Wholesome Entertainment For All

The boys and I have ongoing strife about electronic entertainment.  If it were up to me, we wouldn't have cable TV - or any TV, and I especially can't stand the whole video game immersion.  I'm not being hypocritical - I'm partly speaking from first-hand experience, but I think it's all really bad for them, so we're always... talking... about when they can and can't watch TV and play video games.  But more than anything else, I feel like if they're going to be looking at a screen, they should at least be looking at the same screen, having some semblance of a communal experience.  I actually do like the idea of  a bit of family-viewing at certain ritual intervals - weekend night movie-watching, for example, so I was pushing today for the boys not only to limit their time in front of screens, but to try to find a single show or movie to watch together during the limited time that I would let them indulge.

Ian objects on several levels, one of which is that he has gone to great lengths to introduce me to Pokemon Tower Defense - even making a point of having me set up an account of my own on my birthday, so that I would always remember that the milestone occurred on my birthday, effectively as a kind of gift and a way of making the day special.  And not only was I trying to restrict his access to Tower of Defense but, as his recurring inquiries have confirmed (in spite of my calculated evasiveness), I really haven't made much progress with the game - I couldn't even tell him which level I'm on - and I certainly haven't invested much time into it.  (Meanwhile, when he reaches a new level, he jubilantly announces it to me, and thanks me for making it possible - all completely in earnest.)  But he's miffed that I have neglected my own Pokemon Tower of Defense career - and here I am curtailing his progress as well.  In fact, today I was playing a picture-and-number-matching puzzle game with Madeleine, and he volunteered to take over for me, to give me a concrete block of time where I could catch up, to whatever extent possible, with my Pokemon Tower of Defense hobby.

But what's really mind-boggling about both boys is that they agree that their video-game experiences should not be so solitary, and they have in mind more-or-less the same remedy to this problem.  Ian told me at least twice in the last day or two that, in fact, he would like to have people watching him play Pokemon Tower of Defense, and offering an occasional tip.  And Daniel, when he announced "I'm gonna go play video games," today, had the following response when I told him he should be doing things with his family:  "No, they're family video games for everyone to watch me."  So neither of them ever intended for their video game career to be solo; both would like an appreciative, supportive audience.

So maybe, instead of trying to corral the family into "activities," I should take advantage of the boys' passion and turn it into an asset:  from now on, we should "attend" the boys' video games much the way that doting parents attend their children's little league games...

(March, 2013)