Whenever I post a story about a parent neglecting his or her children while playing a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, I can’t hide my disgust for that sort of person, so you can imagine how I felt about myself this weekend when my two 10-month-old children left the house in the middle of a boss fight.
This is my daughter. Her nickname is Cheeks. I really want her to play video games. Like, I really, really do. One of her favourite things to grab when she wanders around the apartment is an Xbox 360 controller. She holds it the right way most of the time, presses the buttons and looks up at me with a big smile on her face.
Parenting in the information age is difficult; children today are exposed to things that their parents never saw at such a young age. Such as Jar-Jar Binks (who killed grandma).
A Cincinnati-area father took bad parenting to a new depth this past weekend by swiping his nine-year-old son’s console and games and trading them all in for cash. What for exactly wasn’t said, but the guy has a drug problem.
Duh, you say. Well the usefulness of the report suggests that playing video games ain’t entirely sedentary, and aren’t a threat to actual exercise. Ah, now do you see? Sports games are our friends.
Tea-Bagging! Salty language! Racism! There seems to be plenty of reasons why you shouldn’t let your child go online to game until they’re ready to drive.. or vote… or drink. But what about the benefits?