away from. I just wanted to offer a example of what works for us. If it makes you feel better, my social, well-adjusted son stole a piece of candy from a shop three years ago. We made him return it in person.)
So, earlier this year he started mentioning this thing that the natives in childland call a "DS." Since those are his father's initials I figured it was an easy request to fulfill. "Why, yes, son, we have one of those at home!" But no, apparently this is a portable game device, and it has struck terror in my heart. We have thus far resisted and for that reason, I think holiday gift unwrapping was a little underwhelming for him. (My daughter is too young to be disappointed, thankfully.) I tend to fall in a puddle on the hysterical end of the spectrum on this issue. The exceptions made for screen time with PBS are a fallback position and have to do with the more limited exposure to commercial bombardment and the naive hope that there is perhaps some positive effect from educational sources.
On the other hand, we just spent two weeks at home with potty training and paint fumes. It was hairy at times and a little distraction might have been preferable to the tempers that occasionally flared. Maybe we would travel more if it didn't seem so daunting to keep the younguns busy for long periods of immobile time. So I just don't know where the balance lies for us. I don't expect to hold video games at bay forever, but I do want to see a little greater self-control and maturity in my son before I introduce this big temptation.
Full disclosure: My parents got us an Atari 1400 or whatever the thing was called and a 2600 and then some Nintendo system. It never really held much sway for me. I did go through a short, intense Tetris thing, but stopped when I started dreaming about Tetris blocks sliding down the screen. My husband's parents never allowed him to have video games, so he just spent all his time at his friend's house. I think for them, that made it a successful policy.
I have NO problem with these things for older kids (age 6 min) who can understand time limits and whatnot, but for the toddler set? no, just no.
And herion - yes, exactly.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/jan/02/children-technology-blake-morrison
This is a BIG issue in our house as well. My ten year old boy is pretty obsessed and we have had to set lots of ground rules - egg timers so he's like a mini gamer Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, kitchen timers, charts, bartering and bargaining, no overtly shoot 'em up games.
The peer pressure at school is enormous.
He is beginning to self regulate. And I would say he has gained from some aspects - the problem solving, determination, tactics. And he is quite well rounded in other ways (and he's reading The Dreadcrew so he can't be all bad).
I've now got my 2 year old crying for Yo Gabba Gabba. Better go!
But his little body gets all tense, and remains that way for the duration. Can't be good. Like you said about the idiot box, they RELAX while watching TV. Not so with pbskids.org.
Same thing happens when he watches anything slightly suspenseful. Even g-rated movies! Breaks my heart a little.
EVERY boy he knows has a DS, every single one, and pretty much every girl and he is the only kid - literally - he knows who does not have one. So it's an issue even though we have a well-stocked Wii and a computer with games on it and everything.
But a lot of my husband's friends are video game designers or reviewers and they've changed the way I think of games - the good ones, at least, go beyond being simply fun and actually are their own type of art. The games my son likes, however, are just dopey and he is NOT getting a DS.
Maybe you could let the battery run out and "lose" the charger?
It's turned into a full fledged WHEN IS DADDY COMING HOME I WANT TO PLAY THE BEE GAME. He also received two little learning laptop type things this year and he's been playing them like crazy.
My husband is a "gamer" and I see the little one playing and I skip to a future where I'm just handing plates of food to zombie men who smell and squint when exposed to sunlight and OH MY CRAP.
So yes, limits. Big time.
The hardest part will be getting my husband on board. Which SUCKS. Argh. Nutpunch.
It's a hard thing to figure out- the balance- and I don't have kids myself but I think you're right to be a little wary since Evan is susceptible to being obsessive about it. It seems to me that it poses more of a danger to some people than others and I don't necessarily think video games are awful (though I can't see the appeal) but I do know (and have dated) adult men who spend way too much time on them because they're addictive. Move to the frozen tundra if you have to, just avoid Silicon Valley.
*Is it just me? None of your pictures ever show up for me!*
I found you via Maggie by the way. I sometimes scroll through her comments and I often enjoy yours and thought I should make my way over.
He reads as much as he plays video games.
He gets 'A's' on his report card in school.
He received "first class with honours" on his Royal Conservatory piano exam.
He plays bantam minor league hockey.
He walks 20 min. to + from school.
He loves to downhill ski.
...And, yes...he loves video games.
It's part of who he is and what he and his friends connect with.
All in moderation. Would I like it if he preferred to ride his mountain bike, shoot pucks in the driveway and play b-ball outside (all of which he does, but he doesn't pick that activity first) HELL YES I WOULD. It's an ongoing battle, but you have to give a little sometimes. Being a parent is all....hard. I am constantly stunned at what his peers are allowed to look at, watch, and do in regards to Restricted movies, inappropriate TV shows (Family Guy----yuck!!), staying up until all hours...and so on. That a WHOLE other ball of wax. We have locks on the computer and the TV--------- no exceptions. Thanks for letting me vent!
