6 ms·

As I was reading the article I thought about how cool it would have been to play with dad, but I’d be cautious not be pushy towards playing with my (future) chi

As I was reading the article I thought about how cool it would have been to play with dad, but I’d be cautious not be pushy towards playing with my (future) children. Sons specially are thrilled to share activities with dad and will surely entertain him until they lose interest. But kids come with their own personalities and skills, should I have a child who is into sports, I would rather enjoy that with him or her instead of passing my old hobbies. I’d be hesitant to share time in front of a screen though, video games don’t seem to be real interaction.

watwut 9y ago
Familly culture and who kids socialize with plays big role in which activities kids enjoy or find valuable. Especially small kids want to do same things as they see parents do (double bonus for parent of the same gender). Majority of skills are acquired during life whether from parents, teachers, friends, books or from playing around. You can not really manipulate them into hobbies in long term, but you and environment definitely can influence chances.
- Guthur 9y ago
  What does double points for same gender mean. Does that mean you get a doubling of the effect from one gender at the expenses of the other. Is that better or worse?
  - 7Z7 9y ago
    I understood it to mean that a boy child would be doubly thrilled getting to do things that his dad does. Though I'm not sure it's as clearly true in my experience (daddy's girl/mammy's boy, and all that).
    - Guthur 9y ago
      There is evidence that it's generally phased. First years dominated by the maternal care with the paternal side increasing in later years.
      - jacobolus 9y ago
        You mean, the structure of our society/culture is such that women (on average) do more childcare, especially of very young children? As far as I can tell there’s no biological predestination involved there though. Sure, kids are comforted by breastfeeding (frequent food + cuddles is strong positive reinforcement) and often get attached to it and by extension to hugs with mom, but there’s no reason that fathers can’t have similar types of rewards that reinforce close bonding.
        devmunchies 9y ago
        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casomorphin https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casomorphin Children are quite literally addicted to mom early on. Its much more biological than simple "positive reinforcement". Nature won't leave the survival of a child to chance, or it at least tries to tilt the odds.
        jacobolus 9y ago
        Okay fine, but is there evidence that other caretakers can’t form similar bonds that birth mothers might form by age 3 or whatever? Many children grow up in adoptive houses, or are largely taken care of by someone other than their birth mother, and go on to have entirely normal productive lives. The poster I was responding to seemed to be making a more expansive claim but it was hard to really tell, so I was trying to figure out exactly what he meant.
    - watwut 9y ago
      Yes, that is how I meant it. My kids were strongly like that, especially when small.
    - jschwartzi 9y ago
      Does weight training with mom make you a momma's boy?
  - watwut 9y ago
    Double points means stronger effect. I would prefer if it would not be so. Only street knowledge acquired in kindergarten tended to override this.
themodelplumber 9y ago
That's an interesting point. Looking at my own family, any pushiness seems to happen per-relationship, and per-context. For example, I see something my son likes, I remember liking that thing myself, and then I recommend some extension to that thing or say "you like that? Try this!" I mean, I'm not the stereotypical tiger parent but I'm sure I seem pushy at times. The pushiness definitely happens in both directions though. I have heard enough "dad, you should"'s that sometimes my wife intervenes and tells our kids that, no, Dad is fine how he is. I like to try things my kids like, so they think I'm a kid sometimes too. Speaking of screen time, I have one son to whom shared screen time is a genuinely motivating pleasure. He just beat Sonic Adventure DC after blowing all his precious screen time minutes on it for a few months. When we play a game together, he howls with laughter and loves griefing. Another son is indifferent about where the shared time happens, so long as he gets equal time with Dad (it's really the fairness and shared experience he cares about). I taught him a solitaire pyramid clone we played with Star Wars playing cards and called it Star Destroyer. He played it all day. My daughter I'm lucky to bring down out of Earth orbit every once in a while; she is constantly dreaming and I admire that capacity. "Oh it's my turn to play in your office dad? Can we have a dance party with that one song...?" Neil Diamond's "America" for some reason... The three of us play little narrative group RPGs together. I make them up; they are a little like those old game books that were a tiny step up in complexity from CYOA. The kids automatically project their life approach and personality into their characters. Occasionally I have a little GM trickster fun like transforming their favorite weapon into a burrito, but the tolerance for this varies greatly by kid. Sometimes if your favorite archetype is Hulk and you had a hard day at school, you just need time and space to be an epic Hulk.
- new_hackers 9y ago
  kudos, you seem like a really cool dad!
- vlaak 9y ago
  That is a really nice story. I would have liked interactions like this when I was a kid. Nice work.
icebraining 9y ago
I’d be hesitant to share time in front of a screen though, video games don’t seem to be real interaction. Maybe it depends on the games? A single player game with elements of exploration can be fun shared experience; I still remember fondly playing Super Mario 64 with my father. And for small groups, a session of Worms is nice - being turn-based, you're never immersed in the screen, it's more like a digital version of Pétanque and similar games. The sessions with my friends were a riot. Not that there's anything wrong with avoiding video games, but they can bring some variety.
- k__ 9y ago
  I often play couch-coop-games with my girlfriends. Coop is always kind of a bonding activity :D
  - yazan94 9y ago
    What good games do you guys play, and on what systems? I grew up with a Gamecube and original XBox, and pretty any game that had a single player also had a coop version. Now on systems like the PS4, most games have strictly single-player and online multiplayer. I don't like that I have to buy another system, copy of the game, TV, etc just to play a game in the same room as a friend.
    - k__ 9y ago
      Often I play indie games from Steam. Risk of Rain, Nuclear Throne, Towerfall, No Heros Here...
  - akusete 9y ago
    Do you sit in between them?
    - k__ 9y ago
      Sometimes.
- Pigo 9y ago
cortesoft 9y ago
