Switch on your child’s imagination
Our children must be the only ones in the country who are still deprived of PlayStations and Nintendo DSs. Every single one of their friends has one or both of these devices.
The problem is that our children are excluded from discussions based around PlayStation games. They are even taunted. Poor Arthur has been asking for one for years and we have resisted. After all, I argue, he has the internet at home; he can play games on that. And he is free to play games at friends’ houses.
At Christmas I gave him a reproduction penny arcade machine, the sort of thing that would have amused Victorian holidaymakers on Brighton Pier. I thought this unusual toy might compensate for his deprivation in the digital arena. It didn’t.
We built a tree house, with the idea that the kids would go and daydream up there and invent their own games instead of running to the computer as soon as they got home from school. That didn’t work either.
Right now Arthur is into RuneScape. Before that it was Club Penguin; before that he had a stage when he loved that dreadful teach-kids-shopping game Habbo Hotel, where you spend real money on non-existent consumer gewgaws.
I loathe all this stuff with a passion. It disconnects children from nature.
On the other hand, am I imposing my ideals on my kids and becoming an idealistic tyrant? Keeping screen time to a minimum is appropriate to the idle parent because when you limit interaction with electronic worlds, you allow the child to develop its own faculty for play.
Kids don’t need much: two sticks tied together make a sword. Make a rasping noise with a blade of grass. The child who knows how to play is self-sufficient; he or she is happy anywhere. No electricity needed, or money, leading to less work for the adult.
I remember when I was about 13, playing with my ZX Spectrum in my bedroom. It was a beautiful sunny day, and I was trying to draw a little pixellated monster on the screen. Suddenly the screen went blank and a plume of smoke rose from the back of the computer.
I looked out of the window, blinked and walked outside to the park, where the leaves and trees were boundless and didn’t break down or crash. Thankfully Sir Clive Sinclair never got it together to send us a replacement, so I was freed.
The hunt for non-stop distractions crushes the independent spirit. Children can conjure whole worlds from their imagination. Sadly, that imagination will be killed by an overload of digital entertainment. A world where we just plug in and obey orders may suit the overlords of the capitalist system, but to the idle parent it looks like a bloodless substitute for real life.
Luckily a godparent has bought Arthur an iPod. Not everyone at his school has an iPod, so this may give him the playground status that he has lost by not owning PlayStations. I don’t really like iPods either, preferring the dramatic crackle of a 7in single on the Dansette, but I recognise that they are simply music delivery devices and a lot of fun. And Arthur can get to work organising our music on the computer, saving me a lot of bother.
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[Luckily a godparent has bought Arthur an iPod.]
A “godparent”?
What exactly does that mean, Tom?
Doesn’t sound like a healthy move to me…
You’re making a mistake, plain and simple.
I agree with alot of what is said on this site but to say that video games don’t stimulate the imagination is downright crazy.
Have you ever payed a Zelda game? If not please do yourself (and your child) a favour. Go buy a used N64 and a copy of “The Ocarina of Time” for around fifty bucks. Then sit down, and actually finish the game. It’ll take you around 25 hours or so, but I guarantee that after you’re finished your attitude towards video games will be changed forever.
Video games are not “bloodless subsitutes for real life”. At their best, they can stimulate the imagination in profound ways, and present unique challenges in a playfull manner that teach kids and adults how to solve problems and expore possibilities simply not present in the everyday expreience.
The worst games are a chore to play. Mediocre games are pointless distractions. The best games are highly stimulating and encourage thinking outside the box.
Trust me on this one. Play Zelda.
” Video Games are bad for you? That’s what they said about Rock ‘N’ Roll. “- Shigeru Miyamoto
I think Shigeru is missing the point……. our children are missing that connection with nature, one of the many things you can’t get from a computer game, however sophisticated it may be.
It is time to get our children outside and caring about nature, they are the future stewards of our planet, what will happen to it when we are gone?
I think that most of what a child needs (age 1 to 10) is a big messy garden and a parent who shoves them into it 1x a day without further instruction. I loved it!
We are traveling for a year, and so are living out of suitcases. That leaves no room for all the electronics! Yesterday my 8-year old named a roll of masking tape “Georgie”, and started to to teach him (I assume it’s a he) to do tricks. So far he’s learned to bounce down the stairs, and roll down a long ramp made of a wrapping paper box.
Last week the kids made a map of the yard, naming all of the spaces and trees to make an “imaginary land of evil and good”.
It’s pretty terrific, this whole imagination thing.