Your child and playing video games?

Post Reply New Topic

I am a very pro-computer person. I am pro-video games. I play games and my son plays games, most of which are educational, but also some that are not. I am telling you this for background.

That said, you have to respect what the parents ask of you. There are certain members of our extended family who have a very short leash with my son (certainly no unsupervised time) b/c they are not capable of following parental directives. All my rules are for a reason, and if they cannot be followed I cannot trust that person with my son.

If you are acquiring information to persuade the parents then that is cool as long as they are open to it, but I strongly hope you are not planning on doing this on the down-low.

Do also be aware that he will grow and develop, and what's inaccessible now may be OK later.

You have other interests, Zeldapsychology! Are there any of them that he might enjoy? (I know psychology probably isn't something that would interest a small child...)

Something we did with my son when he wasn't able to enjoy the same games other kids played - we got books about the games. There are a lot of them, especially the ones that are age-appropriate for little kids.

I recommend commonsensemedia.org for checking whether or not something is age-appropriate, but I also think you need to ask your sister first.

First of all I'd be pissed as $@&! If either of my sister in laws did something with my child that they were expressly asked NOT to. My husbands family is exactly like that so they are all on a very very very short leash.

That said, the parents probably have a very good reason for no video games. we have banned them for the past few days and it's been nice. Honestly for our daughter they are like crack. Pure crack on her special interest scale from 1-10, they are a 12. It means that the amount of joy they bring her is not greater than the anxiety and stress they cause her and everyone around her and she ceases normal functioning when she plays them even going so far as to choose to not go to the bathroom.

With my daughter it is so bad that she has no interest in her actual grandma, she just wants grandmas iPad, period. Grandma is nothing but an iPad to her instead of a person.

So no help from me, just dire warnings to follow the parents rules.