It's Not a Video Game Ban, Just A Deferral

This spring we bought our two older sons, ages 5 and 6, kid-tough digital cameras. It seemed like a good idea because Builder Guy (6) constantly asks me to make videos of him and his brothers, and Top Gun (5) likes to sneak off with my camera and hide under the dining room table while snapping all sorts of pictures of the table legs, chairs, curtains, carpet, dust bunnies, and wine bottles. He’d practically filled a 2 gigabyte compact flash card, which I didn’t realize until I got the friendly “CF card is full” message after snapping just five photos during our recent trip to Germany. Of course I had left the hotel without a spare card, so I had to plop myself down on the curb while I impatiently deleted zillions of blurry photos of my dining room.

The boys were very excited when we gave them the cameras and they laughed and chased each other around as they took pictures, mostly of their feet and furniture, and tried to make videos with the familiar low-budget shake-and-make-me-vomit camera style. After the excitement of that wore off, they started playing with the buttons to see what else the camera could do, and that’s when some very uncamera-like noises got my attention.

The boys had found games on the cameras.

They sat down and tried to figure out how to beat the machine at tic tac toe while I fumed. I had not known about the video games on the cameras. My husband and I decided some time ago that we would not buy handheld video games for our children while they were still in the early years. No Leapster, Didj, or V.Smile.  We don’t even have Xbox, Wii, or PlayStation, so this new development bothered me. A lot.

Am I a Luddite? No, we’re a two iPod/one Blackberry/multiple laptop/multiple digital camera/GPS owning family and we get geeked about new technology as much as anyone. We don’t have anything against video or computer games, we just feel that the games they occasionally play on PBS Kids, Nick Jr., and Noggin are enough for their age. We would rather have our boys play with Legos and Play Doh, read and write stories, build castles and dig in the sandbox, play with Tinker Toys and trains, learn about cooking, ride bikes, swim, draw pictures on the sidewalk, and play soccer and hockey. We’re trying to teach them balance and moderation, whether in the food they eat or the activities they enjoy. I want them to get up and play rather than sit and stare at a screen, even if video game time is monitored.

Of course there are occasions when I think letting them have a video game wouldn’t be so bad, like the time I had to take all three boys (ages 4, 3, and 1) to the dentist and instead of sitting quietly and reading while we waited, they chased each other around the waiting room, played with the water fountain, and set off the fire alarm. On that day I was ready to buy whatever electronic gadget would grab their attention. If we have another incident like that, I can almost guarantee I will revisit the video game issue.

Original DC Metro Moms Blog post.

Andrea writes about cooking, gardening and her four hungry guys at Andrea Meyers (Andrea's Recipes).