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[quote=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.[/quote]

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