A Hypocritical Gen-X Gamer Dad

Over at my blog, I've just written a piece about why I am such a gaming-hypocrite. To sum it up: I got dump-trucks full of gaming in my youth, but my son's gaming time is more regulated. Times - and parenting styles - change, and I'm not immune. For those of you that care, I'd love to get your thoughts on the subject.

Just click the image that follows and you'll be taken to the post.

IMAGE(http://longgame.org/wp-content/uploads/banner_atari.jpg)

I can relate to a lot of that. I was a latchkey kid for much of my youth, so even though my parents didn't like that I spent so much time gaming and watching TV, I still spent hour upon hour in front of the screen playing my Odyssey 2 or Intellivision and watching reruns of Gilligan's Island. If I wasn't doing it at my own home, I'd do it with a friend at theirs.

My son has plenty of access to games, but most of my work involves telecommuting, so I can keep track of his screen time ("screen time"-- I don't think that phrase even existed when I was a kid!). I don't think it's hypocritical, exactly, to keep an eye on your kids' video habits. I think it's more just a recognition that kids sometimes need a parent to push them into engaging in a wider variety of activities. I know I too often defaulted to video entertainment when I would have been better off doing something else.

Now, if you go back to the 12-hour Civilization sessions while still expecting your child to stick to a strict limit, then I'll call you a hypocrite...

I wholly agree with pretty much everything you said, and I live in that hypocritical place too. However, I like to think that because I do understand what he's playing, why he's enjoying it, and the benefits and downsides of playing it, I can feel that regulating his time on the Xbox or PC is For His Own Good, and to be making informed choices about which games he's allowed to play when. I know what a reasonable time is to play a Lego game is compared to Worms or Castle Crashers.

I recently went through the third holy event in a father-son relationship after teaching him to ride a bike and teaching him to read: teaching him to do a Dragon Punch.

After he did his chores and his homework, of course.

Thanks for your thoughts, guys. I definitely appreciate them - I feel much less alone.

One thing that my wife and I are more relaxed about are games that border-on learning games without the "learning games" moniker. You know: The Sims, SimCity, Lego-games - pretty much anything that scratches his building-itch. We encourage any activity that sees him making something. He appears to love, love, love them too so it's a good thing.

Balance is the tricky thing. We certainly encourage it at the same time that we practice it. You are quite correct, philucifer, that we can't expect him to follow our rules if we don't have them, too. That's that whole 'modeling' word that I've picked up because my wife is a child-development expert.

As you noted, Dudley, chores and homework are first. We got that covered, too.

What I wrote was basically just exercising my own demons at holding him to a higher standard than I myself had.

Since home video game systems really weren't available until I was around 7 years old I can't say I'm a hypocrite when it comes to my 3 year old son. Heck, at his age I didn't even know what a game was. He should be happy with his 30 minutes of game time.

That being said, while I would now love to sit down for a marathon gaming session but life keeps me from doing that. My son COULD do that but I don't want him to. I'm very conscious of personal fitness and sitting on your can for days on end eating cold pizza and drinking liters of Mountain Dew just flat out aren't good for you. I'm trying to teach my kid moderation in all things and games are no exception. Does that make me a hypocrite? Probably. Like most parents I want to raise my kid to be better than me.

As someone who's yet to prove the quality of my genes, I speak from a position of ignorance, but I also speak as a fellow ex-latchkey kid.

Sure, I played a metric buttload of games as a kid. But I spent a lot of time playing tennis too, and riding my bike around the neighbourhood with the kids across the street. I went sledging in the winter, and to the swimming pool in the summer. When I wasn't outdoors, I read books, I played D&D, I watched TV, I did my chores and my homework and I helped my mum cook and bake (i.e. licked the bowl and operated the mixer ). In addition to all these things, I played a lot of videogames.

From my (perhaps naive) perspective, it's not about how much videogames my kids are going to be playing, it's about whether they're doing it to the exlusion of other activities.

The wife may have a different perspective, though

docbadwrench wrote:

What I wrote was basically just exercising my own demons at holding him to a higher standard than I myself had.

