electronica December 30, 2004
I tend to avoid electronic toys and computer games for my kids. We don’t have cable TV and they rarely get on the computer. And until recently, we had no video games at home.
Their father, with whom they live about 1/3 time, doesn’t mind this stuff, so they get plenty of electric-video-computer play at his house. This is fine with me. I just don’t want it at mine.
At our house, I try to keep this stuff at bay. I find that my kids read more, talk to each other and me more, play with the dogs more, and play with their non-electronic toys more without the distraction of video and computer games.
But this Christmas, they all got oodles of electronic toys from various people. The two youngest each got a Gameboy, and Henry got an X-box (which isn’t here) and a few other electronic things.
So for the past few days, the sounds of those Gameboys and other electric things have been the soundtrack of the holidays around our house, and it’s making me insane. I also notice that the children haven’t so much as looked at any of the books they received this year, and they are more short tempered with each other.
I wish I could chuck ‘em (the games, not the children), but second best, I’m going to encourage them to keep them at their dad’s house.
I knew the dilemma well, but my husband (the father) lives in our home. In my experience as annoying, as electronic toys are kids who have not had a steady diet of this type of play usually get bored and go back to the way they usually amuse themselves.
My daughter went to a Waldorf School (to the unfamiliar readers that means NO electronic anything-including typing school reports on a computer). When she was young, (she is now in college) her grandmother thought she was a terribly deprived child since she did not have electronic toys. One Christmas, she bought her a Sony Play station. My daughter and her friends were intrigued for a short while ( a couple of weeks) then never played again.
If it gets out of hand, you have the right and ability as the parent to limit that type of playtime. A parent’s job is creating limits for our children. I think that includes anything they want to do in excess at the exclusion of healthy pursuits… And anything that is Mind numbing to their mother. It sounds like their play and life is balanced so this will pass…
After World War II, the military did a study that revealed a full 1/3rd of the troops never fired at the enemy. They either didn’t shoot at all or fired over the enemy’s head. So, the military converted the old red and white bulls-eye targets to the current human torso targets. The result was dramatic. Once people got over their aversion to shooting at a human target, the number of troops who actually tried to kill the enemy rose dramatically. It would seem that killing is not a natural instinct, but can be easly taught. I absolutely never let my children near any of those violent video games when they were growing up. I am 100% certain that they figure into the coarsening of our society and the devaluation of human life — including abortion — that permeates our society today.
Lone ranger,
I am not a defender of electronic games, did you know not all-electronic games for children are violent or have them shoot at a moving target. Why was Abortion thrown in as a wild card connection to the indifference of life and the resutl of playing with video games??? Why not mention the death penalty if you are worried about subliminal training for the lack of concern for human life?
While I’m sure there are some moral issues related to the violent video games/ toys I simply find them very ANNOYING. As a nurse at a pediatric office, it really annoys me when kids come back for their physicals and can’t be bothered to put the game boy down for us to take care of them… of course their parents don’t tell them to (as I blame parents more than the kids for not teaching them proper behavior) as they most likely can’t hang up their dang cell phone long enough to pay attention to anything going on!
Violent video games are where I draw the line. We generally have NO video games at our house, but the ones they have at their Dad’s are not the realistic-violent kind.
But observing them with these handheld video games for a few days really has reinforced all the reasons why I’ve never allowed the kids to have them. They are just glued to them. They don’t notice anything else going on around them.
Of course, to be honest, I am that way when I’m reading a book and have been that way when I’m reading since I was a little kid. It drives other people nuts
It’s a matter of tast & preference, not a moral issue. In a world full of gadgets, learning moderation is a valuable life lesson. Learning to put up with annoying noises, odors or behaviors is part of parenting.
I never said it was a moral issue. It is, indeed, a matter of taste and preference.
And my preference is A.) not to let my kids spend too much time or energy on video games and B.) not to listen to the godawful noises the games make.
Putting up with preventable, obnoxious noises is not, in my opinion, a de facto part of the job of “parent.” There are all kinds of noises I tell my kids not to make when these noises are bugging me or someone else. In fact, it’s part of my job to teach my children when noises they are creating are bothering other people.
Plus, it’s my house. I’m the head of our household, so I get to make most of the rules as to how life in our household will proceed. As the mom, I make these calls all the time regarding toys, food, clothes, baths, etc.
So I just fundamentally disagree. And I think video games played to excess (which for me, is a low, low threshhold) inhibit kids’ healthy development.
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