Dialing it Back

My seven-year-old is slowly fusing his arm, elbow and shoulder into my rib cage. His head migrates across my field of vision like an eclipse. He is a full contact cuddler, particularly when my laptop, currently an uncomfortable cinder of heat resting in the delicate place that gave it its name, is displaying anything he finds remotely interesting. And when it comes to my laptop, interesting can be defined potentially by almost anything. Even a good, solid disk defrag.

In this case, however, his interest is more legitimate. We are watching (H to the Usky) Husky, a relatively well know "shoutcaster", commentate the action of some high-level Starcraft 2 play on YouTube. That I am watching broadcasts such as these is a point of discussion for another time. What is relevant here is that when it comes to my family, I fall a distant second in the “Interested in Starcraft 2 Stuff” race.

On the screen we are watching as a cadre of Vikings - think Starscream as imagined by Blizzard -- make their way across a map called Kulas Ravine to harass a Zerg player who is decidedly vulnerable to the air superiority coming his way.

“That guy better get some Mutalisks!” Announces my child who is still a handful of years from hitting double-digit-age, and you know what? He’s right. That’s exactly what the Zerg player, some Diamond level superhuman, should be and is doing.

In this moment like countless others before, I realize that I have created a monster. If anyone can appreciate my son’s passion for games it’s me, but increasingly I am forced to admit that my indoctrination may have gone way too far.

Watching my oldest child play a video game is a lot like watching the sun fuse hydrogen. Brownian motion has less chaos than him with controller in hand. Were I to wire him up for a PET scan, I’m sure that while he is happily manipulating worlds built from digital Legos his brain is lighting up like something to which the Boston Pops might play the 1812 Overture. Games electrify him, and though it generally gives me pleasure to see him happy, there is a mania about his game playing nature that is unsettling.

To be honest, if I could dial it all back and have never introduced him to games in the first place, I might do it. This is an odd perspective to have for a life long gamer, a disconcerting conflict between my gamer self and my dad self, because I know that in measured doses and within the realm of reason gaming can be a extraordinarily positive adventure of the imagination.

He has been playing games in one way or another since he was two. I struggle with the question of whether this electricity that is my son is his nature, or whether my exposing him to video games so early on had an impact on his development. Now, I’ve seen the opinions and science on both sides of this debate. This really isn’t about that so much, because if there is one thing parents almost universally assume, it’s that any challenges our kids face are an inevitable indictment on some decision we made which completely screwed up their lives.

I too live in that realm that says if something is wrong, chances are it’s because of something I did. It’s not a healthy place, and I envy the parents who have the capacity to appear to shrug off every senseless niggle of doubt. I can not. When my son appears only too happy to shut off the rest of the world and let video games exist at the center of the universe, I worry (some might say legitimately so) that it is because I hardwired my own passion for the platform into his too early developing mind.

For this reason we now tightly control his exposure to games. A half hour a day of earned game time is the norm, with some bonus time here and there for good behavior and special occasions. It seems a reasonable accommodation, and he attacks those chunks of time with the ferocity of a hungry tiger in a butcher’s shop. To be honest, it feels like we’re running a daily half-hour long methadone clinic.

And, in the meantime, should I be remotely interested in getting home to settle in with a quick game of Starcraft 2, he is glued at my side. I used to tell myself that this was time we were spending together, but in the harsh light of day it’s not. It’s a contact high.

Frankly, it’s changed the way I am raising my second child. I am not nearly so proactive in showing him digital entertainment, never even letting him hold a controller at his young age. I have no idea if it’s an over-reaction and any perceived results are just related to the basic differences between the two boys. I’m operating without a manual or a net, so I just kind of do what makes the most sense at the time, and this is what feels right today.

I’ve no doubt that in six months I will be blaming my decisions now for whatever troubles wait down the road.

The weird thing about it though is how actively I, as a long-standing hardcore gamer, am trying to get games out of my children’s hands. It was not a position I would have once taken, and only serves to again remind me of how very different I thought parenting would be versus how it has turned out.

Comments

This thread is a joy to read. All these different genes and social traditions. It's all so messy.

But it's somewhat reassuring to read about our different takes on the issue. That said, there are some similarities that make me feel less alone. It's so crucial (for me) to remember that there is no single path. We'll stumble around and figure out what works.

