Creating content
Gaming with kids
Day 34 of 100-day Creator Challenge
Last year I wrote a piece called Gamer Mum. I tell the story of how I have always been a gamer at heart since the mid 80s when I was a teenager playing computer games booted from a floppy disk.
As a parent, it then gave me playground credentials among my daughter’s friends. I knew the games my daughter and her friends were playing; I was familiar with the lingo; and most importantly I actively played the games.
From the kids’ point of view, I was one of them. From the parents’ point of view I’m weird. Why would you want to play video games with kids? I could validly ask the parents Why would you want to play basketball/board games (insert any other type of games here) with kids?
We all have different interests in how we want to be involved in our kids’ activities. I don’t play sports, never had and never would.
I have read in many places about the dangers of digital devices for young people’s development. How they become isolated in their own worlds and that we should never allow kids on devices.
If you give a kid an iPad so that they can entertain themselves while you do your own thing, then yes, I would agree that it is an evil device. Or that you are using it as a babysitting device.
But what if as parents we join them in their worlds? What if we grab our own device and jump on the same game as they are and play together?
There has always been fear of something new. Today it is fear of digital devices. Before that it was TV, until somebody suggested TV time can be family time, where everybody gathered to watch their favourite programmes. Parents were encouraged that they should watch kids TV programmes with them and talk about what is happening on the screen. Even the printing press caused fear way back when.
It’s not the tool that is inherently evil. It’s the way we use it.
