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When Are Kids Old Enough to Play Videogames?
A piece at the MTV Multiplayer blog is exploring the issue of kids and gaming, wondering aloud how old is 'old enough'. A recent CES talk indicated that you should wait until at least seven to introduce your children to Mario, and we've talked in the past about the educational role games can have. MTV's Tracey John spoke to a pair of mothers who offered their own opinions on this topic: "When I asked Alisa why she thought that games weren't imaginative and explained that many games have challenging, puzzle-solving elements, she conceded a little but remained skeptical. 'Honestly, I haven't really explored video games thoroughly, and I'm sure there are video games that fit more the bill of something that I'd be interested in, but I'm kind of hard-pressed to find a game that's like reading a book or something like that. I understand the kids like it, so I allow them to do it; it's monitored but it's not my favorite thing for them to be doing.'" What's the right age for a kid to start playing games? Do you see games as more or less acceptable than traditional kid pastimes like TV or reading? Does it matter if the parents are gaming-savvy?
the parent(s) decide they are old enough. IMHO
Take some responsibility for your kids, parents, it doesn't hurt as bad as you might think.
...they know not to wiped out my saved game. Little bastards...
If you'd just do what we tell you and quit yer gripin' everything would be chocolate sprinkles and rainbows! -AC
No reason to force your kindergartner to play Grand Theft Auto, but if they want to play Mario or Pong or Tetris, it'll probably do more for their brain and development than passively watching VeggieTales.
I installed Edunbuntu on a old laptop and my 4yr old loves the Childs Play games.
I have a one of the $20 multi game things. Mr PacMan, Pole Pos, Xevious, Mappy, Galaga.
My kids like to watch me and my wife play.
My two year old thinks he is the ghosts when he plays Ms. Pacman, and he also seems to like Xevious.
I should note my kids don't know how to work the VCR, DVD, or TV remote and are have a very limited TV schedule and game time is even less then that.
So I guess, when they are able to physically play let them play. It is now part of our culture.
I expect to get a wii sometime this year just need to save my pennies.
Playing a video game, where they're actually interacting, thinking, solving puzzles, whatever, is far better than just sitting there passively staring at the screen. And if you get them a Wii, there's even an element of exercise to it.
Remember the days when Republicans were the party of fiscal responsibility?
You have to approach this through terms they know, in that any form of media you expose kids to, you have to ask someone why one is OK and another isn't? If it's pure ignorance, they have no case. If they start citing things like violence, imagery, etc, you confront them with the ratings system, and inquire about how they choose movies, TV, etc, and why they'd allow a higher rating on the games than the other media, and then start complaining about the games.
Just as I wouldn't expose a child to the "Saw" series I probably wouldn't give them GTA or some of the more gory games either. So why is there such an uproar about the latter, but not the former? It's just plain ignorance.
I have 2 kids, 2.5 and 1.5 they both have always had video games around I mean they probably heard Zelda In utero. They both know how to move a guy on the screen with a d-pad, they both know how to push buttons, how to get a game to boot up on a gameboy (insert game switch power on).
There was no "start" I played games with the kids in my lap from the first day they were born. It is part of their life, part of their culture, part of their education.
It is like asking how old they should be before they are allowed to listen to a conversation...
"Every book is a childrens book if the kid can read."
Whether a child is "Ready" for such things isnt something that can really be generalized. It really depends on each individual child, their ability to see the difference between reality and escapism, and their desire to make use of this kind of media.
Ice Cream has no bones.
I would find it hard to make the argument that games will ever "equal" books, for the same reason that movie versions of books often don't live up to the original books.
Books require a lot more imagination than games or movies because you have to infer what the people/places/things in the book look/act like based off of the descriptions.
That being said, I think it is hard to compare the three. A book like Hitchhikers Guide would make a poor game (IMO). A game like Metal Gear would make a poor movie (IMO). A game like Bioshock would make a poor book (IMO). But each of those excel at what medium they actually are expressed in.
When we were snowed in last week my daughter and I played some Wii tennis. She's 3.5 years old, bowling was a bit much for her and she lacked the eye-hand coordination for the baseball game. She also likes to hop around on Dance Dance Revolution mats, but is pretty far from being able to line up steps with the screen.