Though my wife and I talk a lot about balanced interests, the fact of the matter is that balance is thrown out the window when anyone decides to pursue something, whether it's sports, gaming, or practicing an instrument. That's the price way pay to be good at something.

My boy is 11. We're creeping steadily toward the teenage years. I have no idea what's to come, but I'm hoping that by talking honestly with him about our concerns, he'll understand that his parents aren't trying to be ogres. We're just trying to be good parents, no matter what damned fool - sometimes wrong - things we believe.

Okay, not a parent, so feel free to disregard my opinion.

It seems natural for a parent to worry that their hobbies and behaviours are a bad influence on their own children. It makes sense to try protect one's children from making the same mistakes you have made.

Obviously teaching moderation and self control is a good thing, but I think this natural concern makes parents paranoid. Of course, I'm not a parent and the idea terrifies me, so my own opinion is based on theory.

But I remember myself and my sisters growing up, in many ways we have turned out the way we have despite everything my parents did. I think that beyond a point there is a limit to what a parent can do before the child's nature takes over.

The lessons of moderation and control are important, but I don't think that a parent can really break their child with their own hobbies.

It's not that the games are going to hurt them. But you've got to teach them how to manage their own time. One of the hardest things over the years I've found was teaching the concept that sometimes things have to get done whether you want to do them or not. It is a crucial lesson for living a life, though.

They aren't born with the knowledge of how to prioritize all the stuff going on in their life, set goals, and then plan and persevere until they've accomplished them. Games both help and hinder that.

I've posted my rules structures here a couple times now. To read it looks I was a jackbooted fascist, but a lot of it was because of scarcity of resources. I had four kids roughly the same age and limited amounts of hardware. You have to take turns, you have to learn to cooperate, and you have to get other stuff done too.

It helped that they really didn't have to get that stringent with it until they were nine-ish, and they helped me derive the rules so we could all live by them. We planned ahead for changes as they grew. They knew why each one was in place, and they knew what to expect. Now add robotic consistency for X number of years and Voila! you have a hopefully functional adult.

You have to model the behavior, too. My kids refer to my DS as my "crack torch" because they caught me playing one night. I was hunched over with my nose pressed into it, and I hadn't even noticed it was almost midnight on a work night.

I want to Nth the call to make sure to take EVERYTHING into account. My elder daughter was the first kid the jr high vice principal had to give assign detention because she read too much. My gang has overdone it on everything from cooking to car repair.

momgamer wrote:

It's not that the games are going to hurt them. But you've got to teach them how to manage their own time. One of the hardest things over the years I've found was teaching the concept that sometimes things have to get done whether you want to do them or not. It is a crucial lesson for living a life, though.

They aren't born with the knowledge of how to prioritize all the stuff going on in their life, set goals, and then plan and persevere until they've accomplished them. Games both help and hinder that. ;)

Yeah, I can totally see that. And games are one of the worst hobbies for destroying many hours all at once.

I've seen your rules, they always seemed hard but fair, and I'm sure they were needed for your specific circumstance.

But addressing specifically Elysium's apparent fears with 2.0, and others brought up here as well, there is an underlying fear and guilt that they have done some lasting harm. It takes a lot to break a 7 year old to the point he can't come right.

I used to think that I didn't like children until I worked at an Arcade. When I did I learned that kids are actually pretty cool; prone to excitement, enthusiastic and in a comfortable environment with minimal supervision competitive and social. But when their parents were around they would suddenly become all tense and neurotic.

I think parents need to worry a bit less.

Easier said than done, of course.

MrDeVil909 wrote:

I think parents need to worry a bit less.

Easier said than done, of course. :)

To put it mildly. I generally describe parenthood as "an exercise in barely-restrained terror".

trueheart78 wrote:

Excellent article. Very interesting to read your view, I'm curious as to what the wife thinks of all of this? "It's all Elysium's fault" wouldn't surprise me, but still ;)

I'm actually the one who first brought up limiting screen time. Initially, Elysium felt that I was being too stringent, but as time has gone on, he's realized how important it is for Elysium 2.0. He's pretty hyperactive (that's putting it very mildly), and videogames seem to exacerbate that trait. On days when he hasn't had much screen time, he's calmer, more in control of his impulses. On days when he has a lot of contact with videogames, the difference is remarkable. He becomes wildly hyperactive, and literally cannot resist impulses. I don't know why this happens, but I've observed it enough times in Elysium 2.0 to know it is real.

