Parents who find themselves thinking their children are drifting away from them because they are hooked on video games, should stop and think for a moment.
The kids aren’t drifting away from the parents – the parents are drifting away from the kids. When the children were very young, their moms and dads played with their kids and their toys, but as the children got older and became more interested in video games, parents lessened their playtime with them.
Perhaps parents should actually get to know their kids’ video games and actually use them. If they did, they might actually enjoy it.
In addition, many parents think video games are bad for kids. Well some are, but there are some really good ones that are educational – and I’m not talking the boring ones that are all math or language.
In games like Civilization III, players have fun building entire nations, advancing into new eras and sometimes even conquering enemies. In the process, gamers learn a lot about history without even realizing it.
With games like Runescape, players learn first-rate buying and selling skills, supply and demand knowledge, and how to spot a scammer. All of these skills are important in real life. Therefore, not all video games are terrible for kids, and parents would know this if they would actually sit down with their kids and play the video games with them.
But parents don’t because, they feel they don’t have enough time, they think there’s too many buttons, and they don’t see why their children think the video games are so entertaining. In other words, the parents don’t think they would like it.
But as my parents always say, “How can you hate it if you haven’t tried it” or “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” But when video games are brought up to them, they think they’re automatically bad or boring when they haven’t tried it themselves. Now it’s my turn to say, “Look who’s talking.”
If parents tried the video games and connected with their kids again it would bring them closer, and instead of drifting “away,” kids would be drifting “toward” their parents.
Michael Moorehead, author of “The Student from Zombie Island,” is a sixth-grade KMS student who lives in Pecan Grove. Visit his website at www.ZombieIslandBooks.com
When Michael J. Moorehead isn't writing, he's hiking, baking oatmeal cookies, playing video games and participating in Boy Scouts. His favorite animal is the polar bear, and he hopes to one day become an environmentalist. He's concerned about the plight of the polar bears and says he wants to stop global warming to save the majestic white creatures from extinction - but he will have to graduate from junior high school first. Michael lives in Tempe, Arizona, with his mother, a freelance writer and editor for the SanTan Sun News and Arizona Parenting magazine, and his father, an insurance property adjustor, who moonlights as a movie critic for the Wrangler News.
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