The great thing about being a parent is that it isn’t a one way street, where you just simply pass things on to your kid. Instead, you pass things back and forth. You share your interests with your kid, and they share theirs with you. Of course, not every interest is going to be shared equally, but you will both gain new interests from each other.
duwease 9y ago
Depends on the game. Nintendo has some great family games I've enjoyed with the little one, and it's a good opportunity to present him with problems, have him think about what to do, try it, fail, and fight through the frustration of failure to try again. There's a constant conversation going, and we enjoy overcoming a challenge together. I do worry of course (because I'm a parent and that's what we do), that this time together creates a gateway for games that are less fun and productive.. the ones that mainly feed on compulsion loops. For instance, I picked up Pokemon Go in order to add a little fun to nature walks and park visits, but slowly the walking aspect has faded away and the compulsive collecting has stayed and that worries me. But again, everything worries me, who knows :) At this point I think just being sure to rotate activities regularly hopefully keeps any one experience from dominating.
cptskippy 9y ago
> I’d be hesitant to share time in front of a screen though, video games don’t seem to be real interaction. I'm curious why you think that video games aren't a real interaction? This strikes me as a statement someone unfamiliar with the medium would make. I don't understand how you could make such a broad and generalized statement about a medium that offers a variety of games that practically encompasses every other entertainment medium out there and allows for interactions that are almost impossible on any other medium. Your statement is about as ignorant as someone stating that baseball or soccer don't offer meaningful interactions because from the sidelines it looks like a bunch of people either standing 25 yards away from each other moving occasionally, or at the sidelines sitting next to each other staring at people in the field.
- duopixel 9y ago
  I used to play computer games in my late teens (quake 3 particularly) and even though I have fond memories, I don’t think I bonded as much over it. In retrospect I value more real life adventures (going on trips, nights out, general mischief). In the end there are ‘avatars’ performing antics that cause real emotions, but being in your body, in the world does not compare. Perhaps we simply belong to different generations (I’m 38 btw).
  - jholman 9y ago
    If you didn't bond over the computer games you were playing (in 1999 or whenever), that just means that you personally were doing it wrong (or at least wrong for that purpose). If you were inclined to, you could do things differently going forward. I think the deepest bonding happens over conversations. I won't try to pit video games against that. But this thread was about activities one could do with kids. Like D&D, or sports, or trips, or nights out. Against that competition, video games are just as strong a contender (with respect to the potential for bonding), and the devil is in the details of how much you care about the other people involved. (I'm a bit older than you, btw.)
  - cptskippy 9y ago
    > Perhaps we simply belong to different generations (I’m 38 btw). We're the same age. I have fond memories through out my life playing games with family and friends. It's been a bonding experience for me with many people who are close in my life and has helped many of us through difficult times. I remember huddling around a friend's PC with his brother and mine as we each took turns playing Prince of Persia, King's Quest, and Legend of Kyrandia. We setup a BNC network in our house and my brother and I would sit in our rooms, across the hall from one another, with our doors open and play games like Doom, Wing Commander Armada, Civilization, and many other for hours on end yelling back and forth at each other. My friend use to have LAN parties at his house and a dozen of us would all cram our PCs into his Den and do marathon 15+ hour gaming sessions. He'd have something like MST3K playing on the TV and we'd sit around talking about various nerdy things. Everyone brought food, beer and snacks to share. We'd play everything we could think of like KOTOR, Urban Terror, Terraria, BFBC2, Civilization, Hoard and Borderlands. I remember when DayZ first came out and my friend and I sat in his den until 5am trying to figure out where the hell we were in relation to each other on the island. Occasionally one of us would scream out because we were being chased by Zombies and only had a flashlight. Or the time we were rushed by a squad of heavily armed guys in a car who had us get down on the ground, then threw guns and ammo at us before jumping back in the car and speeding of into the night yelling "Merry Christmas fuckers!" My brother lives out of state now and several years back he was down on his luck so when a friend and I upgraded our PCs we sent him the old parts which were enough to upgrade his rig to play Battlefield 3 and 4. We'd spend evenings online chatting over VOIP as we played. It was a bonding experience that helped us both overcome a difficult time in our lives. Recently my father-in-law, wife, daughter, and I played Overcooked for the first time and ended up doing a 4 hour marthon of it. My father-in-law is in his late 70s and never really played video games but was eager to try. The game is easy enough to pickup but devilishly hard but we all had a riot trying to figure out the best strategy for making burgers or soup in the crazy kitchens. The Jackbox Games are great party games and when we have the extended family together we'll sit around and play them. My daughter and I probably spent an hour one evening just designing our characters for Gang Beasts. The entire time we were joking and ripping on each other for our choices while bouncing ideas and suggestions off each other.
ChuckMcM 9y ago
As a simple counter factual, my daughters and I had a tremendous time adventuring in World of Warcraft. I completely agree with your sentiment that all kids are different and they might not be the D&D type (there is no one size that fits everyone). Fully embrace it though, from video games, to sports, to music, to crosswords, to dungeons. There are many different ways to connect with family.
germinalphrase 9y ago
I wish tabletop video games were more of a thing. I remember a local bowling alley had a version of classic arcade games built into the surface of a small table-style cabinet. The interaction of facing my friend as we played - talking during and between games - always felt a little more personal and board game like than playing console video games (even if next to each other rather than via the internet).
- munchbunny 9y ago
  There are lots of board games that can fill that role. Sure, it's not digital or on a screen, but it leads to quality time talking to each other. Actually there's a really good one right now that just hit retail: Gloomhaven.
  - germinalphrase 9y ago
    Oh, yes. I am firmly on the board game train. I just think table top, digital RPGs would be a fun time.