When I was a kid, I was obsessive in the same way, but with books instead of gaming. I read every waking minute. I regularly got in trouble in school for reading books inside of my textbooks, and hated taking road trips because motion sickness made reading an impossibility for me. I remained this way as an adult, although having kids has forced me to scale it back a bit. That said, 9 times out of 10, you can catch me reading while brushing my teeth, drying my hair, or any other mundane activity.

I wonder where Elysium 2.0 got this personality trait?

The frustrating thing for Elysium is that he doesn't have an obsessive nature at all, so he doesn't understand why it is such a problem for Elysium 2.0 and me. He can decide to stop doing something and just quit (e.g. he just put cigarettes down for good when he moved in with me, and never had one again, no fanfare, no fuss). It makes it hard for him to understand how something so easy and fun, like a videogame, can be like crack for someone with a personality like Elysium 2.0 and I have.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:
MrDeVil909 wrote:

I think parents need to worry a bit less.

Easier said than done, of course. :)

To put it mildly. I generally describe parenthood as "an exercise in barely-restrained terror".

Hear, hear.

momgamer wrote:

It's not that the games are going to hurt them. But you've got to teach them how to manage their own time. One of the hardest things over the years I've found was teaching the concept that sometimes things have to get done whether you want to do them or not. It is a crucial lesson for living a life, though.

They aren't born with the knowledge of how to prioritize all the stuff going on in their life, set goals, and then plan and persevere until they've accomplished them. Games both help and hinder that.

I've posted my rules structures here a couple times now. To read it looks I was a jackbooted fascist, but a lot of it was because of scarcity of resources. I had four kids roughly the same age and limited amounts of hardware. You have to take turns, you have to learn to cooperate, and you have to get other stuff done too.

It helped that they really didn't have to get that stringent with it until they were nine-ish, and they helped me derive the rules so we could all live by them. We planned ahead for changes as they grew. They knew why each one was in place, and they knew what to expect. Now add robotic consistency for X number of years and Voila! you have a hopefully functional adult.

You have to model the behavior, too. My kids refer to my DS as my "crack torch" because they caught me playing one night. I was hunched over with my nose pressed into it, and I hadn't even noticed it was almost midnight on a work night.

I want to Nth the call to make sure to take EVERYTHING into account. My elder daughter was the first kid the jr high vice principal had to give assign detention because she read too much. My gang has overdone it on everything from cooking to car repair.

Momgamer is incredibly wise. It is worth noting that those are incredibly hard lessons to learn and deal with and teach.

Kids are all about learning. They are little doppelgangers of us. Our good habits, our bad habits, they are mirrors of them and it shows in their habits, mannerisms, everything. I've mentioned it elsewhere, but I find in raising my kids, the two oldest of whom are not mine biologically, that it's very much nuture over nature. This is not to discount it, but the amount of habits and hobbies I see them pick up from my wife and I never ceases to amaze me. My oldest daughter will spend hours with her nose in various books I've recommended to her, from Harry Potter to Ramona to the assorted works of Roald Dahl. My son is much like yours, Elysium; nearly 6 years old and glued to my side whenever I'm on the computer or playing something on the 360 with questions abound.

On raising a child who is hyperactive, it can definitely suck and I speak from experience. Not from having raised one, but from being one. I'm an Aspie, and while I'm definitely on the functioning end of the spectrum, it's nonetheless something that makes life difficult even as I stare my 30th birthday in the face. I know my folks struggled with me on a daily if not hourly basis to teach me some sense of responsibility, time management and how to properly prioritize. Largely, I can say they succeeded, but it was most definitely a greater struggle than they had with my little sister. I'd say the big key that they found right about the time I hit my teenage years was patience, repetition and flexibility.

All that said though, I can really only offer one piece of advice, that has been offered up around here by greater men than myself: The only people whose advice you have to take is your own. Only you have to live with your decisions, so make sure that you can. This work which we take up is the greatest, hardest, and most rewarding. But sadly, it also comes without a manual.

GL to you both though.

I used to worry about our first son, that he was too obsessive about playing with Legos, and then Lego Star Wars on the Xbox, and then Castle Crashers on the 360. He's in second grade now, and tonight, when we were all playing Flatout: Ultimate Carnage (racing) on the living room tv, he told his little brother, "lets go out and ride bikes, this is boring". My wife and I, and our older son went to the front yard to enjoy the evening. (I saw him telling the neighbor kids later, "Want to hear some jokes I heard about frogs?" Hehe kids...)

