We invest a lot of ourselves into our children. You have to in this world, or in any world. I think that it's likely that in ANY time or place, children that weren't invested in grow up poorly.
While it's important to us to bring him along and show him the world, I think it's also important for us to do things WITH him that he wants to do, including video games.
I always sort of shudder when I hear people talk about games their kids play, when in fact as parents they don't know ANYTHING about them. How do you KNOW what's going on if you don't play it yourself?
It happens that the husband and I are gamers. So this isn't a stretch for us at all, in fact it's right in our bailiwick. But what's interesting is the bonding time that has come from us playing with him. The boy and I have had lots of questing adventures. We've made toons on both sides, done special events, done battlegrounds and now tonight he and I did dungeons together.
What are we playing?
World of Warcraft. Yes we're nerds. But we're also learning social lessons (some people are asshats) and we're simply spending time together. We laugh hysterically, we cheer each other on. I can play this with him when I'm 80 (if it's around). We're learning about sportsmanship, and rules of engagement, and that well - pandas can be good or bad. And once you roll toons on both sides, you learn that good and bad are really quite based on your point of view.
Video games aren't the BEST way in the world to spend time with your kid. But I think as responsible parents, knowing your kids were playing video games, you'd do better to be involved and in control of what is going on. We don't play First Person Shooters. We play make believe, with imaginary stories of demons and trolls. Where good and evil battle for power, you'll find us some Saturday afternoons.
We play both sides though. :)