watwut 9y ago

Familly culture and who kids socialize with plays big role in which activities kids enjoy or find valuable. Especially small kids want to do same things as they see parents do (double bonus for parent of the same gender). Majority of skills are acquired during life whether from parents, teachers, friends, books or from playing around. You can not really manipulate them into hobbies in long term, but you and environment definitely can influence chances.

Guthur 9y ago
What does double points for same gender mean. Does that mean you get a doubling of the effect from one gender at the expenses of the other. Is that better or worse?
- 7Z7 9y ago
  I understood it to mean that a boy child would be doubly thrilled getting to do things that his dad does. Though I'm not sure it's as clearly true in my experience (daddy's girl/mammy's boy, and all that).
  - Guthur 9y ago
    There is evidence that it's generally phased. First years dominated by the maternal care with the paternal side increasing in later years.
    - jacobolus 9y ago
      You mean, the structure of our society/culture is such that women (on average) do more childcare, especially of very young children? As far as I can tell there’s no biological predestination involved there though. Sure, kids are comforted by breastfeeding (frequent food + cuddles is strong positive reinforcement) and often get attached to it and by extension to hugs with mom, but there’s no reason that fathers can’t have similar types of rewards that reinforce close bonding.
      - devmunchies 9y ago
        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casomorphin https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casomorphin Children are quite literally addicted to mom early on. Its much more biological than simple "positive reinforcement". Nature won't leave the survival of a child to chance, or it at least tries to tilt the odds.
        jacobolus 9y ago
        Okay fine, but is there evidence that other caretakers can’t form similar bonds that birth mothers might form by age 3 or whatever? Many children grow up in adoptive houses, or are largely taken care of by someone other than their birth mother, and go on to have entirely normal productive lives. The poster I was responding to seemed to be making a more expansive claim but it was hard to really tell, so I was trying to figure out exactly what he meant.
  - watwut 9y ago
    Yes, that is how I meant it. My kids were strongly like that, especially when small.
  - jschwartzi 9y ago
    Does weight training with mom make you a momma's boy?
- watwut 9y ago
  Double points means stronger effect. I would prefer if it would not be so. Only street knowledge acquired in kindergarten tended to override this.