An hour later, we came back in and I heard plastic quickly clicking on plastic. Our 5-year old (second son) was sitting in the darkening living room, fixated on the same racetracks I thought we'd all abandoned earlier that night, and with no sound on the speakers. He wanted so badly to compete, to gain an edge on his brother and his dad, that he ignored his normal instincts to go outside and play. This bothers me; not the fact that he was playing a game, but my lack of recognition of his needs, that he somehow saw this as a way to compete with his brother and please his parents.

I'm thinking about getting rid of -or packing up- the Gamecube and the 360.

Why is anything digital bad?

TV, games, we think a child's interest is some horrible thing. How is it any different then playing with dolls, or other toys? I was an 'only child'. So while I went out and played with friends and did outdoor kid stuff, I also spent a lot of time home alone (er, I mean no other kids) too. Sometimes it was hours and hours of TV. Sometimes it was hours and hours of GI Joes. Sometimes hours and hours of books. One day, it because hours and hours of NES. Why is one activity distinctively bad, but the others are "just kids being kids"?

I think you're all overeacting, seeing digitial content (TV, games, etc) as some kind of evil to be avoided. I question, as long as the child is doing other things as well, what is the damage this digital exposure is doing to your child?

Truth be told, I think you all need to stop asking us and ask a child psychologist a few questions. I feel they'll say that digital entertainment is no more harmful than any other, obsessive behavior with children is normal (due to their lack of self control and restraint) and since you're varying the activities they do, they're normal and healthy. Personally, I'm sort of shocked that even when you limit their exposure to 15 or 30 minutes you think there's a problem...

Running Man wrote:

I used to worry about our first son, that he was too obsessive about playing with Legos, and then Lego Star Wars on the Xbox, and then Castle Crashers on the 360. He's in second grade now, and tonight, when we were all playing Flatout: Ultimate Carnage (racing) on the living room tv, he told his little brother, "lets go out and ride bikes, this is boring". My wife and I, and our older son went to the front yard to enjoy the evening. (I saw him telling the neighbor kids later, "Want to hear some jokes I heard about frogs?" Hehe kids...)

An hour later, we came back in and I heard plastic quickly clicking on plastic. Our 5-year old (second son) was sitting in the darkening living room, fixated on the same racetracks I thought we'd all abandoned earlier that night, and with no sound on the speakers. He wanted so badly to compete, to gain an edge on his brother and his dad, that he ignored his normal instincts to go outside and play. This bothers me; not the fact that he was playing a game, but my lack of recognition of his needs, that he somehow saw this as a way to compete with his brother and please his parents.

I'm thinking about getting rid of -or packing up- the Gamecube and the 360.

This sounds like normal, competitve sibling behaviors.

Have we grown so oversensitive that we forgot what we were like as children? Or that somehow our experiences weren't normal? If it's not competeing with him on a game, it would be jumping bikes off a ramp. One is no more "normal" than the other.

Times have changed, and digital entertainment is a part of that. Just like we wouldn't expect to see our children spend hours and days with a hoop and stick, as long as they're getting some physical/outside time, why does their inside time have to be "anything but digital!"

Elysia wrote:
trueheart78 wrote:

Excellent article. Very interesting to read your view, I'm curious as to what the wife thinks of all of this? "It's all Elysium's fault" wouldn't surprise me, but still ;)

I'm actually the one who first brought up limiting screen time. Initially, Elysium felt that I was being too stringent, but as time has gone on, he's realized how important it is for Elysium 2.0. He's pretty hyperactive (that's putting it very mildly), and videogames seem to exacerbate that trait. On days when he hasn't had much screen time, he's calmer, more in control of his impulses. On days when he has a lot of contact with videogames, the difference is remarkable. He becomes wildly hyperactive, and literally cannot resist impulses. I don't know why this happens, but I've observed it enough times in Elysium 2.0 to know it is real.

When I was a kid, I was obsessive in the same way, but with books instead of gaming. I read every waking minute. I regularly got in trouble in school for reading books inside of my textbooks, and hated taking road trips because motion sickness made reading an impossibility for me. I remained this way as an adult, although having kids has forced me to scale it back a bit. That said, 9 times out of 10, you can catch me reading while brushing my teeth, drying my hair, or any other mundane activity.

