This morning as I was doing some housework I entertained myself by listening to my children pretending to be Pokemon trainers. I started thinking about the significant role that video games have played in my children’s lives. I know that many parents are of the “video games are evil” school of thought. Link’s kindergarten teacher certainly was. She told me that video games have no value whatsoever and she repeatedly expressed concern over Link’s “obsession” with video games because he was constantly drawing Mario and Luigi on his school papers.
I don’t agree with Link’s teacher. Video games DO have value and more than just entertainment value. People laughingly make jokes about hand-eye co-ordination in reference to video games. But in truth that hand-eye co-ordination is critical in any number of daily tasks as is the fine motor co-ordination that is necessary to push lots of little buttons in odd combinations. Puzzle games can teach thinking skills and problem solving skills which have applications in all sorts of other endeavors. Video games frequently provide opportunities for parents to teach kids how to handle frustration and competition. Many games teach lessons about resource management, you have to manage your life levels and money and any number of other things. First Person Shooter games can teach how to react and respond to threats. Those are not skills I care for my children to have, so we don’t allow FPS games at our house. Video games actually involve children in thinking and responding, unlike television which induces a hypnotic state. I’m sure I’ve missed other things, but you get the point.
Perhaps all of the above is merely my way of reasoning away the guilt when I encourage video game play in order to get the kids out of my hair (every parent needs some sanity time). But I don’t really think so. I’ve seen the benefit my children get. The biggest benefit has been in their imaginary worlds. For every hour they spend tied to a screen playing a video game, they spend two or three away from the screen playing imaginary games involving Pokemon, or Mario Kart, or Kirby, or any number of other characters and worlds to which they’ve been introduced.
There are definitely times where I feel like they’ve been spending too much time playing video games. Then as a parent I need to step in and encourage other behaviors. I’ve discovered that video games tend to go in cycles. There will be a week or so where it seems like they do nothing else and then there will be a week where the games hardly get turned on at all.
I guess my point is that like almost any other experience which life offers, video games can be an extremely useful parenting tool if managed correctly.
Just dropped in to say that you rock Sandra.
I wish other parents were as understanding about games as you.
And to make this post have more meaning than simple flattery, I shall offer suggestions of games that you might want your kids to look at when they get older.
Kings Quest Series (excluding Mask of Eternity)
Monkey Island Series
The Longest Journey (and it’s sequel, which hopefully will be out by that stage)
And, the Space Quest series. Which you should probably sit Howard in front of as well, if he hasn’t already played at least one. Space Quest always reminds me vaguely of Schlock.
All of the above are adventure games, some which involve dying (kings quest and Space Quest) and are always useful for improving imagination and problem-solving skills.
But of course, this is all up to your discretion. I’m not going to intrude on the territory of a mother. Especially when it comes to raising her kids.
I think your last sentence says it best …. ‘if managed correctly’.
Peter Pan gets the kids imagining that they’re either Hook or Peter. The westerns have them galloping around the backyard chasing Indians or bad guys. The process never stops, only the names change.
I always loved having kids running around in their underoos with a towel tied around their necks pretending to be SuperMan. Today my grandsons play what is essentially the same games – I just never heard of the character’s names before.
Enjoy! The house gets quiet all too soon.
Be good – The Lady, Anne
You definitely rock.
I was allowed to play video games about as much as I wanted to. It didn’t stop me from going outside (although I was never a jock by any stretch).
You’re dead on about video games vs. TV. I’d much rather have kids playing something interactive than just sitting and staring.
Things that video games did for me:
1) Taught me persistence. Because, by golly, I will defeat Ganon / get a higher score than Dad / master the fourth castle. (One exception: Myst, which did not hold my attention long enough to get me to conquer anything in it.)
2) Taught me resourcefulness. Because if I can’t defeat Ganon, I’m going to find out why not. (My brother still considers it cheating to get a book that tells you the opponent’s weakness. I consider it recon. However, I totally cheated on Zork, downloading a walkthrough that proved to be useless because the maze my copy of Zork had been altered to defeat walkthrough users.)
3) Taught me self-pride. Because I spent so much time considering myself inferior to those around me, I could take pride in the accomplishments I had… such as having the high score for over five years on one particular arcade version of Dr. Mario. The second-place player had over 200,000 points less than I did. The bowling alley finally removed the game a few years ago, but until then I was The Man. (Exception: FPS games, which I am embarrassed to admit make me nauseated within five minutes if I’m playing them, yet I love to watch others play.)
