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What's the issue with "watch someone else"? I have an 8 year old, and I don't have issues with it - in moderation. Watching other people play games has taught
by gilbetron 9y ago
What's the issue with "watch someone else"? I have an 8 year old, and I don't have issues with it - in moderation. Watching other people play games has taught him how games are played.
As my mom taught me: you need to find balance. After an entire day at school with almost no screen time, and lots of social interaction and learning, I'm ok with him coming home and sitting in front of a screen. Assuming his homework and chores are done. He also has lots of after-school activities (martial arts, basketball, right now).
Mostly I think he is growing up in a world deluged in screens and information and propaganda flowing at him, and he needs to learn how to swim in it.
- stevenwoo 9y agoMy opinion, and just from watching kids watch gameplay videos - it would seem to squash/not foster a grit/curiosity that one needs to figure stuff out/create solutions for problems. Instead one immediately because a Google programmer/user - "I'll just google it". I've gotten a lot of joy of playing computer games and figuring out the puzzles - it really seems like rote repetition to just watch someone else figure it out and mime them. Most puzzles/gameplay mechanisms in computer games are not meant to be that indecipherable/difficult unless that is the point of the game ala Dark Souls and one is mostly meant to get a sense of accomplishment by figuring stuff out, though I guess if one gets that by copying a gameplay video it works out in the end in a way.
- cyberpunk0 9y agoWhy are you okay with someone milking your child's attention for profit?
- junkscience2017 9y agoFound the non-parent! Hey we all started out in the same place, coming home from the hospital with our bundles of joy...envisioning a future when our kids are either curled up in a corner reading "Godel, Escher And Bach" or disassembling a motherboard for fun... unfortunately your retrospective fantasy childhood is not what your child actually wants, and by time the teen years hit, you have lost dictatorial power
- ThomPete 9y agoI personally don't have any illusion that they should read Godel, Escher and Bach or anything like that. It's much more simple in that age. If you want to spend time on your ipad/iphone/computer/xbox. Either have fun participating in something, see something someone else spend a lot of time creating (tv shows, cartoons etc) or learn something. There is no need for them to become a couch potato at that early an age.
- junkscience2017 9y agoreport back when you try this strategy with a teenager
- ThomPete 9y agoI would never try this strategy on a teenager. My boys are 4 an 8 it works on them. With teenagers, it's about something else.
- gilbetron 9y agoBecause they provide value to him?
- ThomPete 9y agoIt really depends on the situation. If you watch a game to see how it's played that's one thing. But if you just watch someone else play a game you already know and aren't looking for anything specific and it becomes the thing you do (instead of playing the game yourself) that's where I put in the limit. I don't mind my kids watching people create something (like how to do a trap in minecraft) what I am particularlly after is when it becomes entertainment. The balance is always fuzzy. In theory I have priniples in reality I always judge it based on context. But I have had to tell him to watch something else when I can see he is just watching it because he is lazy.