I wonder where Elysium 2.0 got this personality trait?

The frustrating thing for Elysium is that he doesn't have an obsessive nature at all, so he doesn't understand why it is such a problem for Elysium 2.0 and me. He can decide to stop doing something and just quit (e.g. he just put cigarettes down for good when he moved in with me, and never had one again, no fanfare, no fuss). It makes it hard for him to understand how something so easy and fun, like a videogame, can be like crack for someone with a personality like Elysium 2.0 and I have.

Sounds like you have identified a unique situation with your family, which is different then I have been talking about (generalities). However, I don't know if removal is an answer. You had to learn how to deal with your book obsession, I think Elysium 2.0 needs to learn how to deal with his. Good luck

Man I love this site!

I'm always eager to hear how other parents deal with these situations. With my kids it started with the "Lego Star Wars machine", which in my case is an old PS2 (I'm a PC gamer and also broke) when my little son was not quite four and my older son was seven. In the beginning I tried to limit game time with a timer, I set it to thirty minutes so that they could see how much time they had left.

It was a disaster.

It led to hectic play, running through levels as fast as possible, screaming at the little brother or a parent if they took too long on some interesting corner of the game. Just the wrong way of playing I think.

So I relaxed the rules. 30 minutes is just too short for most console games and even PC games feel way too hectic in that amount of time. Game time is now "one Level". If it is a long level, evening TV time will be cut short.

My older son plays RTS games right now and is allowed to play about one hour. But I'm not draconian about keeping it to 60 minutes, I understand how sometimes you just have to finish this one process before you can shut the computer down. The time limit is not about me showing strength and holding on to rules, it is about variety in his life.
I think it is important to show my sons that I "know" how great and addictive gaming is and that's why I'm limiting exposure.

docbadwrench wrote:

We're creeping steadily toward the teenage years. I have no idea what's to come, but I'm hoping that by talking honestly with him about our concerns, he'll understand that his parents aren't trying to be ogres. We're just trying to be good parents, no matter what damned fool - sometimes wrong - things we believe.

Exactly.
I told both my sons in simple terms why I limit gaming, what the dangers of obsession are and how difficult it is for me to see whether they are just playing or getting single minded about it. I actually said to them something like "As long a I still see you playing with your imagination and see you using your creativity to try new stuff I know you are fine and I will let you play videogames. If I see you losing that creativity the games will go."
Of course now they sometimes make a big show about what they did and how creative it was but that's ok, I think.

Nobody ever told me how complicated this parenting thing is....

Shoal07 wrote:

Sounds like you have identified a unique situation with your family, which is different then I have been talking about (generalities). However, I don't know if removal is an answer. You had to learn how to deal with your book obsession, I think Elysium 2.0 needs to learn how to deal with his. Good luck ;)

I second the well wishes, Elysia. A specific approach based on intimate knowledge of the situation at hand is often superior to a generalized approach that may not be based on applicable assumptions.

I think that forcing a time limit on all activities is often a necessity for obsessive children, until they reach early to mid teen years when you can teach them ways to manage it themselves. At a younger age, I think it's more important to earn their trust by showing them that limiting their screen time is because you "don't want them to miss all the other fun things they could be doing."

Even as an adult, I remain obsessive. I have learned to manage my limits myself (somewhat - my wife would disagree) enough to be functional, but I didn't learn how to do that until I was in college.

My son is 1 1/2 so it will probably be some time before I have to get into the argument over gaming. What I realize though is my life is rather imbalanced. I usually work 9-10 hours and often have a 1+ hour commute each way. Then its dinner, bath, and bedtime story. When it's all done I'm exhausted and really not in the mood to do anything but veg out or go to sleep. Weekends are for catching up on errands/chores, but also for getting gaming in. I recognize that there are some big pieces of my life missing. I used to love to go hiking, sailing or skiing on the weekend. As a young parent, that's pretty hard to do. Still, I don't get much exercise - which is something I need to change.

I know I'm rambling but the point of this post is I'm less worried about letting my son play games too much as I am setting a good example. I don't want him to be too socially awkward like I was as a kid, and I certainly don't want him to be overweight and unhealthy.

LarryC wrote:
Shoal07 wrote:

Sounds like you have identified a unique situation with your family, which is different then I have been talking about (generalities). However, I don't know if removal is an answer. You had to learn how to deal with your book obsession, I think Elysium 2.0 needs to learn how to deal with his. Good luck ;)

I second the well wishes, Elysia. A specific approach based on intimate knowledge of the situation at hand is often superior to a generalized approach that may not be based on applicable assumptions.