themodelplumber 9y ago

That's an interesting point. Looking at my own family, any pushiness seems to happen per-relationship, and per-context. For example, I see something my son likes, I remember liking that thing myself, and then I recommend some extension to that thing or say "you like that? Try this!" I mean, I'm not the stereotypical tiger parent but I'm sure I seem pushy at times. The pushiness definitely happens in both directions though. I have heard enough "dad, you should"'s that sometimes my wife intervenes and tells our kids that, no, Dad is fine how he is. I like to try things my kids like, so they think I'm a kid sometimes too. Speaking of screen time, I have one son to whom shared screen time is a genuinely motivating pleasure. He just beat Sonic Adventure DC after blowing all his precious screen time minutes on it for a few months. When we play a game together, he howls with laughter and loves griefing. Another son is indifferent about where the shared time happens, so long as he gets equal time with Dad (it's really the fairness and shared experience he cares about). I taught him a solitaire pyramid clone we played with Star Wars playing cards and called it Star Destroyer. He played it all day. My daughter I'm lucky to bring down out of Earth orbit every once in a while; she is constantly dreaming and I admire that capacity. "Oh it's my turn to play in your office dad? Can we have a dance party with that one song...?" Neil Diamond's "America" for some reason... The three of us play little narrative group RPGs together. I make them up; they are a little like those old game books that were a tiny step up in complexity from CYOA. The kids automatically project their life approach and personality into their characters. Occasionally I have a little GM trickster fun like transforming their favorite weapon into a burrito, but the tolerance for this varies greatly by kid. Sometimes if your favorite archetype is Hulk and you had a hard day at school, you just need time and space to be an epic Hulk.

new_hackers 9y ago
kudos, you seem like a really cool dad!
vlaak 9y ago
That is a really nice story. I would have liked interactions like this when I was a kid. Nice work.

icebraining 9y ago

I’d be hesitant to share time in front of a screen though, video games don’t seem to be real interaction. Maybe it depends on the games? A single player game with elements of exploration can be fun shared experience; I still remember fondly playing Super Mario 64 with my father. And for small groups, a session of Worms is nice - being turn-based, you're never immersed in the screen, it's more like a digital version of Pétanque and similar games. The sessions with my friends were a riot. Not that there's anything wrong with avoiding video games, but they can bring some variety.

k__ 9y ago
I often play couch-coop-games with my girlfriends. Coop is always kind of a bonding activity :D
- yazan94 9y ago
  What good games do you guys play, and on what systems? I grew up with a Gamecube and original XBox, and pretty any game that had a single player also had a coop version. Now on systems like the PS4, most games have strictly single-player and online multiplayer. I don't like that I have to buy another system, copy of the game, TV, etc just to play a game in the same room as a friend.
  - k__ 9y ago
    Often I play indie games from Steam. Risk of Rain, Nuclear Throne, Towerfall, No Heros Here...
- akusete 9y ago
  Do you sit in between them?
  - k__ 9y ago
    Sometimes.
Pigo 9y ago

cortesoft 9y ago

The great thing about being a parent is that it isn’t a one way street, where you just simply pass things on to your kid. Instead, you pass things back and forth. You share your interests with your kid, and they share theirs with you. Of course, not every interest is going to be shared equally, but you will both gain new interests from each other.

duwease 9y ago

Depends on the game. Nintendo has some great family games I've enjoyed with the little one, and it's a good opportunity to present him with problems, have him think about what to do, try it, fail, and fight through the frustration of failure to try again. There's a constant conversation going, and we enjoy overcoming a challenge together. I do worry of course (because I'm a parent and that's what we do), that this time together creates a gateway for games that are less fun and productive.. the ones that mainly feed on compulsion loops. For instance, I picked up Pokemon Go in order to add a little fun to nature walks and park visits, but slowly the walking aspect has faded away and the compulsive collecting has stayed and that worries me. But again, everything worries me, who knows :) At this point I think just being sure to rotate activities regularly hopefully keeps any one experience from dominating.

