You have to let him play video games. He’ll be a social outcast.

[Anonymous]

I think there is a point, socially, when not having access to video games and the internet in general begins to become an issue. Which is not to say your kid won't have friends at that point. They will just probably gravitate or need to be steered toward other kids with similar interests and values. If your kid's BFF is a Roblox-addicted TikToker, it's pretty inevitable that your kid is going to request access to those things as well.

Frankly, elementary school-aged kids are young enough that that social moment hasn't really come yet. If someone is telling you that your 4th grader can't possibly have a social life without a Switch, that's just not true. I don't know that I'd agree that a 10th grader can have a social life without access to, at the very least, text messaging.

[Anonymous]

None of the highest achieving boys from DS's graduating class at Sidwell were gamers or anything close to it.

We can argue about causation / correlation -- ie, maybe the boys who are teaching themselves multiple instruments, designing experiments for fun, going to culinary school as a teen etc -- are not the sort of young people who would be drawn to staring a screen in a fiction world created by some dude in Menlo Park.

I know that for our household, DS wasn't interested in gaming although we dutifully bought him the correct consoles as gifts without him even asking. They gathered dust. BUT his peers at not-Sidwell elementary school certainly made gaming the center of their social lives. Gaming and soccer were their only passions grades 1 through ~7.

All to say OP, consider what kind of boy you have. Does addiciton to -anything- run in your families? Then I'd keep a short leash on the gaming. Does your kid have ADHD? Same thing. Otherwise, think ahead to what kind of young men you want to raise. Doers? or watchers?

[Anonymous]

I see both sides of the argument. Like PP, I have 30 year old underemployed siblings. In their case it was World of Warcraft.

On the other hand, DH introduced his childhood games and they are very effective as bribes for DS.

Overall, if I could redo it, I would probably try to avoid all screens. It sets up a habit where children feel entitled to constant entertainment. If you don't have them on screens they pester you until you get something else set up for them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:None of the highest achieving boys from DS's graduating class at Sidwell were gamers or anything close to it.

We can argue about causation / correlation -- ie, maybe the boys who are teaching themselves multiple instruments, designing experiments for fun, going to culinary school as a teen etc -- are not the sort of young people who would be drawn to staring a screen in a fiction world created by some dude in Menlo Park.

I know that for our household, DS wasn't interested in gaming although we dutifully bought him the correct consoles as gifts without him even asking. They gathered dust. BUT his peers at not-Sidwell elementary school certainly made gaming the center of their social lives. Gaming and soccer were their only passions grades 1 through ~7.

All to say OP, consider what kind of boy you have. Does addiciton to -anything- run in your families? Then I'd keep a short leash on the gaming. Does your kid have ADHD? Same thing. Otherwise, think ahead to what kind of young men you want to raise. Doers? or watchers?

What’s the chance that all of us here have the highest performing students at the most prestigious private school? Lol. Here in the real world 90% of boys play video games in MS. If you have a real reason to be against it or your kid isn’t interested, fine. But banning your 12 yr old from Fortnite will not get him into a T20.

[Anonymous]

Depends on the friend group. Some are not into video games until late elementary. In others, you can have 6 year olds gaming.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you really want your child growing up to be a weird anti-social gamer?

Hell no

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We don’t either the video game kids are weird AD

It’s more than that. The online gaming community is “moderated” by grown adults with serious mental health issues and no jobs. I have a relative who fits this description who openly brags about how “their” goal of “their” friend online group is to convert as many young teens into their worldview as possible through Discord moderation because “capitalism sucks” and “CIS normies” are what is wrong with society.
This relative is unemployed (but very entitled to his parents money that they earn by participating in the evil capitalist society)!and has no friends apart from these online radicalized fellow moderators.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think depriving a kid of something pop culture that literally all other kids do is going to be harmful unless it’s legitimately part of an overall alternative family culture. Like I have a brilliant friend whose parents were Russian Jewish intellectual refugees in the 70s who never watched TV in the US because they spoken Russian and did art and read books instead. She’s a unique individual from a unique background. That’s much different from purposefully isolating your kid from what all of their peers are doing just to ward off some imagined bad result.

Let them have video games. Go ahead and put strict limits on it, but unless you are a goat-farming off-the-grid family on a commune, you shouldn’t force your kid to be so different.

+1

[Anonymous]

Are there educational games anymore? I used to love playing Amazon Trail and this stupid fish gamed called Odell Down Under and even some Carmen Sandiego game on a DOS floppy disk. I learned to play chess on Chessmaster 2k.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:None of the highest achieving boys from DS's graduating class at Sidwell were gamers or anything close to it.

We can argue about causation / correlation -- ie, maybe the boys who are teaching themselves multiple instruments, designing experiments for fun, going to culinary school as a teen etc -- are not the sort of young people who would be drawn to staring a screen in a fiction world created by some dude in Menlo Park.

I know that for our household, DS wasn't interested in gaming although we dutifully bought him the correct consoles as gifts without him even asking. They gathered dust. BUT his peers at not-Sidwell elementary school certainly made gaming the center of their social lives. Gaming and soccer were their only passions grades 1 through ~7.

All to say OP, consider what kind of boy you have. Does addiciton to -anything- run in your families? Then I'd keep a short leash on the gaming. Does your kid have ADHD? Same thing. Otherwise, think ahead to what kind of young men you want to raise. Doers? or watchers?

What’s the chance that all of us here have the highest performing students at the most prestigious private school? Lol. Here in the real world 90% of boys play video games in MS. If you have a real reason to be against it or your kid isn’t interested, fine. But banning your 12 yr old from Fortnite will not get him into a T20.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do I really need to buy a video game console and let DS play video games in my house? I don’t enforce whether he plays at friends’ houses but I know a lot of his friends have Switches and PS consoles.

Has anyone (in recent times) done no video games? I’m hoping to do zero games for as long as possible and maybe put off the cell phone for later middle school or early high school.

No.

Yes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Bring on the parents of screen addicted children.

We’re a screen addicted FAMILY. So far, we’re all ok.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My dh’s nephews are addicted to gaming and living with their mother in their 30s, unemployed and playing games literally all night long. It’s a bad situation.

I’m not saying don’t let your DS play, I’m saying keep tight control over it if you do.

They probably have other addictions and possibly mental health issues. It’s not as simple as they love games so much they stay unemployed to play all night.

[Anonymous]

YMMV but for us the physical switch console is much less addictive and easier to monitor than Roblox or other PC games. Roblox was introduced by a teacher during Covid and I wish we had never allowed it (have since taken it away). We are able to limit the games available on the switch, we don’t allow multiplayer with people who are not physically present at our house with the other controller, the console stays docked in our family room. Plus the Mario and Zelda games can be stopped and picked up whenever. There aren’t “streaks” and other weird features designed to get my kid addicted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you really want your child growing up to be a weird anti-social gamer?

Or a weird socially awkward kid who doesn’t fit in.

Doesn’t anybody understand the middle ground ?