I think that forcing a time limit on all activities is often a necessity for obsessive children, until they reach early to mid teen years when you can teach them ways to manage it themselves. At a younger age, I think it's more important to earn their trust by showing them that limiting their screen time is because you "don't want them to miss all the other fun things they could be doing."

Even as an adult, I remain obsessive. I have learned to manage my limits myself (somewhat - my wife would disagree) enough to be functional, but I didn't learn how to do that until I was in college.

The difficult part is children don't learn impulse control until adulthood. I don't know about women, but men still struggle with impulse control into the early 20s. I think that, in part, is why we appear to be such idiots to the opposite sex...

Shoal07 wrote:

The difficult part is children don't learn impulse control until adulthood. I don't know about women, but men still struggle with impulse control into the grave. I think that, in part, is why we appear to be such idiots to the opposite sex...

FTFY

I'm 30 and it's still a struggle to go to a store that sells cool stuff. And the only reason I don't video game all night is that my body starts to shut down at 9 pm.

Of course, the fact that I have the emotional maturity of a 12 year old may be a factor.

As father to a 1-year old, I'm totally looking forward to educating him about games while also now being terrified I'll ruin his life with them.

Gee, thanks, Sean.

MrDeVil909 wrote:
Shoal07 wrote:

The difficult part is children don't learn impulse control until adulthood. I don't know about women, but men still struggle with impulse control into the grave. I think that, in part, is why we appear to be such idiots to the opposite sex...

FTFY

I'm 30 and it's still a struggle to go to a store that sells cool stuff. And the only reason I don't video game all night is that my body starts to shut down at 9 pm.

Of course, the fact that I have the emotional maturity of a 12 year old may be a factor.

Personally, I can't play for more than an hour or so at most times. I just get bored with most games after that amount of time. Now and then I might pull a 3 hour stretch but it's rare. I always need to get up and do something else. I'm glad for it, however, elsewise I'd never get anything done other than gaming.

Great article.

Having an 8 year old, this is a topic I've thought about off and on for the entire summer. Both of my parents were older when I was growing up so they couldn't have cared less about any of my interests. They pretty much let me play as much video games as I wanted but at the same time I was a lot more calm than my son is.

I let my son play a lot of video games during the summer, perhaps a bit too much. He started not wanting to go outside to play with me anymore. A part of me is glad that school has started again so not only can I regulate his playtime easier, but his mind can be on other interests.

I admit I am a total failure as a Gamer Father. I tried to get my kids (now 19 and 17) into gaming so I can have a little company in my virtual worlds. But it didn't take. Now they are at the "to cool to play with Dad" stage and I am back into single player mode and pubbing the occasional TF2 or L4D match. Even my "lifetime" LOTRO account sits unused for lack of MMO love.

Sigh! Epic Fail.

Ghostship:

Welcome, brother! I get the feeling that you and I will get along famously.

As a 35 year old father of two boys; one almost four, and the other is one, this article was an incredible spark of interest in this community for me. I am new here, and I have to say that I am shocked by the quality of this community of gamers. I've poked around a lot gamer sites and found mostly l33t teenagers posting. So far today, I've wasted the first 30 minutes of my workday pouring through these responses because they're so compelling and I can relate to most of what every poster has written. I am "juiced", in Tony Robbins terms, about GWJ. I suppose it speaks to the time management skills I've learned

What I see as I go through these are parenting issues further reaching than just video games. I teach downhill skiing, often to kids, and we are trained about the learning and social habits of children. As they age, their social skills, specifically related to competition in a sporting environment, change. (here it's games; in one post a child left, in actually a very mature way, because loosing hurt too much and came back to deal with it later). Relevance being that the developmental stages with children are complex. This is one example where there's an age where competition is one of the strongest motivators, but the child isn't emotionally developed enough yet to cope with loosing, so using competition as a motivator is not a great idea in some cases. These "rules" (admittedly for coaching sports) change quickly in terms of age group.

Also teaching responsibility. When to go outside, when to do chores, and when to game. I know that my kids don't have the long view yet, and certainly don't understand consequences. My three year old is just starting to think of "what might happen if I do X"; but this is usually, looking only about 30 seconds into the future. He still can't be given a cup of juice and told, "this has to last until dinner, don't drink it all now, and ask for more in five minutes".