Watch out, you don't want your demons to get tougher and stronger than they already are. I would consider trying to exorcise them instead.

beeporama wrote:
docbadwrench wrote:

What I wrote was basically just exercising my own demons at holding him to a higher standard than I myself had.

Watch out, you don't want your demons to get tougher and stronger than they already are. I would consider trying to exorcise them instead. :twisted:

No, no, no. If you keep them tired out from exercise, they'll be too tired to do any evil. Same goes for dogs and children.

I spent many a weekend hovering around my PC when I was a kid. As a teenage, I would stay up to all hours of the night playing PC games. Torment caused me to sleep in class quite a few times. In addition to all that crazy video game playing I was in Theater, Student Council, had 2 jobs, played Soccer and football, and was in a bunch of other random clubs. I also played my fair share of basketball and football outside of school, just for fun. My parents never had to curb my game time, as there were so many other things I was doing that it all worked out. I hope that my children are like me in the aspect of being involved in many things, so that the whole "Get off your butt and do something" conversation doesn't happen.

You're not alone. I have similar thoughts, having grown up with a computer in my room (not happening) and too much time on my hands. It's a bit early to be mapping strategies seeing that the son is only 7 weeks old, but we're already thinking about it.

While reading your comments, my wife as reading over my shoulder. Gaming to the exclusion of everything is a big concern. Some kids don't have a problem self-regulating, but plenty of others do. Our son is certainly one of them. While he has activities that keep him focused (plays the trumpet, plays soccer, deep into legos), he would gladly abandon all of them if it meant he could do nothing but play games.

For this reason, my wife and I have resigned ourselves to the fact that we must be regulators. But plenty of parents are in different positions. There are broad differences in the way that kids are. One of my son's best friends has never been regulated because, after an hour or so, he gets bored with games and wants to do something different. I've watched my son look horrified at that expression...

Thanks for the additional thoughts, guys. It's very much appreciated.

docbadwrench wrote:

While reading your comments, my wife as reading over my shoulder. Gaming to the exclusion of everything is a big concern. Some kids don't have a problem self-regulating, but plenty of others do. Our son is certainly one of them. While he has activities that keep him focused (plays the trumpet, plays soccer, deep into legos), he would gladly abandon all of them if it meant he could do nothing but play games.

For this reason, my wife and I have resigned ourselves to the fact that we must be regulators. But plenty of parents are in different positions. There are broad differences in the way that kids are. One of my son's best friends has never been regulated because, after an hour or so, he gets bored with games and wants to do something different. I've watched my son look horrified at that expression...

This. Parenting is a tricky deal, and you have to figure out what works for your kid. It's great to see what everyone else tries, because it helps give you ideas. But mostly, it is trial an error, and your strategies are based on what what you think will motivate your child.

My daughter is mostly easy on this front. She's the kid that will get bored and move on to something else most of the time, and she has a lot of activities to move on towards. But since she has gotten older, the internet is a little trickier. She can get pretty wrapped up in Gaia Online, and we have had to cut that off to some degree.

docbadwrench wrote:

While reading your comments, my wife as reading over my shoulder. Gaming to the exclusion of everything is a big concern. Some kids don't have a problem self-regulating, but plenty of others do. Our son is certainly one of them. While he has activities that keep him focused (plays the trumpet, plays soccer, deep into legos), he would gladly abandon all of them if it meant he could do nothing but play games.

For this reason, my wife and I have resigned ourselves to the fact that we must be regulators. But plenty of parents are in different positions. There are broad differences in the way that kids are. One of my son's best friends has never been regulated because, after an hour or so, he gets bored with games and wants to do something different. I've watched my son look horrified at that expression...

Thanks for the additional thoughts, guys. It's very much appreciated.

This is my kids. There's nothing wrong with regulating, keeping them busy or redirecting their enthusiasm. Don't feel bad about it, there's nothing wrong with what you're doing.