4) Inspired my imagination. When I was ten, I borrowed my mother’s manual typewriter and wrote a 30-page story starring all the characters from Super Mario Bros. On the backs of the pages, I illustrated what I had written. Geeky? Yes. But name me one other ten-year-old who typed a 30-page story on any topic. I also created my own characters for a video game I wanted to create (looking back, it was pretty much a rip-off of Kid Icarus, but still… I spent hours on this stuff). (Exception: Pole Position, which never made me think of anything but “I’m gonna crash, I’m gonna crash, I’m gonna crash, I’mgonnacrashgonnacrashgonnacrashaaaaaahhhh! Oh, I crashed. Hey, I’m back. Go, go, go! Uh-oh. I’m gonna crash, I’m gonna crash…”
–Strange/David
Finally!
Riiiiight! Finally someone said it!
I totally agree on your view on video games and I’m really sick of hearing people talk about how evil they are. My kids do play video games and that does NOT make them turn evil and kill innocent animals! Can you believe that? 😉
Thanks for writing this down and keep up the good kid-raising-work 🙂
T*
Re: Finally!
Wow!
I just read your entry and the first (and only) comment, then decided to post my comment. In the time I typed it in, two further comments have been posted!
Sandra, you are FAMOUS! 🙂
T*
Another aspect which can be important. When my son first acquired his SNES, he and I spent a number of hours sitting on the couch and playing Super Mario World. The result was that we spent time talking and doing something together. We may well have done more bonding over video games than any other single activity.
As you have already decided, it’s not video games that are a problem, it’s how some parents choose to use (or abuse) them.
hmm . . .
I have to point out that it is entirely possible for kids to abuse something behind their parents’ back. Parents aren’t totally responsible for what their children choose to do. I mean, yes I think that parents ought to have some say in what games their children play and how much, etc. and so forth. But as kids get older (and I’m guessing that they’re not going to want to play the more problematic games until they’re older anyway) they’ll find ways of making their own choices when Mom and Dad aren’t around. Hopefully they’ll make good choices, if Mom and Dad brought them up well. But there’s no guarantee of that . . . and if video games are influencing kids while parents aren’t around to moderate, does that make the end result the parents’ responsibility? Or the kids’? Or the game-makers’? Or some combination of the above?
Re: hmm . . .
The answer to that is, of course, “yes”. 🙂 The best a parent can do is attempt to bring his/her children up well. At some point they will make their own choices. All we can do is try to guide them into making good ones.
That’s amazing…Pole Position had the same effect on ME! 🙂
I remember staying up until 2 or 3 AM playing Street Fighter with my dad. Fond memories of childhood. We’d resolved at one point to make a spreadsheet and methodically go through all the possible ways for the two of us to pick characters and battle, to see who was the “overall champion” or some such. We never did finish it… but it’s one example of how I was trained as a geek from a very young age.
Video games are another form of media – but they’re interactive, which is more than we can say for most media…
Ummmmm………….
“First Person Shooter games can teach how to react and respond to threats. Those are not skills I care for my children to have…”
I’m mystified. You don’t want your kids to know how to react to threats?
“React adn respond to threats” is not restricted to “haul out the rocket launcher and bust a cap in that sucker’s ass.” Two of the first things any FPS will teach you (provided you have a full complement of working brain cells) are “Careful thought beats heedless bravado” and “When you run into something big and nasty that wants to rip your arms off, and you’re unarmed, RUN.“
I’d think both of these would be good lessons any parent would want their kids to learn, regardless of whether they approve of FPS games or not. Run-fu is in many situations still the best of the martial arts to use, second only to using your head and not getting into a dangerous situation with no way out in the first place.
I have to second…third…and fourth the Monkey Island games. The best adventure/puzzle games really cannot have many problems…and those are so funny…
Re: Ummmmm………….
You’re right. I DO want my children to have “react and respond to threats” skills. But for thier current ages the best response to any threat is run-away-and-seek-help. I’ve yet to see an FPS game that really teaches that. I work on those skills in a non-video-game based format. As they get closer to adult size and reasoning skills, then I’ll want to see them develop more response options and they’ll be able to make their own choices about FPS games.
