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Similar to just about anything I read these days about parenting, I found some things I agreed with and a few that I don't. What has always been troubling to me however, is "our" (society, media, whomever) propensity to blame our children's activities for the disconnect between what they enjoy doing and what we, as parents, think they should be doing. There are benefits that can be obtained from playing games, video or otherwise. I, personally, have used pokemon to teach reading, story-telling, math, strategy, problem solving, and a myriad of other things to my oldest son. His brother isn't far behind him. We play minecraft, smash bros, mario kart; I even recently introduced him to portal 2. Some of what I let him do is for fun. Some is to gauge his interest in things. Other times I use the time to teach him something new. But the biggest factor of this strategy working is and will almost always be parental involvement. Most of the backlash I see/hear/read about from other parents is due primarily to an unwillingness to get interested in what their children are interested in. They'll buy them the game and go enjoy some "peace and quiet" and never think twice about it. There's something to be said of a parent really taking an interest and learning about a new universe with their children. I'm far from perfect, but that's what I've been attempting, and it's working out pretty well so far. There was a quote in an Orson Scott Card book, "The Lost Gate" where the main character speaks of his sort-of adopted mother/trainer/mentor where he mentions that "Love ... it's a term for the woman in my life who loves me enough to read the novels I'm reading just so she can try to figure out what they're teaching me." TL;DR - Games aren't inherently good or bad. But it's up to the parent to actually do the parenting. They can't just throw a "good video game" in front of their children and expect them to magically grow into engineers or doctors. |