Kids and Video Games: The Good and the Bad

The other day I felt like playing some Guitar Hero and I asked Logan if he wanted to use the Playstation with me. He goes, "We have a station?" I say, "Yeah, look [pointing]... Playstation 2." He says, "Oh! I didn't realize! Kids at school talk about their stations and I didn't think we had one."

We have previously gamed together and he particularly likes to watch me play Ratchet & Clank. My wife, however, realized that R&C is rated "Teen" (for some reason), and has decided that Logan is too young to watch it. It does have a lot of violence, but it's extremely cartoony and doesn't involve humans. But I agreed, so I showed him some other things.

I showed him Super Mario World, the most basic of SNES games. The game is old school but still amazingly great. He really got into it. This might have been a mistake. He frickin' loves it.

Yesterday we were going over to Nana's house for Mother's Day and I thought I'd show him my GameBoy Advance SP, which of course, has Super Mario World. Holy Taco! The response was immediate and severe. He was like, "This is the same as the game on the TV except I can take it wherever I go?" Right on my little Padawan.

One of the best gaming devices ever

The whole day he was like, "Can I play Mario? Can I play Mario? Can I play Mario?" Oh boy. What did I start? I'm happy that he is discovering the magic of interactive gaming, but I don't want it to become an obsession. This is both good and bad.

It's easy (at least while they are young) to keep kids from getting involved in "poor choice" activities by keeping them in a vacuum. Two days ago he didn't know that GameBoys existed and therefore he didn't want to use one. I'm tempted to just roll back the clock and take the GameBoy away completely. But is that really fair? Better, I think, to use it as a learning opportunity.

Make it a reward that he needs to earn. Teach him about the dangers of over-indulgence in any single activity or behavior. Give him cues as to when it is appropriate to go off and play and when it's not.