I don't think it is Hypocritical, we know what time sinks those games and what sorts of things can be viewed upon a computer with unregulated access to the internet. Just because our parents did not know better doesn't mean that we don't.

Jonman wrote:

cked the bowl and operated the mixer ). In addition to all these things, I played a lot of videogames.

From my (perhaps naive) perspective, it's not about how much videogames my kids are going to be playing, it's about whether they're doing it to the exlusion of other activities.

While I have no kids, I am often the go to on the subject of games, movies for young-ish parents. My body count is fairly low for someone who spend most of his youth watching slasher films and playing Doom and Mortal Kombat. I graduated high school with honors, earned my 4 year degree, am gainfully employed, and about to go into my 2nd year of law school. I also spent my youth playing sports, watching tons of films, and reading books non-stop.

What concerns me is when parents encourage things to the strict exclusion of recreation and games. In the age of score-less T-ball and everybody wins soccer, online games may be the last place some kids have for healthy competition. We have parental involvement to an unhealthy degree as parents can now live on college campuses with their students. If you cannot trust your kid to study and act responsibly online and in their own bedroom, why not just GPS tag them now like a shark and never let them out of a 1 mile radius?

In short, the path to Harvard is not paved in rigid discipline, zero distractions, and harsh rationing of fun. I would hope that when the day ends, your goal is to send off a well rounded adult capable of getting enjoyment from life, but also well grounded in the realities of supporting themselves and their own family eventually. You want to have raised someone who can do a job that they enjoy, relax at home, and pass that on to future generations.

KingGorilla wrote:

What concerns me is when parents encourage things to the strict exclusion of recreation and games. In the age of score-less T-ball and everybody wins soccer, online games may be the last place some kids have for healthy competition.

I think this kind of stuff is more myth than reality. At least we have not run into those kinds of leagues for our daughter.

This is the kind of stuff that makes it entertaining to listen to childless people wax poetically about kids today and the failure of parents. Depending on the topic, parents are either fiendishly neglectful or obsessively protective. The reality is most parents are making not making decisions based on some high minded ideals, but rather it is based on lots of information in regards to what their kids need, what they react to, and what is going on in the community.

And some of us weren't so perfect growing up, and we'd like our kids to avoid our mistakes. Some of didn't balance our time very well at all. I was in and out of college (back in now), went through a ridiculous number of jobs, and really regret how I spent my 20's. I found more ways to waste time than could possibly be imagined.

The same parents also raised my brother, who could not possibly have been more task oriented. He went on to get a masters in Aerospace Engineering and a law degree from Michigan. He's now reaping those rewards as a lawyer for Microsoft.

My other brother is a nice mix of both of us.

So exactly where does that leave my parents? Are they rock stars, or did they fail me?

My father-in-law gave me some great advice when my daughter was born. Kids grow up in spite of us. You can do everything right, and the kids can be a bum. But you can screw up left and right, and the kid will figure it all out. The key is to love them, and just do the best you can. Don't sweat making the perfect decision, because often, it will blow up in your face. And the wrong one will make you look like parent of the year.

Well, what we did with my son (7 in December) is keep a light hand on the tiller until things go wrong. We only ration his Xbox time because he's demonstrated that he needs us to. He's found google and I caught him playing a flash game called penalty room that lets you murder a stick man in various unpleasant ways, so now we've put passwords on our accounts and I'm going to get a net nanny thing for his account. He bought a game called Baja on Xbox Games on Demand, so I've explained what he did wrong, and I'm going to have to come up with a way to stop him if he does it again.

The only problem is what do you do with things that are more terminal when they get it wrong? That's where you find out how immune you are to Daily Mail scare stories about roving bands of immigrant gay left-wing paedos just waiting to snatch your kids away. It's one thing to know the stats intellectually, but it's a lot harder to be rational when it's your children's lives on the line.

Child rearing is a crap-shoot and video games were a part of my peer group’s identity. Parenthood involves a lot of course-correction based on sketchy observations from our own youth.