My oldest games a little. My son likes to take my ipod touch and play games, my games, and kids games. Some of the kids games are good learning tools. On the flipside, I found him playing Hero of Sparta once and wasn't sure how to feel about it. I certainly was uneasy. I was especially uneasy when he started telling me about how "the fighting guy sticks his 'fighting thing' into the horse guys head. That's how he won"; this all from the intro movie.

We try to limit TV and game time. There is much less game time than TV time. I'm worried more about the TV. My son thinks that he owns it, and if he's awake it has to be on the kid's channel. It's the very reason I own the ipod touch. You can only watch each Backyardigans episode so many time. I surf. He watches. If he asks for the ipod, we switch.

He's pretty balanced though. He goes to the park. He goes up the street to play with his "best friend". He rides his bike on walks with us daily. Heck, sometimes he asks just to go outside and run. We go for a walk, and he does just that. He runs full tilt to the end of the block. We cross the street together, then he takes off down the sidewalk again.

I started gaming when I was about seven or eight on a commodore 64. I had to learn the syntax of loading games, listing the contents of disks, running programs. Soon we were programming "choose your own adventure" stories in basic. Gaming is much more passive these days. I still hold the belief that gaming and TV are passive entertainment, cerebrally speaking, to a greater extent than playing with action figures, or just going on an adventure walk. They're being fed the content instead of coming up with it. If you're playing a Ninja Turtle game (as my son likes the PS3 demo) you're not imagining what your turtle looks like or acts like; it's right there as the devs laid it out for you. If you go on an adventure walk, maybe you're Indiana Jones, Maybe you're Hon Solo in a cave, Maybe you're a Knight in a medieval period (this one being the least spoon fed of my examples). There is some greater benefit to having their brains come up with the idea. I often feel like I'd be more creative if I hadn't been raised by the TV as much as I recall.

I don't know how these get so long. I swear I look at that text box, and think, "I can fit this in there without scrolling".

Wow, just read this article, don't know how I missed it for a month. Excellent piece and everyone's responses have been thoughtful as well. I have 2 daughters, 6 and 5, and this is something I struggle with as well. They are really attached to me, and my computer is in the family room, so there's really very little way for me to game in private except after they go to bed. And usually, they come out 100 times from bed at night and wander over to see what I'm doing.

We got them a Dora game that they played for 15-30 minutes once or twice a week a couple years back. Then I got them an aquarium "game" (not really much game, they just put stuff in the aquarium and can do some things with the fish) that they also messed around with a little. Last Christmas I got them a veterinarian game that they went nuts over for a couple months.

They love watching me play stuff, too, even though they aren't directly manipulating. I used to let them sit on my lap as I roamed around WoW. Recently, they got a kick out of Elemental ("I see some wolves, Papa! Go get em!"). Minecraft has become a major obsession. That's all they talk about. It's kind of weird when they play with other kids and use Minecraft vocabulary - they get a lot of blank stares. The iPad was a craze for a bit when I first got it. They also love to play (or watch me play) a game called Miner Dig Deep on XBox.

Sometimes though we have the same concerns, that there is a fine line between a fun hobby and an unhealthy obsession. We try to balance it out by having nights where we only read (the Hobbit and Narnia are favorites), and other nights where we just sit back and enjoy a nature documentary or something similar (they love cooking shows and Ninja Warrior just as much as snake documentaries). And like many others have stated, during the school year we limit game any form of computer or video game playing to the weekends, though sometimes they get a quick 5 minute tour of my latest Minecraft creations before bed. I agree with whomever said the key seems to be to try to get them to learn time management: that there is a time for all things, but each thing in its proper time.

I am actually really looking forward to playing some Civ5 with them. They love history and geography and from our short time with Elemental I know they will love it.

I, too, am faced with this conundrum on a daily basis. It doesn't have to feel like a meth clinic, but I do agree that rationing game time is a very good thing. If it isn't monitored kids can very easily de-socialize and slip into a fantasy world.... much like adults. Kids are simply more vulnerable to picking up on the "bad things" of gaming than adults are, because they are still developing their personalities and behaviors.

Like anything else, if left to their own devices, things can go a muck. Sounds to me like you are very vigilant and thoughtful. Don't sweat the small stuff!

Great article!