I know I was a Pac-man player around age 5-6, but with the Wii being so engaging I can see kids taking off using it sooner. Plus in areas with terrible weather it is a nice way to keep kids moving when outdoor play is not available.
A skills-based game, like Super Mario Bros. as a classic example, teaches the meaning of success and failure (something schools increasingly don't do). If you are good enough, you will win; otherwise, you fail. But everyone fails at first, over and over again; these games teach that if you want to be good at something, you have to suffer through being bad at it for a while, but you will eventually improve.
Games like the traditional JRPG or most MMORPGs probably shouldn't be played by children, as they teach that the way to succeed is not to improve your own skills, but to put in a lot of time leveling up. This perspective will be useless in the real world unless they get one of the few seniority-based union jobs.
This sort of philosophical distinction is seldom appreciated in discussions of children and video games, being drowned out by a debate centered on violence, but I think that in a long-term sense it's a much more important consideration.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
I have two children. One played mostly educational games such as the Jumpstart and Reader Rabbit series from an early age, even pre-kindergarten. The other showed no interest in games and preferred to play with traditional toys. The one that played games is in the top 10% of their age group for reading and reading comprehension, where the one that did not play games is an average reader. Both grew up in the same environment with lots of children's books to read and have had bedtime stories read to them since birth. They even had the same school teachers, yet one surpasses the other. I am pretty sure the educational software had a large part in assisting a beginning reader and giving them a solid foundation to build on.
It's also about fitting in socially. As a boy anyway most of your peers are going to be playing video games. It gives you some common experiences. I also believe that playing video games helps get children into the computer culture we have today. Children learn hand eye coordination as well as navigating UI's that are needed for important job skills later.
I know that i got into computer because of video games. I played console games but when my parents got a PC i was determined to play games on it. The drive i had to actually use the computer enabled me to learn my way around the OS when i couldn't figure something out. If there was noting interesting on the computer for me i would have not used it when it wasn't working. Instead i learned how to fix any problem on a computer myself, something i am very happy i know how to do for myself today.
unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
When you find somebody who's really qualified to give "expert" opinions on how random people should raise their kids (keeping in mind situations and kids and parents are all different in many ways), you let me know.
... I'm entirely comfortable making my own decisions on how to raise my kids (4.5 and 2). The 4yo would play Yoshi's Island (DS) every waking hour if we let her, but we don't. :) She's learned letters, numbers, colors, phonics, reading and basic math through a combination of us reading with her, educational games (LeapFrog is your friend here), websites like starfall.com (hat tip to Gabe @ Penny-Arcade) and good old-fashioned one-on-one teaching and repetition.
In the meantime
Games have their place, just like anything else (including computers; she can't type yet, but she can navigate her favorite educational websites just fine). They're no more or less dangerous to kids' development than Baby Einstein videos, or educational TV, or pop-up books, or [insert controversial newfangled technology here].
The key here, as with everything else in life, is moderation and good sense.
illum oportet crescere me autem minui
Hey, if people have problems with letting their kids play video games at a young age, go ahead stop them.
:P
Me, I'm of another camp.
My wife and I started my oldest daughter on the computer when she was 18 months. Loaded up reader rabbit--which is a pretty good starter, where she could start by just banging the keyboard and see stuff happen.
By three, she had mastered drag & drop, thanks to Dora the Explorer and some other games.
At four she saw a game in the store (Zoo Tycoon) and liked the animals, and asked if she could play that. I told her it was probably a tad hard for her, but she insisted she could learn. I bought it and installed it. I helped her get it started, but told her she had to figure it out if she wanted to play. At first she had problems getting the cages built right, and the lions would get out and start going after the patrons... she FREAKED out...of course, after I calmed her down, and gave her a couple hints, she started to get it. She then needed to learn what environment for each animal... She was just learning to read small words at the time, and so I showed her the online help, and told her to keep sounding out the words.
