In a society that is so entranced with technology, you cannot deny the power of the internet and video games on our growing generation. We have tried our best to fight our son's inclination to be obsessed with video games, but everyday it becomes more and more of a challenge to do so. Even though we limit his gameplay to only a couple of hours on the weekends, video games are still all he talks about and all he ever asks for when it comes to gifts. He even wants to be a game developer when he gets out of college. That got me thinking, it can't be all bad - at least he's thinking about college and a career at 8 years old! So, how can I foster this without letting him become one of those kids who locks themselves in their room at night and plays violent games with ungodly themes until the wee hours of the morning?
I think we have found the answer! We decided that this Christmas may be the year that we get the kids a gaming system. But, if we buy the children a gaming system, it would need to be one that they share and that we would need to keep in the living room so that we can monitor their usage of it. We almost went with a PS3, with the thought that not only would they have the games they can play, but we can have a BluRay player too. It's a win-win, right?
But then it dawned on me, as I was looking through the PS3 games that I thought my son would like, that all of the games I was thinking of purchasing were mostly for them to play alone or with one other player. Also, most of the games were very specific to TV shows that they like or interests that only they have as individuals. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but they would likely end up playing alone and we would probably be fighting for the TV, since my husband and I wouldn't necessarily be inclined to play those games with them.
Then I remembered how much the kids enjoyed playing the Nintendo Wii when my old roommate had one a few years ago. They would beg to play the Wii, but since it was my roommate's, I didn't let them play very often, in fear that they may break it by accident. Now that we were in the market for our own system I thought, why not get a Wii? It seems to be geared more towards the family and has lots of games that we can all play together. The only drawback was that we wouldn't be getting a BluRay player, but hey - we don't even have an HDTV, so would it really yield us much benefit?
So that's the way we went - we bought my old roomate's Wii at a very reasonable price and she was generous enough to give us all of her old games! Then we bought a few new ones and all of a sudden, we had a Christmas wonderland of video games for the kids. They of course went nuts when they saw it and couldn't wait to play with it!
Turns out that this was the best thing for our family this Christmas season! The games that we bought were not only interesting to the kids, but we can all play them as a family and they even give us a bit of a workout. And let's be honest parents, we could all use a little workout in our busy lives! We have already spent hours huddled around the TV, battling each other in golf, boxing, Wipeout, dancing to Kidz Bop, and even Grandpa has joined in on the action. My husband and I have sacrificed our usual TV watching time to spend time with the kids playing, where we would typically just send them upstairs to their room.
The moral of this story, I suppose, is that video games are not necessarily evil, for those of you who believe they are. They can be a great way to spend time with your kids doing something that they love and will love you for in the end. My son has already expressed to me how glad he is that we got a Wii as opposed to another gaming system because he gets to play with us as a family. As my heart melts at his sentiment, I realize that kids really do want to spend time with us - we just have to be open to it! Make an opportunity for those moments to happen in your family whenever you can!
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