At some level, I know this, but it's always refreshing to be reminded that 1) my parents didn't really know what they were doing, and 2) most of my friends who are parents don't really know what they are doing, and 3) most non-friend parents don't really know what they are doing. We're all just making it up as we go and hoping for the best.

I'm only 2.5 years into my first child now. Going into it, I've been hopeful that gaming can be something that we do together. Unlike the pre-Internet computer games we grew up with, games today are--or can be--highly social, interactive experiences. As he gets older, I'm hoping that, yes, we'll throw a ball in the backyard, but sometimes we'll race in Forza, knockabout some Lego constructions, or whatever else the kids are doing in a few years. I hope that I can approach things in such a way he won't look at games as a way to escape the family setting any more than I would have set up a Monopoly board in my dark bedroom and played by myself for hours (which I think I actually might have done, now that i think about it). It's odd all the things we did when we were kids because BOREDOM was such a major force in our lives. I don't think our kids will ever lack for things to do. It should be interesting.

Follow-up:

I posted today about a great 10-minute video that examines the ways that we look at time. For parents stressed out by the thought of inserting our own influence into the world of adolescence, it's a very humbling talk.

Relevant to this discussion is the simple fact that we're trying to make our present-focused kids more future focused. This means teaching them about delayed gratification. But video games aren't about delayed gratification. The standard MMO model is about creating a breadcrumb trail and, incidentally, developing virtual crack.

Technology aside, children all come - for better or worse - with their particular genetic peculiarities because that's how we all are. Our tendency to dismiss this fact has become more unsettling of late. My wife and I are actually considering ADHD medication. While we've been agonizing over that decision for the last few years, we're finally convinced it is necessary.

Last night we had a family discussion about childhood, school, and what-not. While it was very therapeutic, it left us all sad. Last year, my son confessed to us that he would be in school and literally unable to focus on his schoolwork because he was obsessing about getting home and gaming. Gaming. Gaming. Gaming. It infected his mind. He was distracted. He didn't listen to his teacher, rushed through his work, all to get home.

Now, we've been pretty lenient about gaming with the summer, but we're still seeing his strong tendency to consider nothing but gaming. In the run up to school, which is starting very soon, his gaming has become slightly more constricted. This very slight adjustment has already rendered him ultra-moody. He is eleven.

My point, though, is that this has only become more obvious as he has aged. As kids grow, they gain more apparent complexity because they can articulate things better and have more activities. I wish we had better appreciated more of this stuff earlier, but better late than never. Any thoughts from the co-parents out there?

Well, my son's still young enough that he is primarily concerned with the Now and if distracted from games he doesn't think about them again until he's bored and looking for something to do. 6 to 11 is a big difference, so I haven't had the same problems as you yet, and I don't really know what I'm talking about.

The trouble is, we all felt bored at school sometimes, and were itching to go home and have fun. If games are your major source of fun, then when you're at school in a boringly taught subject you will naturally tune out and think about games. I certainly did that sometimes at school. At what point does that become ADHD and need medication? I have no idea. Children are absolutist about stuff ("e.g. but everyone else is allowed to stay up to midnight and watch violent movies Mum"), so I guess it might not be true that he literally never focuses in school at any point, even if he honestly believes that. Do his grades reflect him being consistently distracted?

We are trying to simply provide a range of activities to give his life a bit of balance. Now it's the summer holidays, we try and get the kids out to the park, day camp where he can do wall climbing or go karting, swimming, cycling. By getting him out of the house he is obviously prevented from gaming, but is having fun all the same. I guess it's a lot harder with an 11yo that thinks swimming is boring or something and doesn't have fun.

I suppose if I was in the same position as you I would present the gaming as a reward once he'd done his homework or whatever. The problem is that distracting them by going out somewhere else costs time and money, which I imagine is as limited for you as it is for me.

One thing that occurred to me is that you could consider getting him in programming. If you teach him Java or Python or something, then he might consider it gaming-like enough to be interested in it, and it would feed back into his maths and science. Coding up a simple text adventure, board game or platformer (all of which I did when I was around his age) might scratch the gaming itch whilst being a more constructive endeavour. Ditto woodworking, music, electronics.

