Do you limit your child's video game play? (1 Viewer)

[CHI-TOWNSAINT]

^ showoff

And, I'm pretty sure everyone knows who I'm talking to.

 

[City Champ]

How about a kinnect? He can still at while being active. My little girl is just starting on hers.

 

[antipop]

How about a kinnect? He can still at while being active. My little girl is just starting on hers.

once kids discover Minecraft and shooters, they want nothing to do with the Kinect

 

[nolaspe]

This is what we in the Peds community promote... Childhood Obesity Prevention Program | Let

 

[redlandssaintsson]

When I was a kid, I had videogames in the house, but I NEVER played for 8 hours. I was outside. Thus, my parents never had to set any kind of limits. I think a 2-3 hour limit a day is plenty. Heck, I don't play that much and I've got almost as much down time as kids these days. But anything not really interfering with school I think isn't too much. My parents DID require that I read for at least 20 minutes a day, which often times turned into several hours, but I digress.

 

[Twenty]

I don't set a fixed limit on The Boy's gaming time, and I don't see a need to do so.

He is 8 years old. He gets straight A's, runs track, plays baseball, football, basketball, & swims in the pool when weather permits, is in boy scouts, and is willing to drop the controller to build legos, or play board games with mom & dad any time we ask.

He also think's it's fun to learn new aspects of MS Word & Excel, and I've started him on the tutorial DBs in Access, all of which he considers 'playing Office'.

If he wants to game & talk with his cousins/friends via xbox live for 4 hours a day, who am I to stop him?


Am I blessed? Damn right...


Am I bragging? Damn right...



edit... we also monitor all game play b/c it occurs in our living room. He also needs me to input a p-word to add new friends to chat with (again, cousins & classmates only). Should his grades suffer, then we'll set a limit, but until then... He's free to play as hard as he likes when his work is done.

It's a shame his old man is a putz.

 

[BHM]

Well my daughter just cured AIDS.

Well my daughter can beat up your daughter.


I never limited my youngest son's time playing video games. Him playing WOW was punishment enough for him.

Me: What are you doing?
Him: Waiting for an raid to start.
Me one hour later: What are you doing?
Him: Still waiting on the raid to start.
Me: What is taking so long?
Him: Waiting on a healer to join.
Me one hour later: What are you doing?
Him: Still waiting on the raid to start.
Me: The healer never joined up?
Him: Yeah but two other guys had to go eat supper.
Me: Walks out shaking my head.

 

[Madhattr]

When I was a kid, I had videogames in the house, but I NEVER played for 8 hours.

Yea but back at that time there was pong. Who the hell wants to hit a square ball for 8 hours?

 

[Madhattr]

It depends on the child. My daughter has been gaming since 3. She is 17 and graduating this year and been accepted to college and wants to be a dr. She played volleyball, flag football and finished as the #6 rated female shooter in the state for rifalry.
As long as they are active and exercise i dont think its a problem. And she can whip most boys gaming.

I know i was bragging but she is my only child and she deserves the praise.

 

[Galbreath34]

Great kid....with excellent grades. No problems from him at all. Maybe I'm overthinking it.....maybe all of his friends are constantly on the game(s) too....I just think he is too consumed with playing the video games.

I'll just try to cut him back some and encourage more outside time. A lot of the problem has been the weather.....either rainy or cold. Hopefully, my "problem" corrects itself when spring arrives.

Thanks for the responses.

Honestly if he's doing well, no problem if he games like crazy. Despite all the stuff about maladjusted people having trouble from video game "addiction", the real scientific studies have actually shown that a lot of VG play increases problem solving and hand-eye coordination.

A few from: https://www.google.com/search?q=scientific+study+video+game+play

Even the ones like Study: More Violent Video Game Play Results in More Aggression - Forbes suggest that if the games aren't violent there's no real connection to violence (duh), and it even suggests that the little short term study of 3 days of play might be misleading.

While convincing for a three-day period, the study can’t address the bigger question about what happens after weeks and months of cumulative play. Paradoxically, it’s possible that more play time might eventually trigger something University of Virginia social psychologist Timothy Wilson calls “ordinization,” which is essentially what happens when we adapt to a new experience. Short-term (in this case, three-day) aggression may very well dissipate over time as the players adapt to the style of play and the outward effects level off.

When Gaming Is Good for You - WSJ.com has a lot of good to say about VG play.

