We’re into the second generation of gaming. The parents, especially dads, also grew up playing. My husband, who uses his PS5 to de-stress, has introduced Astrobot to our 6 year old son. He mostly watches but will play for a few minutes under strict supervision. Gaming can be good for hand-eye coordination (along with his piano playing). I just don’t want to lose my little boy to gaming.
Note: my cousin said he wanted to be a professional gamer when he was little. This was back in ‘94 so we just laughed it off, not realizing that it’s a real career. He ended up working in tech, but not in the gaming world.
One of my brothers loved 2 things when he was a kid: video games & sports. He grew up to design sports video games. :) (And once got to direct LeBron James in a motion capture session) Today, he teaches video game design to high school students.
Great stuff Jennifer. Thank you. The sad reality is that gaming is one of the last places where masculinity and winning are acceptable. Many are trying to snuff this out, but boys can still enjoy competing/winning and losing. Want to de-emphasize gaming for boys? Create more highly masculine, male only areas of play for them where they can cuss, scream, put each other down as a masculinie sign of friendship without women telling them to be nice.
While I suspect you are correct, that there may be some benefits to playing video games, on balance, I doubt they outweigh the risks. As one of three brothers, it was a never ending battle to try to get video games into our house, and one that my parents consistently won. As children and teens, it drove us nuts that we could only play GoldenEye or Twisted Metal at friends' homes, but were not allowed to have video games in our house.
As I look around now, and see many of the friends we grew up with waste precious hours of adulthood playing video games online, often to the detriment of their relationships and growth, I am grateful for the foresight my parents had. Their attitude seemed to be that it was easier to keep them out of the house than have an ongoing, daily battle to limit our playing of them, and I believe there is a certain wisdom in this, which has worked out well.
I am not here to say there are no potential benefits, or to tell anyone else how to parent. I merely want to add my perspective as someone who fought this fight, lost, and is extremely grateful that video games hold no sway over me. Life moves too fast as an adult to have time for video games, and I am glad it is a none issue because of my parents' willingness to take that stand.
We’re into the second generation of gaming. The parents, especially dads, also grew up playing. My husband, who uses his PS5 to de-stress, has introduced Astrobot to our 6 year old son. He mostly watches but will play for a few minutes under strict supervision. Gaming can be good for hand-eye coordination (along with his piano playing). I just don’t want to lose my little boy to gaming.
Note: my cousin said he wanted to be a professional gamer when he was little. This was back in ‘94 so we just laughed it off, not realizing that it’s a real career. He ended up working in tech, but not in the gaming world.
One of my brothers loved 2 things when he was a kid: video games & sports. He grew up to design sports video games. :) (And once got to direct LeBron James in a motion capture session) Today, he teaches video game design to high school students.
That is SOOOOO COOL!!
We talked to him about boys & games for a couple ON BOYS podcast episodes - https://www.on-boys-podcast.com/?s=greg+wondra
Great stuff Jennifer. Thank you. The sad reality is that gaming is one of the last places where masculinity and winning are acceptable. Many are trying to snuff this out, but boys can still enjoy competing/winning and losing. Want to de-emphasize gaming for boys? Create more highly masculine, male only areas of play for them where they can cuss, scream, put each other down as a masculinie sign of friendship without women telling them to be nice.
Thanks, Tom! I really liked this article (included in this week's newsletter) b/c it talks about the role of physical/verbal sparring in guys' relationships - https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-souls-of-men/202404/the-upside-of-one-upmanship
While I suspect you are correct, that there may be some benefits to playing video games, on balance, I doubt they outweigh the risks. As one of three brothers, it was a never ending battle to try to get video games into our house, and one that my parents consistently won. As children and teens, it drove us nuts that we could only play GoldenEye or Twisted Metal at friends' homes, but were not allowed to have video games in our house.
As I look around now, and see many of the friends we grew up with waste precious hours of adulthood playing video games online, often to the detriment of their relationships and growth, I am grateful for the foresight my parents had. Their attitude seemed to be that it was easier to keep them out of the house than have an ongoing, daily battle to limit our playing of them, and I believe there is a certain wisdom in this, which has worked out well.
I am not here to say there are no potential benefits, or to tell anyone else how to parent. I merely want to add my perspective as someone who fought this fight, lost, and is extremely grateful that video games hold no sway over me. Life moves too fast as an adult to have time for video games, and I am glad it is a none issue because of my parents' willingness to take that stand.
Thanks for sharing your perspective!
Of course, I love reading what you write. Thank you for what you are doing with this substack!