Navigating video game culture (boys)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are a lot of people confidently saying rubbish so I thought I would add my data point.

My son is not allowed videogames and has had no difficulty finding friends who have other interests too (sports primarily). He is a high achiever at school, socializes in person with family/friends and a committed athlete, there is simply no time for videogames.

Blah blah blah. Committed athlete😂. What is he nine years old.

It might break his heart to know that the top athletes and tech guys are majority gamers. They few up on Xbox and PlayStation. LeBron James is a high ranked on the Madden game. Mark Zuckerberg still plays video games and streams them.

I’m not sure why you’re trying to brag about how well a kid is doing because he doesn’t play video games when the majority of professional athletes and tech billionaires grew up on video games and continue the hobby.

You’re just clueless.

Lebron has recently one of the top 100 Madden players in the world, which I find very funny.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are a lot of people confidently saying rubbish so I thought I would add my data point.

My son is not allowed videogames and has had no difficulty finding friends who have other interests too (sports primarily). He is a high achiever at school, socializes in person with family/friends and a committed athlete, there is simply no time for videogames.

Your nine year old committed athlete won’t even play high school sports momma bear

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are a lot of people confidently saying rubbish so I thought I would add my data point.

My son is not allowed videogames and has had no difficulty finding friends who have other interests too (sports primarily). He is a high achiever at school, socializes in person with family/friends and a committed athlete, there is simply no time for videogames.

Your nine year old committed athlete won’t even play high school sports momma bear

Your screen addicted child won’t even leave their room in high school momma bear.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are a lot of people confidently saying rubbish so I thought I would add my data point.

My son is not allowed videogames and has had no difficulty finding friends who have other interests too (sports primarily). He is a high achiever at school, socializes in person with family/friends and a committed athlete, there is simply no time for videogames.

Your nine year old committed athlete won’t even play high school sports momma bear

Your screen addicted child won’t even leave their room in high school momma bear.

Even with 35 years of boys and fewer girls playing video games and quite a few of them continue into adulthood. Even when people say it relaxes them after work. And the most successful men under 40 have played since childhood there are still idiots who think it’s not good for kids.

And calling your elementary school kid a high achiever and committed athlete is just embarrassing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But there is way more wrong with Roblox than shooter violence and creeps. My kid reported playing at a friend's house and one of the Roblox games his friend played was supposedly a "silly" one. The whole object of the game was to annoy the teacher, which I don't like. And then there's Doors, which is way creepy... There are an estimated 40 million games on Roblox. How are parents supposed to monitor, and how are kids supposed to know how to navigate this?

Junie B Jones, Captain Underpants, and the Weird School series are centered around kids who are poorly behaved and intentionally poorly behaved in school but parents let their kids read them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But there is way more wrong with Roblox than shooter violence and creeps. My kid reported playing at a friend's house and one of the Roblox games his friend played was supposedly a "silly" one. The whole object of the game was to annoy the teacher, which I don't like. And then there's Doors, which is way creepy... There are an estimated 40 million games on Roblox. How are parents supposed to monitor, and how are kids supposed to know how to navigate this?

Junie B Jones, Captain Underpants, and the Weird School series are centered around kids who are poorly behaved and intentionally poorly behaved in school but parents let their kids read them.

They gave those out at school along with Diary of a Wimpy Kid and I ended up banning them at home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But there is way more wrong with Roblox than shooter violence and creeps. My kid reported playing at a friend's house and one of the Roblox games his friend played was supposedly a "silly" one. The whole object of the game was to annoy the teacher, which I don't like. And then there's Doors, which is way creepy... There are an estimated 40 million games on Roblox. How are parents supposed to monitor, and how are kids supposed to know how to navigate this?

Junie B Jones, Captain Underpants, and the Weird School series are centered around kids who are poorly behaved and intentionally poorly behaved in school but parents let their kids read them.

They gave those out at school along with Diary of a Wimpy Kid and I ended up banning them at home.

Well that goes a level beyond video game culture. That’s just against culture.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are a lot of people confidently saying rubbish so I thought I would add my data point.

My son is not allowed videogames and has had no difficulty finding friends who have other interests too (sports primarily). He is a high achiever at school, socializes in person with family/friends and a committed athlete, there is simply no time for videogames.

How old? There are a lot of posters on here who claim their kids are "too busy" to play games. Are your kids that overscheduled that they have no free time? The OP's kid is 9. If the answer is realy that we need to overload the elementary schoolers with activities so they don't have time for screentime, I'm not sure that's healthy either.