My point? Please don't let this happen to your kids. Video games are not inherently evil, and they should learn how to do things in moderation, instead of being SO excited on the rare occasion they have access to something that they don't ever learn how to stop. ESPECIALLY if you already see that they have a slightly addictive personality (like Evan? I think?) they need to learn how to do this when you can still guide and teach them impulse control. That won't happen if video games, etc., are totally banned. My parents were much more relaxed and less strict by the time they had their second child, and the fact remains that my brother is MUCH more capable of regulating his activities than I probably ever will be. Regulate screen time, sure, but let them decide for themselves when they're going to play and if they're going to divide the time into smaller chunks, etc. It's all important life skills for later, all of which I had to learn after reaching college, when I didn't have my parents' rules imposed on me all the time. Frankly, I went slightly crazy, heady in my joy at not being so constrained. Sigh. It's not a mistake that I'll be repeating with my own kids, I learned a lot of hard lessons through my own experience, and I'm STILL trying to teach myself to not 'hoard' the good stuff just b/c it might not happen again for another three months.
I loved this post though. Something to think about for when my baby gets big enough to be interested in such things. He already loves my laptop and phone, so we'll see. :)
We are a no Wii, DS, Playstation etc etc house. There are a couple of games on the Iphones the kids (6 & 3) play at but unobsessively. I can obsess over Tetris/Minesweeper so I know the pull of the games so am reluctant to let them have any consoles. Also why are kids this little getting these highish value electronics anyway?? I have a mental age of 11 in my mind for this kind of thing - bit like for a mobile phone - and never TV/PC in a bedroom until they are old enough to live on their own. I am probably hopelessly naive though.
teaching moderation. power struggles and tears. my nephews always had to read the same amount of time they played video games and i am in awe of their parents, because i know it was not easy for them and they got many 'why don't you love me?' 'just you wait till i don't live here anymore' retorts. homework and chores etc always came first as well of course. i think tv watching had separate rules.
i have the photo problem as well, though it usually resolves after a couple of days when the post isn't 'fresh' anymore. i've had this problem since you upgraded your website a year (or two) or so ago.
But as for the post, MAN do I feel you on all of this, Kate. Including all the contradictions and concluding doubt. My parents were straight up against them, but we (my older sister and I) never really worked up any real hankering for them, so it was never much of a battle, just an understanding. I remember playing video games at friends house and it felt downright sinful and illicit. I have particularly racy memories of playing the Nagano '98 Olympics Nintendo game and eating 3D (!) Doritos(!), WATCHOUT. (Yes. It was the late 90s and I was 11--cheap thrills for all!) But any time I did so I was an outright embarrassment, moving my uh, whole self, as if that would do any thing to the game controller, putting my tooootal lack of hand-eye coordination on nosy, lit-up display, etc. So yeah, I never felt I missed out.
But like you mentioned about Evan above, I'm an obsessive type from way back, so I'm grateful for all of these that kept me from being lured in. The Wii feels eerily made for freaky fruitless-body-thrashers like me, because the movements outside your fingertips DO matter this time! but I'm afraid (not too mentioned too poor and apathetic, really) to go near it because of my own tendency towards The Obsession.
But seriously, the kids I babysat in high school went from sweet, cooperative boys to whiny combative aggressive hotmesses of obstinate Playstation-driven rage after that fateful Christmas when they got one. They didn't want to play the games we made up anymore. They didn't want to read books or play with their toys or play anything but The Playstation Ohmygod The Playstation. And then they'd fight with each other over it. It's all the evidence I need.
I'm sure there's a way to regulate and make them work, but I think when the time comes for me to have kids, an outright-but-hopefully-not-frighteningly-preachy-or-yes, fucking prissy ban will be easier. I don't think you're wrong about heroin and ketchup. But it is tricky. And look, I've sort of rambled and forgotten what I wanted to say and all I've done on this sinus infectiony afternoon is listen to This American Life and drink tea like the I-didnt-grow-up-with-video-games-book-loving party pooper I apparently am. So apparently were all doomed to mouthbreathing, in some way or another, no matter the cause.
On the video game (and television) front, I also waffle wildly. My sister wanted to give my daughter a Leapster last Christmas and I vetoed it. This year I allowed it, and thankfully it hasn't been as bad as I expected. I mean, she LOVES it, but because we've always limited TV (no cable television, only DVD's), I think she's very conscious at six how sluggish she feels after playing mind-numbing games or watching TV after a very short period. She willingly stops, but I know I'm lucky in that respect. I also only allow games that have SOME educational aspect. We don't have Nintendo or Wii or whatever other stuff is out there and I doubt we ever will.
