Parenting and Gaming.

I believe that everyone has basically decided that children are very impressionable. Every thing you do around them might actually form their future views, opinions, personality and actions. So, to make up for our mistakes on raising our own children, we tend to blame things on video games, or say they waste a kids life, or perhaps that they actually negatively mold our children.
Now what about any other form of entertainment? Such as books, television, music or sports? All such things can be used as tools for teaching your kid and/or bonding with them. Reading a book to your kid before bed, watching spongebob with them, putting them in music lessons, watching their sporting events. All these things can be shared between the parents and children and form positive results. All of these things are also very possible of holding perhaps violent images or actions, disturbing ideas and what not. I mean, in one of the most beloved "children's" books of all time, Harry Potter, people DIE!!!! Yet this is acceptable, we share the experience with our kids and can explain to them death and life.
Video games are another matter entirely. It seems that the majority of parents ignore the benefits that video games can hold. If used correctly, video games can hold as much "positive energy" that we associate sports, books or movies with. The only difference I think is the lack of understanding on the part of the parents. While movies are simply sit down and watch, books sit down and read, and music sit down and listen, It is a little more complicated to hook up two controllers and play side by side with your child. It is funny though, video games can be used to read (RPG), Music (Rock Band), Watched (Game with pretty graphics) or even as a fitness tool (Wii fit, DDR). Oddly enough though, the parents choose to ignore all this and force other extracurriculars into the small heads of their children. It's easy to say that the kid should be trying new things, but it is also easy to say that the parents should be willing to explore the joys of their own. A child who finds excitement in a game does not want to be torn away to go play some sport with his dad, he wants his dad to sit down and enjoy the game with him. Read? No mom, come do voice acting for the characters in Final Fantasy. What? I don't want to learn how to play the guitar, I would rather you play the guitar and I play the drums on Rockband. Sure none of these are real sports, real books or real music. This is after all a video game. But a child does not always want to go out to play, or play an instrument. Most parents fail to realize this. They want their kid to ignore games completely, and in wanting that, they do so themselves. By ignoring something their kids potentially love, it is very easy for a child to feel... not necessarily unloved themselves, but misguided in their own actions and decisions. A kid should not feel guilty for wanting to play Crash Bandicoot, but some parents will look at that game with disdain. The kid will feel that as well.


Here is my plan for my kid.
Starting at age 6... I will give him a new console for his birthday EVERY year.
When he turns six, I will give him my atari.
Seven? My game boy color.
Eight? Nintendo.
Nine? Sega Genisis.
And so on and so forth. My kid will maybe even get sick of games. He might not even like him. But that will be his decision. I in no way will keep video games from him and act as if they are some deviant from a normal life. I will share every aspect of an active life with my son (Or daughter god forbid). Whether or not I want to be involved with it, I will. I plan on being a GOOD parent. Not one that is scared of new technology, or is used to playing outside as a kid.
I hate playing soccer, but dammit I will play it with my son if he wants to.
I will beat his ass in halo as well.


-Travis