People who played action-based video and computer games made decisions 25% faster than others without sacrificing accuracy, according to a study. Indeed, the most adept gamers can make choices and act on them up to six times a second—four times faster than most people, other researchers found. Moreover, practiced game players can pay attention to more than six things at once without getting confused, compared with the four that someone can normally keep in mind, said University of Rochester researchers. The studies were conducted independently of the companies that sell video and computer games.

The vast majority of the research did not directly compare gaming with hours of other intense, mental activities such as solving math equations. Almost any computer game appears to boost a child's creativity, researchers at Michigan State University's Children and Technology Project reported in November.

A three-year study of 491 middle school students found that the more children played computer games the higher their scores on a standardized test of creativity—regardless of race, gender, or the kind of game played. The researchers ranked students on a widely used measure called the Torrance Test of Creativity, which involves such tasks as drawing an "interesting and exciting" picture from a curved shape on a sheet of paper, giving the picture a title, and then writing a story about it. The results were ranked by seven researchers for originality, length, and complexity on a standardized three-point scale for each factor, along with detailed questionnaires.

In contrast, using cellphones, the Internet, or computers for other purposes had no effect on creativity, they said.

Surgeons With Video Game Skill Appear To Perform Better In Simulated Surgery Skills Course

Surgeons who had played video games in the past for more than three hours per week made 37 percent fewer errors [in the Top Gun course], were 27 percent faster and scored 42 percent better overall than surgeons who never played video games. Current video game players made 32 percent fewer errors, were 24 percent faster and scored 26 percent better overall than their non-player colleagues

Games teach a lot of thinking skills, even shooters that seem "mindless", requiring players to think on their feet and adapt to a lot of simultaneous input. In a way it's much more mentally engaging than even reading non-stop.

If he keeps balanced an on top of his age appropriate responsibilities, let him play. It may further his career or even one day help save lives.

 

[voodoo_blues]

I've been into video games most of my life. I love playing still to this day. But 7-8 hours a day is too much for anyone. I would say half that time should be the maximum. Maybe occasionally more time is OK but not on average. The only time I spend up to 5+ hours playing is when a game comes out that I was really looking forward too.

I'm down to maybe a few hours a week because of family and work.

I'm also in the camp that video games can be good for kids. In fact video games are a much better brain stimulator than 95% of the crap on TV. So I would actually encourage games over TV.

So like a lot of people said as long as he's doing well in other aspects of life I wouldn't worry about it other than maybe cutting it back to 3-4 hours a day at most.

And if he is online the worst thing about games is the language and tremendous amount of racial, gay and other slurs from other gamers. But thats an easy fix if it becomes a problem.

 

[uproar90]

It's a shame his old man is a putz.

True, but the trials & tribulations of being my kid will make him a stronger person later in life.

 

[The Mongoose]

These kids aren't going to live in the same world we live in when they grow up. Their world will be formed by people who grew up playing video games. If you don't let them play, you're holding them back.

Being well rounded is good. Exercise is important. But so is not raising a living anachronism.

Games teach problem solving and get the brain flexing. That's a good thing.

 

[St. Geezy]

We only allow our 11-yr old son to play one hour per day during the week after school and 3 hours per day on the weekend. We also do not allow him to play any video games that portray any sort of murders/bloodiness. We're just not comfortable with our (just turned) 11-yr old playing games and telling his friends in conversation while gaming to "kill this person, kill that person, shoot him," etc.

He's a smart kid, As and Bs his whole life. He does have a very bad case of ADHD though and is on medication. Trust me, we did all we can to avoid putting him on it; we hate the fact that he's on it.

He does get addicted to video games and we did allow him at one time to play much longer, but we saw first hand just how "zoned out" he can get when playing extensively and just how angry he gets when we tell him its time to quit. He REALLY got zoned out on the shoot 'em ups though and we recognized it as a problem. We decided extended play and violent games were not healthy for him and that's when we came up with the limits. We haven't had any problems since.

I was a video game nut growing up too, and while I'd like to think I have great self-control and can seperate fantasy from reality, I can certainly see how these games can be literally addictive and hypnotizing for a young kid and make them desensitized to elements of reality.

 

[HaZeGrEy]

It depends on the child. My daughter has been gaming since 3. She is 17 and graduating this year and been accepted to college and wants to be a dr. She played volleyball, flag football and finished as the #6 rated female shooter in the state for rifalry.
As long as they are active and exercise i dont think its a problem. And she can whip most boys gaming.

Warning!! Warning!! Warning!!