In theory, I'm with you, even though I've cracked the door open to it....
She didn't tell us what action we should take depending on our answer, but it became pretty obvious to us. Some times of day, some lengths of time, are OK. Others are not. Mornings are out, late evenings are out, anything more than 45 minutes is out. That's just us, but it was a great way to start getting a handle on this very difficult question. And it's a process, not a yes/no. I think. Probably.
We were given a Wii and a Wii fit last Christmas and have played these games as a family. Nothing like your five-year-old whipping your ass in Tennis.
This year, we caved and bought Wii Lego Star Wars. HOWEVER. Play time is limited. Strictly limited. Same goes for the Lego game that I bought for the Nintendo DS that *I* was given at a party last year.
We'll give them, say, 1/2 hour and then it is to be turned off. They then spend their time building magnificent Lego creations, "cooking dinner" in the toy kitchen, , reading, drawing and writing books of their own.
I refuse to have brain-dead children.
On the other hand, he's discovered the Wii this Christmas - we'll see how long THAT obsession lasts. But in all honesty, I'm thrilled that he's a gamer. It was obvious when we signed him up for soccer last summer that athletics are not going to be his path. The only time he really enjoyed himself was the day he managed to disrupt the game by attracting an admiring knot of players from the opposing team who were all gathered around to see him demonstrate his Ben 10 Omnitrix. He's not going to be a hockey player, that boy of mine, so in this town that means he needs some other way to find his tribe - and he's already found some fellow nerds he can talk to about aliens and Wii games.
i am happy to say that i have two brothers just out of teen years that survived the current day and age of cgi and are quite free of the practice. there was a scary year or two when i wondered if they would ever remember to go outside again, but in part, the fact that they were not even allowed to bring in video games until 12 or 13 helped. they both hike as regularly as one reads manga and the other work in PS altering his own art, so that is good.
get rid of it,i say. toss it. maybe burn it. it does not have to be, you know. he will likely let it go eventually, but once pandora's box can be opened at will, when then it will never go away, right? but don't run off to the mormons. those people believe all kinds of crazy. and wear weird underwear. now that would make evan a social pariah.
part me is bugged and annoyed with the whole, "video games are evil" mentality that so many parents like to cloak themselves with in a bid for parenting superiority. no, video games are not evil, for god's sake, neither is television or cell phones. let's be real here and quit patting ourselves on the back for our elevated proclivities for the Better Things like reading and playing outdoors and whatnot.
i've never played a video game because i'm not interested. my son in particular would play it 24/7: IF HE COULD. the key here are the parents. hey! guess what? mom, dad? you are in control! yes, that's right. if he loves the Leapster or the DS or the Playstation, set your limits. like, we don't play video games on school nights, or maybe the kids can unwind for half hour after school before homework or only on Saturday morning or all day Sunday after church. whatever it is, i doubt they are inherently evil. some kids are more drawn to their addictive qualities than others and parents will soon be alert to this and then they can set their limits. Limits, which by the way, can be flexible and subject to change because dad and mom are in control and not little Parker.
So the cell phone is powered down and given to mom who keeps until it's the appropriate time for socializing with friends; it shall not lay next to him on the table while he tries to do homework but is distracted by the continual buzzing that alerts him to new text messages. see, the parent is in control. is texting EVIL, like the women at the gym were concurring it was just this very night? no, not really. it CAN be, and as your kid gets older we're all wise to the tricks and the inevitability and we do our best to be involved parents - - but please, let's not demonize the video games themselves, rather, the parents who allow the wall-eyed children to sit immobile before the screen for hours on end.
you can decide what is best for evan but honestly, let him play a little Leapster.
Something that really struck me is watching him and my husband playing co-op. They team up in Lego Star Wars and show each other where to go and what to do. They solve things together. He'll tell daddy to go over there and pull that lever because that's the way to get the gate to go up to enter the next phase. To him it's spending time together exploring. He always prefers playing with one of us vs. playing alone.
We never use the game as a way of distracting him. If he doesn't ask to play we don't offer. And there are many days he doesn't ask. There have also been many days where he wasn't allowed to play (for various other reasons). We're mindful of the time he spends with games, but we're also letting him explore at his own pace. So far that has worked for us. We don't own a Leapster however, so I can't offer any comments there...
I really just wanted to say that I LOVE your disclosure about Gepetto's - growing up, Pinocchio's was the only game place that held my fancy. Whenever I go back to Sugarloaf, my fondness for that place draws me in every time. (sometimes regardless of the potato beer at the The Bag)
Mostly, I don't worry about it. I have two bright kids who figure things out faster than I do. I try to curb my old lady on the porch tendancies. :P