# of Video Game Hours for YOUR Children

[ma-skis.com]

I find it interesting when we compare ourselves to our kids now for violent video games, I didn't get a nintendo till I was 10 and Mortal Kombat wasn't out till I was 13 for SNES / genesis. And the violence of MK was fairly animated compared to what is out there now.

I feel much differently about my 5 year old playing certain games that I probably played when I was 13 or 14. Like doom came out when I was 12 but halo is available to kids right away.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Sr. Mints

I wish my folks made me stick to piano (or something.) I wish they would not let me quit karate...or curling or baseball or soccer. I wish they made me do homework every night--at least so I could have developed some kind of rhythm or structure for when I was older. Having to learn to study while you're in University isn't they way to do it.

They only thing I did do was play hockey and video games, read, and watch TV--and while I think I'm a fairly well adjusted person, I think it could only have benefited me if they had been more rigid with me and had me, y'know, do stuff.[


I don't have kids, but I will definitely encourage them to do as many activities besides video games as they can handle in a day. A few hours a week playing games would be fine though.

[/quote]

Sometimes I have some of those regrets, but in a lot of ways for as strict as my parents were with me that they learned early because they raised 4 of them that kids have this compass in their head that constantly spins, and you hope that in their explorations of the world that it will stop when they stumble on that one thing that really interests them.

My folks pushed us kids into Piano, and I hated it from the start, but they wouldn't let me quit. It was an hour of practice a night and once a week lessons for 5 years, until I finally decided to pick one song and play it over and over and over again, I think it was Silver Skates by Hans Christian Anderson. After a week of that racket I was allowed to quit.

Karate was really bad because I decided that I didn't need to pull my punches and busted a classmates nose and I wasn't invited back, that and that noise you make, I used it as a venue for creative swearing HIIII F%%K, WA BONER.

Yeah I was a real class clown.

In terms of the whole studying thing, I had no focus unless it was a subject that really interested me, then I committed whole hog to it. Math, Physics, Chemistry, forget about it, English, History, Biology, top of the class.

But my lack of focus kinda doomed me.

I think that my parents realized something early, I had three sisters, one well on her way to being a career criminal that they worked incredibly hard to try to sort out. Two sisters who were academic monsters, I mean these girls were getting 95% averages. Then there was me, I was average to below average kid, who decided early that I didn't want to compete with my sisters in the whole academic olympics thing, and they decided that they would work with me on my decision making and responsibility thing.

So what I'm saying is your parents not giving you a rythm or slamming your head in a book was probably a great gift that didn't get opened until long after you left home.

Career Criminal ended up alright, she works for a major petroleum company and has for nearly 40 years. Excellent student 1 became one of Canada's pre-eminant research doctors, she travels the world, probably does interesting things, but she's not happy with her life, she's alone because she never developed social skills, she's angry and bitter and blames my dad for the problems in my life. Super Academic student two went on to get her law degree, and then promptly decided not to practice (Dad flipped out at that after paying for it) she works for a mediocre wage in government, but she got married and had two kids that she's pushing very hard with the academics and the whole activities things, and these kids to me are just not balanced, they don't make friends easily, they get beat up at school, they're athletically terrible. One kid overcompensates by memorizing useless facts and then spouting them back like he discovered them.

I turned out ok, but I always find it funny that the two kids that were not rail roaded into study harder do this practice your piano came out to be well balanced and fairly happy and have been able to maintain a positive relationship with our parents.

So in confusion, I don't think it works if you overstructuralize things for your kids, I think if you do they become resentfull of that activity and they'll do it half a$$ed until you let them quit or they'll eventually quit on their own.

I'm all for the academic thing, don't get me wrong, but if you over emphasize it, you might end up with a mal adjusted loner of a kid writing a manefesto based around a theory that he came up with in a college class, and mullilng that he's tired of pooping in the woods and he really should get some plumbing for this cabin.

Oh and remember there's always lots of yard work to be done, and shut off that damn video game and get out of the house.

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by Sr. Mints

I wish my folks made me stick to piano (or something.) I wish they would not let me quit karate...or curling or baseball or soccer. I wish they made me do homework every night--at least so I could have developed some kind of rhythm or structure for when I was older. Having to learn to study while you're in University isn't they way to do it.

They only thing I did do was play hockey and video games, read, and watch TV--and while I think I'm a fairly well adjusted person, I think it could only have benefited me if they had been more rigid with me and had me, y'know, do stuff.

And yet here you are, being insightful, reflective, and thoughtful

My take on this is that enforcement of "successful" behaviours to achieve outcomes accomplishes little - yes, you can MAKE them do homework and FORCE them to stick with piano, and they might find some modicum of success, but its not making them passionate about being good at the things that lead to good things. Kids have to learn to appreciate the value of work/play and work/play done well, not just the ends that work leads to. Actually everyone needs to learn and re-learn that; we all get trapped in outcome focused activity, and usually it makes all the in-between miserable, often to the point of abandonment.

I'd rather my kid want to do an hours worth of homework and get a decent grade, than force the kid to do 2 hours and get a great grade. It's the innate drive I want to foster, not the outcome, especially at a young age. Because when they find what they are passionate or naturally good at, and they combine that with the innately developed drive, they'll be successful.

You still have to help keep them on course, relatively speaking, but thats what I see parenting as - really broad shoulders on roads to keep them from going into the ditch, but not rigid lanes that kids are forced into.

[Azure]

Don't have kids, but I've noticed that parents who do a lot of outdoor activities with their kids tend to not have a problem with their kids spending too much time in front of a screen.

