NewspaperCrane
Well-Known Member
Other than that things are interesting for me right now. In a word I’m in between homes. Not that I’m homeless, I’m staying with friends, but my mom’s lease ended on december first, and mine doesn’t begin until december 15th. Things are interesting right now, my friend’s have three dogs, two of which are just under a year old, and not trained very well. They like to bark, and are generally just a lot of work. Their youngest son (eight or nine years old) has within the past year really gotten into video games. My friends were raised in a house where video games were not allowed, even though every so often they would get a computer game, like a flight simulator or something educational like that. Definitely nothing mainstream.
In contrast, I’ve been raised by the internet, having video games part of my life from a young age. When we were younger I would bring over my playstation and we’d play, but when I left, it’d be gone. Now that my two friends (the older two brothers) are older, one of them has an N64 and a few games, and an original xbox with a few games. Things are different for video games these days, I think. Originally it started for the older brother, as well as the younger brother, with how so many people are introduced to gaming these days: The internet. More specifically, they were hooked by the casual gaming of Facebook. It started to educational games, but then it moved to others like Farmville *shudder*, Tower defense games, and the like. These days the youngest brother has access to the xbox and plays quite a bit of Halo 2, or at least what he can.
Their xbox is quite “fun” actually. It’s what I’d call a Franken Xbox, made from two separate xbox’s, both of which had problems originally. Their Halo 2 disk doesn’t play past the the fourth or fifth level, though the multiplayer works. I’m not sure if this is the fault of the disk or the xbox, but either way the kid loves halo, but has no idea how halo 2 ends. I don’t think he’s ever even looked at halo 1.
Enter Myself: with me I brought my big box of media, which I refused to put in storage. The thing is sweet. I’ve got games in there for everything from Turbo Grafx-16 to Ps3. Since they don’t have cable I naturally brought my ps3, and I was thinking about replaying Assassin’s Creed 1, so I brought my 360. You’d think that the kid had never seen a video game before. He already knew everything there was to know about xbox. He’d read all about the story of halo 3 (which was in my big box of games) he even recognized the case for halo 3 and asked me where the rest of my legendary edition was (the helmet is in storage).
The Conundrum: every time I play video games he wants to watch, he wants to play too, but he’s content to just watch. He actually drives me a little bit nuts, as he constantly asks questions about everything, though I don’t think there’s a nine year old alive that doesn’t do that. The problem is that his parents don’t really want him exposed to the violence of most video games, or really video games in general. They were able to fend it off with his two older brothers, but now it’s become difficult with their youngest. It doesn’t help that I’m playing Assassin’s creed, wherein you pretty much just walk around and stab everyone you’re told to. I’m not sure that I’d consider it more violent than Halo, but killing humans, and more intensely the ability to kill innocents (No matter how much the game punishes you… it’s possible) is something that I don’t think is really appropriate, and I think his parents agree.
My solution: As someone who is for gaming, and believes that it can be very educational if done correctly, I disagree with his parent’s policy on video games. That said, I’m their guest, and he is their child so I would like to respect their wishes, so here’s what I did: I stopped playing violent games (though I did give him a chance to play quite a bit of halo 3 first), and purchased a non violent game (Lego Star Wars), and thirdly I made an agreement with his parents that he could not play games with me until he got all of his homework done (he is home schooled, so motivation can be a bit of an issue), and finally, I stopped playing video games without him (this makes him liable to whether or not I can play games too, and adds motivation to get his homework done, as he can’t even watch me play).
I think these steps have made me come to a good solution to this problem. You should have seen the kid when he found out there was a Lego Star Wars game, it’s a combination of three things he loves. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that kid go that bananas over something (not quite n64 kid, but he was excited). I think it’s given me a little bit of perspective on how gaming is viewed outside of families who are emerged in a gaming culture. Gaming can be viewed as frivolous, expensive, and just plain a waste of time when you could be working on something more productive. I think that it builds intelligence, hand eye coordination, and critical thinking. I think I turned out pretty well being raised by video games, but I’m not exactly a complete clinical study.
What is your opinion on gaming when it comes to your children? What kind of restrictions do/did your parents have on video games?
In contrast, I’ve been raised by the internet, having video games part of my life from a young age. When we were younger I would bring over my playstation and we’d play, but when I left, it’d be gone. Now that my two friends (the older two brothers) are older, one of them has an N64 and a few games, and an original xbox with a few games. Things are different for video games these days, I think. Originally it started for the older brother, as well as the younger brother, with how so many people are introduced to gaming these days: The internet. More specifically, they were hooked by the casual gaming of Facebook. It started to educational games, but then it moved to others like Farmville *shudder*, Tower defense games, and the like. These days the youngest brother has access to the xbox and plays quite a bit of Halo 2, or at least what he can.
Their xbox is quite “fun” actually. It’s what I’d call a Franken Xbox, made from two separate xbox’s, both of which had problems originally. Their Halo 2 disk doesn’t play past the the fourth or fifth level, though the multiplayer works. I’m not sure if this is the fault of the disk or the xbox, but either way the kid loves halo, but has no idea how halo 2 ends. I don’t think he’s ever even looked at halo 1.
Enter Myself: with me I brought my big box of media, which I refused to put in storage. The thing is sweet. I’ve got games in there for everything from Turbo Grafx-16 to Ps3. Since they don’t have cable I naturally brought my ps3, and I was thinking about replaying Assassin’s Creed 1, so I brought my 360. You’d think that the kid had never seen a video game before. He already knew everything there was to know about xbox. He’d read all about the story of halo 3 (which was in my big box of games) he even recognized the case for halo 3 and asked me where the rest of my legendary edition was (the helmet is in storage).
The Conundrum: every time I play video games he wants to watch, he wants to play too, but he’s content to just watch. He actually drives me a little bit nuts, as he constantly asks questions about everything, though I don’t think there’s a nine year old alive that doesn’t do that. The problem is that his parents don’t really want him exposed to the violence of most video games, or really video games in general. They were able to fend it off with his two older brothers, but now it’s become difficult with their youngest. It doesn’t help that I’m playing Assassin’s creed, wherein you pretty much just walk around and stab everyone you’re told to. I’m not sure that I’d consider it more violent than Halo, but killing humans, and more intensely the ability to kill innocents (No matter how much the game punishes you… it’s possible) is something that I don’t think is really appropriate, and I think his parents agree.
My solution: As someone who is for gaming, and believes that it can be very educational if done correctly, I disagree with his parent’s policy on video games. That said, I’m their guest, and he is their child so I would like to respect their wishes, so here’s what I did: I stopped playing violent games (though I did give him a chance to play quite a bit of halo 3 first), and purchased a non violent game (Lego Star Wars), and thirdly I made an agreement with his parents that he could not play games with me until he got all of his homework done (he is home schooled, so motivation can be a bit of an issue), and finally, I stopped playing video games without him (this makes him liable to whether or not I can play games too, and adds motivation to get his homework done, as he can’t even watch me play).
I think these steps have made me come to a good solution to this problem. You should have seen the kid when he found out there was a Lego Star Wars game, it’s a combination of three things he loves. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that kid go that bananas over something (not quite n64 kid, but he was excited). I think it’s given me a little bit of perspective on how gaming is viewed outside of families who are emerged in a gaming culture. Gaming can be viewed as frivolous, expensive, and just plain a waste of time when you could be working on something more productive. I think that it builds intelligence, hand eye coordination, and critical thinking. I think I turned out pretty well being raised by video games, but I’m not exactly a complete clinical study.
What is your opinion on gaming when it comes to your children? What kind of restrictions do/did your parents have on video games?