For now the immediacy of FPS seems to be too much for them to handle. watching Daddy play Metroid Prime gave them nightmares. We had to relegate that game to after bedtime hours.
Re: hmm . . .
I have no doubt that my children will make choices I’m not comfortable with. It’s already happened. As a parent I have to decide whether or not to interfere with the choice that makes me uncomfortable. I try to interfere as little as possible. Sometimes the limit of my interferance is to explain to the child why their choice makes me uncomfortable. Sometimes I have to disallow the choice entirely. As they get older my interference needs to gradually become non-existent.
By discussing the process of making choices while the kids are young, hopefully I’m giving them the tools they need to analyse their own choices when they’re not with me. It’s the best I can do.
Well said!
I should have you come and talk to Link’s Kindergarten teacher.
Thanks for the good sugguestions. I’ll keep them in mind as the kids get a little older.
Actually…
Actually, the skill that is being taught more than any other in FPS games is fast-twitch threat response. This is the same skill taught by the US Military, and it’s what enables nice young men to not think before pulling the trigger in a fire-fight.
The OTHER training the US Military provides (and “conditioning” is a better word) is “following orders.” The fast-twitch response and the conditioned response to orders together turn the soldier into a weapon with a safety. If the soldier is instructed to hold fire, in almost all cases he does.
Compare this to the FPS game. You are training kids to not think before pulling the trigger, but you are NOT conditioning them with a “safety.” In most cases this isn’t a problem, because we’ve got built-in safeties that help us distinguish between fantasy and reality, but there is a small segment of society for whom those safeties fail, and the FPS game conditions them to be much more effective homicidal sociopaths than they could otherwise become.
Read “On Killing” By Dave Grossman if you want the full explanation.
The upshot of all this is that we won’t be having FPS games in front of the kids until after they’re able to read and understand serious military research on the stuff, and know what they’re getting into.
–Howard
Re: Ummmmm………….
For now the immediacy of FPS seems to be too much for them to handle. watching Daddy play Metroid Prime gave them nightmares.
That’s obviously going to be a consideration for kids, yes. Taken as stipulated.
Re: Actually…
Actually, the skill that is being taught more than any other in FPS games is fast-twitch threat response. This is the same skill taught by the US Military, and it’s what enables nice young men to not think before pulling the trigger in a fire-fight.
Yeah, there’s a lot of that. Truth to tell, I’d forgotten how stupid (tactically speaking) a lot of Quake/UT players are. But you know how you can look at game stats and tell the players who rush in relying on their fast-twitch reflexes? They’re the ones who die a lot. 🙂 These are the kind of players who will actually band together to kick sniper players and stealth/planning types off of game servers because they think doing anything OTHER than a Hollywood-style Rambo charge with both guns blazing is somehow unfair. “How come that player hasn’t died yet? Hey, wait… he’s CHEATING! He’s, like, using COVER, and stuff!”
Keep in mind, though, there are other FPS games besides Quake and Unreal Tournament, or the Counterstrike extension to Halflife. They’re not ALL about running around holding the trigger down until you run out of ammo and not caring if you die because you’ll respawn in ten seconds.
My personal favorite FPS is Ghost Recon. It is an explicitly military squad-based FPS. And there’s five massive differences between it and, say, Quake.
(1) It’s a real-world setting with realistically-modelled real-world weapons with finite quantities of ammunition. Pick one, plus either a sidearm or extra ammunition, because that’s all you can carry. None of this nonsense of running around carrying three rocket launchers, two different grenade launchers, a Minigun, three different kinds of plasma gun, five pistols, a flamethrower, a chainsaw and a tactical nuke. (And you won’t find more weapons and ammunition lying around behind every corner or floating over randomly-placed pedestals, either).
(2) You have definite and clearly delineated objectives in every mission, and if you don’t think ahead and plan how you’re going to go about accomplishing them, you will not succeed. Period.
(3) There are civilians and occasionally hostages, and if you shoot one because you fired without taking time to verify your target first, you have just lost the game. BZZZZZZT. Thank you for playing.
(4) Getting shot doesn’t just deplete your armor and make your icon go bloody. You can’t stand there face-to-face trading chaingun fire because you know the other guy’s health is worse than yours. Getting shot hurts. A single hit will seriously wound or kill you. And there aren’t any magic first-aid packs lying around, either.