Obviously it can be a problem considering how many kids are obese.

[TorqueDog]

I don't have kids either, but I'll reflect on my own childhood.

The restrictions on what I did was very inconsistent.

My parents let me play on the computer as much as I wanted, when I wanted, unless I was grounded for some reason. Internet use, I was never supervised and I knew far more about the computer than my mom or dad did, even at the age of 8. I saw tons of stuff that - by societal norms - I shouldn't have seen at that age. Pornography, violence and gore, anarchist's cookbook, etc. What it did was desensitize me to it, it didn't make me a sociopath or anything like what you hear people suggesting that sort of stuff does to children.

Interestingly, I now make a living working with computers, so I guess being given free reign wasn't all bad.

My parents did limit the sort of games I was allowed to play on my Sega Genesis, however. (I rented Mortal Kombat 2 once and my dad freaked out.) This angered me quite a bit since I already owned a copy of the original Mortal Kombat for PC which had blood and gore unlike its console counterparts (Sega had a code to enable it).

Movies and television was similar to my internet access, I could watch anything I wanted if I could find it in the house or on TV, or if I rented it from Rogers Video.

[octothorp]

My 19 month old typically gets between 1-2 hours a day on the iPad, though none of that is actually gaming... most of it is drawing, alphabet apps, shape-sorters, music programs, ebooks, and such. All his time on the ipad is closely supervised. He doesn't get any TV time in an average day. Overall I'd rather have him doing something interactive than sitting watching TV.

There's a definite correlation between what he's doing on the iPad and the skills he develops... playing with a shape-sorting app made him much more adept and interested in sorting physical objects as well, for example. Same is true of colouring, recognizing letters and numbers, playing on a keyboard, etc. We're conscious of trying to reinforce everything that he's doing on the ipad with real-world equivalent skills.

But of course all of these issues change as he gets older and develops an interest in games that are not big on educational or creative value. We'll see what happens... we haven't decided yet what the rules are going to be in our house when he gets older.

[OffsideSpecialist]

Mariokart 64 came out when I was about 5 or 6 years old and to this day is my favourite video game ever. I remember my parents let me play my video games one hour each Saturday or Sunday and would not let me play them Monday to Friday until I was about ten or so. I was also allowed an hour of TV each day. But that was fine, I spent most of my time playing with dinky cars or lego, doing math (yes I always liked math ), or outside playing catch or passing around a soccer ball with my dad.

[pylon]

Originally Posted by Cluelessboy

Because its bad exposure to kids, kids that young shouldnt be exposed to voilent mature content like that. Like would you let your kid watch a documentary on a real life serial killer? If i had kids my kids wouldnt be exposed to any of that. Even if theyre around when im watching something violent i change the channel.

LOL, my old man took me to some gems.

At 7, He took me to see John Carpenters 'The Thing'. I got to see Rambo 2 @ 9 yrs old. Robocop, Terminator, all sorts of violent crap in and around 10 years old. Watching those ultra violent flicks with him (some that make modern day stuff look tame), was some of the coolest bonding experiences we had. Plus all my buddies were always jealous my old man took me to R rated movies.

In the end, I turned out fine. All I need to quench my thirst for violence as an adult, is a fresh Hobo skin suit once every month or so. So really, in the end, I am doing society a public service.

[Hack&Lube]

Originally Posted by sclitheroe

And yet here you are, being insightful, reflective, and thoughtful

My take on this is that enforcement of "successful" behaviours to achieve outcomes accomplishes little - yes, you can MAKE them do homework and FORCE them to stick with piano, and they might find some modicum of success, but its not making them passionate about being good at the things that lead to good things. Kids have to learn to appreciate the value of work/play and work/play done well, not just the ends that work leads to. Actually everyone needs to learn and re-learn that; we all get trapped in outcome focused activity, and usually it makes all the in-between miserable, often to the point of abandonment.

I'd rather my kid want to do an hours worth of homework and get a decent grade, than force the kid to do 2 hours and get a great grade. It's the innate drive I want to foster, not the outcome, especially at a young age. Because when they find what they are passionate or naturally good at, and they combine that with the innately developed drive, they'll be successful.

You still have to help keep them on course, relatively speaking, but thats what I see parenting as - really broad shoulders on roads to keep them from going into the ditch, but not rigid lanes that kids are forced into.

Yes, parents have to find a way to encourage passion in kids toward certain activities or learning. That's the real trick. My parents forced me into playing piano at an early age and I despised it and quit early but I didn't like any of the stuff I was playing (classical). What I really liked instead was improvised jazz/blues piano which is what I ended up teaching myself years later when I had forgotten how to even sight read music at all.

[The Goon]

He's only 14 months, but I will start him on the classics:

[pylon]

^^^^

All I remember about that game was finding some spanish fly on a window ledge.... not knowing what the hell spanish fly was at 12 years old. Google hadn't made any friends yet.

[PsnaP]

Our son is only 19 months old, he has shown interest in the ipad and likes to play games and have stories on it as well. He wont sit and watch tv for very long, he would rather play with his toys. When I was a kid, I didnt have any rules on the amount of video game time or types of games I could play. I was always encouraged to play outside which is what we are going to do with our son. I was heavy into sports as well, hockey in the winter and lacrosse in the summer. I really only played video games when I had a friend over or was just bored. Even then it wasnt for hours on end. Maybe thats why Im so terrible at the COD series....

A lot of video games now are educational and physical, so if the child wants to sit for an hour or so he/she can at least learn something or burn off some steam.