Wii Caved
Posted by Rebecca Teti in Family on Wednesday, January 27, 2010 11:30 AM
Video games have always been verboten in our house.
We don’t think they’re inherently evil, but we do think they’re addictive, and have always wanted our kids to develop the inner resources to occupy themselves rather than needing to be entertained.
I’d rather my kids think first of reading, playing music, creating with blocks or art supplies, sports or board games rather than have anything involving a screen become the default option.
To that end, we’ve never allowed a video game in our house, reckoning the kids would have enough exposure to them at other people’s houses, and therefore for us were a useless expense.
This Christmas, however, we bought the kids a Wii.
Sure, it’s an active game system that encourages players to get up and move. And it allows multi-player play, which facilitates family fun, rather than isolation.
The main reason we caved, though? We have a thirteen-year-old son who doesn’t play team sports.
He likes hiking, biking and swimming just fine, but lacks the coordination and competitive drive to make team sports much fun. They’re just not his thing.
Combine a kid who doesn’t like sports with a household that doesn’t have cable tv or a dvd library and you know what you have?
A house that is “boring.”
Not so much for our son, who on his own always has some project underway, but for his school and neighborhood friends, who prefer hanging out where there is “something to do” after the listening to music, goofing around and wolfing down snacks at an alarming pace have taken place.
Our son’s not one for a pick-up game of basketball, and you can’t really suggest reading and board games to kids who haven’t been raised the same way—and the Lego stage is being slowly but surely outgrown. Yet he needs good friends, especially during adolescence.
So we caved.
Or as we like to think, we moderated our position to accommodate another desire we have—that our kids’ friends feel welcome in our home and visit frequently so that we really know them and understand who they are.
There are still strict limits on how often and how long our kids can use the Wii. But it has already facilitated a lot more after school and weekend “drop-ins” than our son was used to prior to Christmas, and that makes me happy as we enter the teen years with our kids.
(Plus, the look of complete shock and delight when he opened the present was one of those “keeper” moments we parents live for.)
I don’t really intend this post as a referendum on video games, however. I’m just curious to hear from other moms—particularly moms of adolescents—how your “rules” or parenting style have changed as your kids have grown.
What are you permitting you never thought you would?
What are you not doing you once thought was essential?
How has forming your actual kids in your actual circumstances changed your hypothetical parenting?
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