And (5) There is no respawning nonsense. You get killed, that’s it, you’re DEAD. “Game over, man.”
Turns out, by the way, that the guy who developed the US Army’s FPS game America’s Army is a former producer at Red Storm Entertainment, the company that makes Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon. No accident, that.
P.S.
Lest there be any doubt, I’m not for a moment attempting to throw your decision into question. It’s your and Sandra’s prerogative 100%. I’m just discussing some of the aspects from a different viewpoint.
Incidentally, Goose, our eldest, used to watch over my shoulder as I played several different FPS games and repeatedly demand to be allowed to play. What finally stopped that was when, about three or four times, I shrugged and said “OK”, and passed her the mouse and keyboard. It took her about thirty seconds each time to decide “Dad, this is too hard for me.” After about the fourth time, it stuck.
Re: Ummmmm………….
Try Deus Ex – it can get violent, if you’re not careful, but the best way to get about the game is just to try and sneak past problems or otherwise be non-violent, so you don’t get killed. 😀
Example: you have to get into a subway to rescue some hostages before continuing a mission. If you charge down the stairs, you’re probably going to get shot or trip an alarm which triggers explosives.
However, you can sneak down airvents to try to get to the hostages, and send them to safety before escaping or taking the terrorists yourselves. Or you could stack boxes up so you can jump over the laser-triggers and then sneak around. Or you could snipe from hiding, or stack boxes of explosives up near the hostage-takers and take a pot-shot before escaping. Many things.
But it’s not quite ‘running away’ either. I’d start then on the adventure games (Monkey Island’s humor and whimsy are timeless), and then work onto other game types.
Re: Actually…
Thanks for the different viewpoint. I’ve now added it to the store of information from which I can draw to make future parenting decisions.
The choices we make
Upon a similar vein, I recently had a different choice to make. I am a video game developer, and was recently laid off. I’m back at work now, but at one point, I had an opportunity to work for a certain company on a certain game. This game was about gangs. It was about gaining prestige and influence inside your gang and in competing against other gangs. I turned them down. It would have been in a nice location for my family and with a very successful studio owned by a very successful company. Oh well. I can’t work on a game that portrays evil as good, no matter how much I need a job.
I’m now working for an up-and-coming studio in the Seattle area (still a nice though an expensive area), ironically owned by the same successful company. The game I’m working on may not be the kind of game I would play, but it’s not going to teach anyone that there may be glamour in crime.
Well, there you go. The conscience strikes again. My rule is I will never work on something if I would be embarrased to have my parents, wife or children find out.
violent video games
To beat a tired old horse near to death. I don’t believe that video games illicit violent reactions. Having never enjoyed FPS and consequently never played them I have no experience whatsoever in that realm. However I do own both GTA3 and GTA:VC.
In my personal opinion, and mind you as a young college student this is in no way a product of direct experience, parenting is the only thing that can stop a child from learning to respond violently or even negatively towards threats, emotional or physical injury, or even just plain old aggravation. The media tends to blame factors like video games, explicit songs, or violet TV shows for the rise in youth violence. I personally believe that the only way to prevent kids from developing negative reaction patterns is parenting.
Even if you shield your children from every piece of violent media there is, they will still react violently to situations if you don’t teach them otherwise. Video games are just scapegoats. I believe that America’s adults need to step up and admit to just plain lousy parenting.
Don’t get me wrong, Sandra I’m not in the least advocating you buy a copy of Grand Theft Auto and place it in front of your children. But I think our obsession with protecting kids from violent content is overshadowing our duty to teach children that such reactions are wrong.
My Entirely Worthless Two Dull Pennies,
Blurr
Re: violent video games
I agree. It is vital to help kids assimilate the media to which they are exposed. It is also vital to teach kids how to make their own media choices because mommy isn’t always there to say “no”.
I do believe that violent media have an effect on violence in our society. Since we unfortunately can’t count on every child to have parents who help them assimilate media, there will inevitably be some people who develop a worldview in which violence is central. Like you said, the solution isn’t controls on media, it is teaching and guiding so that kids learn that violence isn’t the only or best solution.
I would have to suggest Puzzle Bobble. It’s got the cute little dinosaur? characters from the old NES Bubble Bobble, and it’s completely addictive…in a good way :p