But as I say, this is going to be new ground for me when/if it happens with mine.

docbadwrench wrote:

Gaming to the exclusion of everything is a big concern. Some kids don't have a problem self-regulating, but plenty of others do. Our son is certainly one of them.

I'm doing similar things with my daughter, who's ten now. She's also not good at regulating game time - she'd play all day long, just like me. We definitely encourage a variety of activities, including reading, drawing, swimming, and playing her violin.

To be honest, as much as I think we're helping our kids learn time management, I don't think that's the most important part of being involved with game time decisions. I think the most important thing our kids will learn is that their parents care about what they're doing, and they'll intervene if they see them doing something too much, or doing something that's not healthy.

I don't think I can overestimate the bonds my daughter and I have developed through gaming, both from playing together and from talking about why we can't always be playing games, and why it's important to enjoy a variety of activities. Some of those bonds are developed through setting limits and talking about why those limits matter.

When I grew up I was more or less free to do with my own personal free time whatever I wanted. There were family rules and responsibilities; bedtimes, homework times, cleaning/tidying and so forth but once those things were discharged I was completely responsible for how I used my free time. If I wanted to use all my free time playing games that was fine, if I wanted use it all reading books that was fine too (note: no one ever complains if a kid wants to read books 8 hours a day). Sure, if your kid's gaming is affecting their responsibilities to family and school or causing them to break the rules then you probably want to intervene but otherwise I don't see that there is a problem.

Also you can't force people (and that includes your kids) to cultivate multiple hobbies just because you've decided that it's psychologically healthy. You can put things in front of them and let them choose but if you force them you're opening the doors to resentment and providing something for them to fight over. But if you let them decide how to spend their leisure time I suspect they'll come round and try all sorts eventually. Especially so if you lead by example; so if you're a family of readers your kids will likely take it up of their own accord eventually.

Thanks for the thoughts, people. Lots to chew on here. I want to stress that home-time remains mostly a positive experience. There's a lot of happy feelings all around (though we all have our days). So far, so good, but striking a balance between parental concern and allowing our child to express himself remains difficult.

Damn, where are those instruction books when you need them!

Jonman wrote:
beeporama wrote:
docbadwrench wrote:

What I wrote was basically just exercising my own demons at holding him to a higher standard than I myself had.

Watch out, you don't want your demons to get tougher and stronger than they already are. I would consider trying to exorcise them instead. :twisted:

No, no, no. If you keep them tired out from exercise, they'll be too tired to do any evil. Same goes for dogs and children.

"Idle hands" and all that.

Elysium just wrote a great article that's in line with our conversation. Be sure to check it out.

Hm...

I don't know if this is going to be of any help, but I never had a problem with going to school or getting bored with school until I was in college, and that was mostly because my college teachers were, in two words, really bad. I actually scored better on my tests if I skipped their classes.

The way I was taught is that everything is interesting and that life itself is a game. Life does not have set win parameters, much like a sand box game. You set the parameters you want, and you win depending on how much of those parameters you meet. If all you want to do is f*ck around, then like a sand box game, you won't get much of anywhere; and you won't end up with a lot of choices down the road. You will miss much of what the game has to offer.

I have had the benefit of highly motivated and education-focused parents. I owe them everything. When I was in first grade, one of my teachers made a game out of the multiplication table. She grouped us into five teams, and she would flash us multiplication cards. The team that answered first and correctly made a point, and ten points makes that team the winner for that day. Like family feud, each person in a row was up for his round, so everyone had to be as best as they could be. We helped the laggards, and the top guys found ways to hone their speeds faster.

As a result, all of us in that class, to this day, can instantly multiply any single digit number with any other single digit number without thinking. No thought is required - it's pure rote memorization.

I find that, when appealing to children, you have to engage their sense of wonder, and each child is amazed by slightly different things. Science is easy, of course. Science is made to be interesting and amazing. Math's a little harder, but it's easier to make a game out of it. You gotta find what works for you.