Gaming console or no gaming console?

[Anonymous]

I have two kids, ages 7 and 9. We have never owned a gaming system, but they, especially my older, desperately want one.

They’d love to play Minecraft and Mario, etc. And I get it. Their friends play all the time, and talk about them. At this point, it seems like we are the only family in our school or church circle who does not have a gaming system at home. I know most of their friends’ families, so it’s not just them exaggerating.

They do have ipads, but only get to use them really on long plane or car trips. I do let them earn minutes for the ipads for minutes spent reading, on weekends only, for up to an hour.
The only apps on the ipad are pre-vetted educational games, which they enjoy.

I have read The Anxious Generation and other information on the subject.

But for a variety of reasons, I’ve always thought we’d get a switch or something eventually. I’ve just put it off for forever.

What ages were your kids when you got one? Or are you still holding out?

[Anonymous]

Get one. Learn to limit access. Parents who avoid technology and screens are missing teaching the kids valuable lessons. Avoiding something isn’t teaching kids anything.

[Anonymous]

My kid talks a lot about games but gets very little time to play. I know one of his friends talks a lot about Minecraft, but is also similarly restricted in play time.

You could use that one hour of screen time a week for gaming, and get the social benefits of playing without having to change up your daily routine. That's an option too.

[Anonymous]

Still holding out, DS is about to turn 9. We watch TV together, which I find to be less addictive than gaming. He plays at friends’ houses, which I’m fine with.

[Anonymous]

Nope. Never got one. Kids lived.

[Anonymous]

We have a Switch and they love Mario. Video games are just a part of the modern life. Minecraft can be done on the iPad and I'd argue it's STEM.

[Anonymous]

DCUM tends to be pretty anti-gaming, but I'll offer our perspective. Until recently, we were like you: one tablet for long drives, mostly used for watching TV, some TV on the weekends, and no screen time other than that.

During a conversation with our eight year old about stuff that made her feel "out of step" with other kids, gaming came up. She's a little strange and has trouble making friends, so it's something that's on our radar. We already owned a Switch (I bought it for me), so we agreed to allow her to start playing. We talked about our concerns, chiefly that it would supplant reading and play outside with friends, and she explained why she thought that wouldn't happen (mostly because she hadn't been exposed to video games for so long).

We gave it a try, and so far it's fine. There are rules: no gaming until you're done with homework and instrument practice for the day, and the system goes away when we say. Typically we enforce this with a "make this your last level" instruction, which she follows, because she's a following rules kind of kid (it helps that I've gamed and I know the rhythm of it and when it makes sense to stop).

That said, there's a few factors at play for us:
1) She follows the rules and always has, so I'm not worried she's going to go over what we think is acceptable
2) She's normally using her time in ways I like (reading, writing, playing outside), so I don't worry that 45 minutes shifting to Kirby is going to change that.

It does take more monitoring than it did before, but I'm fine with that.

[Anonymous]

You're long overdue getting one in my opinion. I got my kids a switch at 3&6, they are 6 and 8 now and have their own playstations at their dad's, and at my place we have the switch and a PS5. Kind of wish we had two of the ps5s.

My 6 year old loves astrobot and fortnite, and my 8 year old likes Roblox on it because it doesn't glitch as bad. But if you're more protective I would just do switch games like animal crossing, stardew, and Mario. I don't have much control over gaming at their dad's, but at mine I keep it to Teen rated games, we are a pg-13 ok household. And I try to limit screentime.

[Anonymous]

My girls are not interested in video games. My son has always loved them. I used to play Mario Bro games with him when he was in preschool. It didn’t take long for them to become too difficult for me.

All of his friends have video games in our wealthy town. The kids are busy all day and video games are just another activity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nope. Never got one. Kids lived.

Same. 13 and 15. Don’t do it! They can still play some games on a Chromebook or whatever device they have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Get one. Learn to limit access. Parents who avoid technology and screens are missing teaching the kids valuable lessons. Avoiding something isn’t teaching kids anything.

Sure it is. It’s teaching kids it’s a useless waste of time and money, because it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You're long overdue getting one in my opinion. I got my kids a switch at 3&6, they are 6 and 8 now and have their own playstations at their dad's, and at my place we have the switch and a PS5. Kind of wish we had two of the ps5s.

My 6 year old loves astrobot and fortnite, and my 8 year old likes Roblox on it because it doesn't glitch as bad. But if you're more protective I would just do switch games like animal crossing, stardew, and Mario. I don't have much control over gaming at their dad's, but at mine I keep it to Teen rated games, we are a pg-13 ok household. And I try to limit screentime.

OP, please do not aspire to this.

[Anonymous]

At some point in elementary school, my friend’s son thanked his parents for not getting him a gaming console (despite him begging for it earlier) because he noticed that the boys in his class were unable to talk about anything other than gaming, and when he tried to bring up other topics, they would default back to gaming. I know that may sound sanctimonious but it was a rare time when a parenting win is obvious. I think a lot of people aim to limit the reach of video games but it’s truly hard to accomplish in reality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You're long overdue getting one in my opinion. I got my kids a switch at 3&6, they are 6 and 8 now and have their own playstations at their dad's, and at my place we have the switch and a PS5. Kind of wish we had two of the ps5s.

My 6 year old loves astrobot and fortnite, and my 8 year old likes Roblox on it because it doesn't glitch as bad. But if you're more protective I would just do switch games like animal crossing, stardew, and Mario. I don't have much control over gaming at their dad's, but at mine I keep it to Teen rated games, we are a pg-13 ok household. And I try to limit screentime.

OP- I’m going to guess you already know this but please don’t be like this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You're long overdue getting one in my opinion. I got my kids a switch at 3&6, they are 6 and 8 now and have their own playstations at their dad's, and at my place we have the switch and a PS5. Kind of wish we had two of the ps5s.

My 6 year old loves astrobot and fortnite, and my 8 year old likes Roblox on it because it doesn't glitch as bad. But if you're more protective I would just do switch games like animal crossing, stardew, and Mario. I don't have much control over gaming at their dad's, but at mine I keep it to Teen rated games, we are a pg-13 ok household. And I try to limit screentime.

OP- I’m going to guess you already know this but please don’t be like this.

Limiting your 6 year old to teen games does not seem like much of a limit.