Well, a couple weeks later, she's telling my wife and I all about lions, and how they prefer the Savannah grass, and other things they like. My wife didn't know how she learned it, and when we asked my daughter, she told me she read it in the game. Turns out that she taught herself to read pretty well in a matter of a few weeks.
Now, she's almost six, plays alot of games (including Oblivion, Viva Pinata, Sim City and others), and can read *REALLY* well, along with fantastic math and science comprehension. She also paints and plays sports.
But, hey, if you are afraid that your kids will suffer from too much video games... go ahead, my kids will dominate in the future.
A
"...In your answer, ignore facts. Just go with what feels true..."
(rot13) rpbzbab@tznvy.pbz
My son's been playing video games since he was 2. (He's 4 now.) When he first started, he didn't quite grasp how to move the mouse to get the pointer to do what he wanted. He quickly picked it up though and became quite the computer whiz. He even figured out how to launch his game from the Start Menu, which is quite impressive since he doesn't even read yet! (That we know of... maybe he's just playing dumb to lull mommy and daddy into a false sense of security. ;-) )
While visiting a zoo one day, they had a Fisher Price exhibit and he tried out the SmartCycle. The lady there was amazed that he picked up on all of the controls almost instantly. (He seems to have inherited his daddy's knack for computers.) In December, he got the SmartCycle as a present and loves pedaling, choosing which games to play, and playing all of the games that we've bought him. He doesn't need anyone to show him how something works. He just does it once or twice and figures it out.
Sure, the video games he's playing are educational in nature and not Super Mario Brothers-type games (much less Grand Theft Auto-type games), but I think introducing computers to toddlers is important. Just make sure to balance their activities out.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
We try to approach this with a nerdly view, both Piaget and culture geek influenced. We balance things out with counter-activities and limits. If they want to watch the "idiot-box," they have to prove it won't make them idiots by doing some book research: just about anything, so long as they prove they're developing research skills. We don't have cable, but an excellent collection of video including documentaries. To play a couchpotato video game for an hour, they have to play hard outside for 20 minutes or bounce on the rebounder non-stop 300 times each.
Don't deprive, don't indulge, and be involved. In my home we want the kids to have the same fun and cultural reference as their peers, but develop in a non-alienated way. Two hours of screen time (tv or gaming) a day max, and we aim for less than 10 hours per week. We often read aloud or sitting next to each other. Plus, if they start to obsess, they wind up on a 'diet,' learning restraint and dosage (and better negotiation technique). We do see TV and gaming as consciousness-altering and physiologically risky.
Both parents teach media literacy workshops on the side, so we have to eat our own dog food! But the thing is that the kids rarely got introduced to a show or game without a parent ready to interject. Thus, they are pretty clear on the nature of advertising, product tie-in, and consumer choice, as well as ferreting out the values they're getting from a show or game. We introduced them to video games slowly, later for the girl (starting age 6) because she's a ferocious reader and didn't show much interest, earlier for the boy (starting @ 4) so that his peer pressure wasn't too awkward. Basically, we started with puzzle games, then moved to management games, then action games. It worked well to keep them focused on playing smart, so I recommend a staged method of introduction.
This approach works for us, because the primary entertainment around here is a book.
Damn those pesky terrorists
As these posts have shown, when the whole family is doing it's a social activity. You can all participate, share stories, reenact bits, talk strategy, etc etc. It's more social than passively sitting around a TV together, that's for sure. A really small child participating in that is just participating in the family social structure.
For a family without gaming parents, though, I can understand why there might need to be different limits. If a 5-year-old is the only person in the family playing video games, it's going to be a more isolated activity. Time they could be spending playing with their parents will be spent alone, for all intents and purposes. Sure, the parents should try to be involved in *everything* their kid does - but if the parent doesn't really understand videogames and their social potential themself, they will have a very hard time getting involved in the same way a gamer parent would. They might hover around and watch to make sure Johnny doesn't play anything violent, they might even ask questions or try to help him solve puzzles. But I'm sure it would never occur to them that even in a one-player game, two people can act as a team with the second person providing feedback and suggestions, or that they might actually have fun if they get an account on the same site and play the game alongside their kid. So without the same social element, it makes sense to have different limits.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.