cptskippy 9y ago

> I’d be hesitant to share time in front of a screen though, video games don’t seem to be real interaction. I'm curious why you think that video games aren't a real interaction? This strikes me as a statement someone unfamiliar with the medium would make. I don't understand how you could make such a broad and generalized statement about a medium that offers a variety of games that practically encompasses every other entertainment medium out there and allows for interactions that are almost impossible on any other medium. Your statement is about as ignorant as someone stating that baseball or soccer don't offer meaningful interactions because from the sidelines it looks like a bunch of people either standing 25 yards away from each other moving occasionally, or at the sidelines sitting next to each other staring at people in the field.

duopixel 9y ago
I used to play computer games in my late teens (quake 3 particularly) and even though I have fond memories, I don’t think I bonded as much over it. In retrospect I value more real life adventures (going on trips, nights out, general mischief). In the end there are ‘avatars’ performing antics that cause real emotions, but being in your body, in the world does not compare. Perhaps we simply belong to different generations (I’m 38 btw).
- jholman 9y ago
  If you didn't bond over the computer games you were playing (in 1999 or whenever), that just means that you personally were doing it wrong (or at least wrong for that purpose). If you were inclined to, you could do things differently going forward. I think the deepest bonding happens over conversations. I won't try to pit video games against that. But this thread was about activities one could do with kids. Like D&D, or sports, or trips, or nights out. Against that competition, video games are just as strong a contender (with respect to the potential for bonding), and the devil is in the details of how much you care about the other people involved. (I'm a bit older than you, btw.)
- cptskippy 9y ago
  > Perhaps we simply belong to different generations (I’m 38 btw). We're the same age. I have fond memories through out my life playing games with family and friends. It's been a bonding experience for me with many people who are close in my life and has helped many of us through difficult times. I remember huddling around a friend's PC with his brother and mine as we each took turns playing Prince of Persia, King's Quest, and Legend of Kyrandia. We setup a BNC network in our house and my brother and I would sit in our rooms, across the hall from one another, with our doors open and play games like Doom, Wing Commander Armada, Civilization, and many other for hours on end yelling back and forth at each other. My friend use to have LAN parties at his house and a dozen of us would all cram our PCs into his Den and do marathon 15+ hour gaming sessions. He'd have something like MST3K playing on the TV and we'd sit around talking about various nerdy things. Everyone brought food, beer and snacks to share. We'd play everything we could think of like KOTOR, Urban Terror, Terraria, BFBC2, Civilization, Hoard and Borderlands. I remember when DayZ first came out and my friend and I sat in his den until 5am trying to figure out where the hell we were in relation to each other on the island. Occasionally one of us would scream out because we were being chased by Zombies and only had a flashlight. Or the time we were rushed by a squad of heavily armed guys in a car who had us get down on the ground, then threw guns and ammo at us before jumping back in the car and speeding of into the night yelling "Merry Christmas fuckers!" My brother lives out of state now and several years back he was down on his luck so when a friend and I upgraded our PCs we sent him the old parts which were enough to upgrade his rig to play Battlefield 3 and 4. We'd spend evenings online chatting over VOIP as we played. It was a bonding experience that helped us both overcome a difficult time in our lives. Recently my father-in-law, wife, daughter, and I played Overcooked for the first time and ended up doing a 4 hour marthon of it. My father-in-law is in his late 70s and never really played video games but was eager to try. The game is easy enough to pickup but devilishly hard but we all had a riot trying to figure out the best strategy for making burgers or soup in the crazy kitchens. The Jackbox Games are great party games and when we have the extended family together we'll sit around and play them. My daughter and I probably spent an hour one evening just designing our characters for Gang Beasts. The entire time we were joking and ripping on each other for our choices while bouncing ideas and suggestions off each other.

ChuckMcM 9y ago

As a simple counter factual, my daughters and I had a tremendous time adventuring in World of Warcraft. I completely agree with your sentiment that all kids are different and they might not be the D&D type (there is no one size that fits everyone). Fully embrace it though, from video games, to sports, to music, to crosswords, to dungeons. There are many different ways to connect with family.

germinalphrase 9y ago

I wish tabletop video games were more of a thing. I remember a local bowling alley had a version of classic arcade games built into the surface of a small table-style cabinet. The interaction of facing my friend as we played - talking during and between games - always felt a little more personal and board game like than playing console video games (even if next to each other rather than via the internet).

munchbunny 9y ago
There are lots of board games that can fill that role. Sure, it's not digital or on a screen, but it leads to quality time talking to each other. Actually there's a really good one right now that just hit retail: Gloomhaven.
- germinalphrase 9y ago
  Oh, yes. I am firmly on the board game train. I just think table top, digital RPGs would be a fun time.