OP, I don't proclaim to have the answer except that many of us are trying to navigate it. DD had little interest in video games except the occasional Mario Kart while younger DS likes them more. Kids in his class were having Minecraft themed parties in kindergarten so it starts young.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DS8 is allowed to play video games or watch TV for 1 hour every day. We have a switch, but do not connect it to the internet. He mostly plays Mario Kart, Minecraft and Pokemon. He does not have a ipad/tablet/watch/phone and is not permitted to go on youtube/internet unsupervised.

this works for our family.

I wish my 8 year old could be friends with your 8 year old! Can someone make an app for that? "Luddite mom seeking friends for son"

Find a cult or an extreme religious group, I don’t think there are too many out there afraid of new technology.

Find him a nice Amish playdate. They can churn butter together.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DS8 is allowed to play video games or watch TV for 1 hour every day. We have a switch, but do not connect it to the internet. He mostly plays Mario Kart, Minecraft and Pokemon. He does not have a ipad/tablet/watch/phone and is not permitted to go on youtube/internet unsupervised.

this works for our family.

I wish my 8 year old could be friends with your 8 year old! Can someone make an app for that? "Luddite mom seeking friends for son"

Find a cult or an extreme religious group, I don’t think there are too many out there afraid of new technology.

Find him a nice Amish playdate. They can churn butter together.

I do enjoy some nice Amish roll butter.... this isn't a terrible idea, come to think of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this thread some kind of elaborate troll?

My oldest grew up playing video games with his friends. We didn't impose strict 'screen limits' or whatever - but our rule was only that homework be done beforehand.

He's now an Eagle Scout, is a backpacking/hiking junkie, and does rock climbing, while also maintaining straight A's at a challenging school.

You can play video games and not be utterly consumed by it. Rather than getting Amish on your kids...why not just teach them reasonable balance?

I don’t personally know anyone who refuses to let their kids play video games. I wonder what they look like? Do they really think they’re better than everyone?

According to Pew Research and any other research shows 97% of US teen boys play video games. The top gamer countries are United States, China, Japan, United Kingdom, South Korea, Germany, India, France, Denmark with the US having the largest group.

I feel for those boys whose parents thinking they are doing the right thing. They aren’t. Moderation is better than extremism on either end.

Ok, but 8 and 9 years old =\= teen

My DS (9 next month) doesn’t play video games in our home. No tablet. TV maybe once or twice a month. He’s plenty busy and entertained doing other things and I don’t tell every person I know that we are low-screen, so people don’t know.

no videos, devices, or TV? Isolated?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are a lot of people confidently saying rubbish so I thought I would add my data point.

My son is not allowed videogames and has had no difficulty finding friends who have other interests too (sports primarily). He is a high achiever at school, socializes in person with family/friends and a committed athlete, there is simply no time for videogames.

Blah blah blah. Committed athlete😂. What is he nine years old.

It might break his heart to know that the top athletes and tech guys are majority gamers. They few up on Xbox and PlayStation. LeBron James is a high ranked on the Madden game. Mark Zuckerberg still plays video games and streams them.

I’m not sure why you’re trying to brag about how well a kid is doing because he doesn’t play video games when the majority of professional athletes and tech billionaires grew up on video games and continue the hobby.

You’re just clueless.

+1

[Anonymous]

I have a 9 year old boy Roblox also. He played Roblox with a friend and then became obsessed. It’s one of those things you can’t have a little bit of, so no Roblox. All the kids talk about is steal a brain rot etc. I don’t care if he doesn’t do it. The other kids aren’t bonding or getting anything out of it so I don’t think they are missing out. I can’t believe what we are up against here

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are a lot of people confidently saying rubbish so I thought I would add my data point.

My son is not allowed videogames and has had no difficulty finding friends who have other interests too (sports primarily). He is a high achiever at school, socializes in person with family/friends and a committed athlete, there is simply no time for videogames.

Blah blah blah. Committed athlete😂. What is he nine years old.

It might break his heart to know that the top athletes and tech guys are majority gamers. They few up on Xbox and PlayStation. LeBron James is a high ranked on the Madden game. Mark Zuckerberg still plays video games and streams them.

I’m not sure why you’re trying to brag about how well a kid is doing because he doesn’t play video games when the majority of professional athletes and tech billionaires grew up on video games and continue the hobby.

You’re just clueless.

What’s clueless is your child growing up on video games and thinking that tech billionaires and professional athletes are more important role models than their own parents.

[Anonymous]

NP.

Different families are different. Different kids are different. Do whatever makes sense for your situation. It is ok if different families make different choices.