Games and Kids

[Flake]

While I thank little baby jesus for never bestowing upon me a little baby Flake, I have to say: These pictures are freakin' cute. If I ever do decide to procreate, I think I'll have to take the same approach as described here.

[Gamerforlife]

Everyone seems convinced that I'll be a daddy someday for some reason

If I have a kid, I'll probably start him/her off like I did. Balloon Fight, Super Mario Bros. and Double Dragon. Then see where things go from there

[the King]

my 4-year-old son really loves games and gaming in general, but he also loves it just as much as going outside and playing with toy trains and such. which i think is awesome, because i don't want him to be obsessed at an early age. i put my snes and n64 in his room, and we play them together sometimes, but more often than not he wants to do something a little more active. he has his own game boy color at his mom's house, and i bought him a tom & jerry game which he loves, and we just made our first trip to the local retro shop. his first gaming purchases were an extra N64 controller (i only had one, he said he wanted to play together, BAWWW) and Thomas the Tank Engine for SNES.

he's also pretty good at Wii Sports Tennis and he likes Rock Band, but he's no good at it. he's also got one of those leapster things which he plays more often than any other system.

Your 4 year old has his own tv in his bedroom?

[J T]

I don't have a kid yet, but my wife and I plan to in a few years. Games and other media are an interesting topic for me. I don't know how I want to handle things in terms of when I let them play the more violent games or watch violent movies and TV. I'm not morally opposed to watching that stuff and I'm not sure at which age I would consider it appropriate/inappropriate for a kid to watch. My only real concerns are that they would find it particularly disturbing and have nightmares, copy cat the fighting, or get all wound up and act out.

Have any of you parents decided on a good age or developmental milestone to let them view media with sex or violence?

Have any of you noticed your kids being more tempermental after certain games?

[aaron]

my 4-year-old son really loves games and gaming in general, but he also loves it just as much as going outside and playing with toy trains and such. which i think is awesome, because i don't want him to be obsessed at an early age. i put my snes and n64 in his room, and we play them together sometimes, but more often than not he wants to do something a little more active. he has his own game boy color at his mom's house, and i bought him a tom & jerry game which he loves, and we just made our first trip to the local retro shop. his first gaming purchases were an extra N64 controller (i only had one, he said he wanted to play together, BAWWW) and Thomas the Tank Engine for SNES.

he's also pretty good at Wii Sports Tennis and he likes Rock Band, but he's no good at it. he's also got one of those leapster things which he plays more often than any other system.

Your 4 year old has his own tv in his bedroom?

well, we had an extra tv, and put it in there. i should explain that i don't have full custody of him and he's not here every single day. he doesn't really watch that much tv. the only time it's on in his room is if we're playing a game together or if he wants to watch a movie or something before going to bed.

[SpaceBooger]

I have 2 kids one is 2 and the other is 1 and they are not too interested in games... except the older 2d ones.
We also keep our TV time to a minimum (one hour a day) for the kids and my gaming time counts. For example my 2 year old loves Sonic so I played Sonic 4 for about 45 min and got to the last boss, but because of the time constraint I stopped and will beat it during nap time or something. (the only TV time excused from the one hour rule is Football since my kids don't care about it)
As for gaming, Cal the 2 year-old loves to play the Mame Arcade Cab. He just likes the sounds and noises. As for consoles he started playing Sonic 1 last spring, but his version of playing is pushing the button and watching/listening to the hedgehog jump. He has not yet figured out how the whole D-Pad works, he looks at it while pushing it not noticing that it moves the character.
Both of my kids were more interested in my collection of games than the games themselves, since opening/closing the cases and looking at the shiny discs are fun to 1 year-olds.

[MrPopo]

I don't have a kid yet, but my wife and I plan to in a few years. Games and other media are an interesting topic for me. I don't know how I want to handle things in terms of when I let them play the more violent games or watch violent movies and TV. I'm not morally opposed to watching that stuff and I'm not sure at which age I would consider it appropriate/inappropriate for a kid to watch. My only real concerns are that they would find it particularly disturbing and have nightmares, copy cat the fighting, or get all wound up and act out.

Have any of you parents decided on a good age or developmental milestone to let them view media with sex or violence?

Have any of you noticed your kids being more tempermental after certain games?

I think it really depends on the violence. First you have your basic Zelda and Mario cartoon violence, then maybe something like Streets of Rage or Double Dragon, next comes Goldeneye, finally there's the modern military shooter. Kids are going to copy cat any kind of violence there is, so that's hard to avoid. What I'd worry about is nightmares, so when I have kids I plan to keep them away from the realistic shooters until they get into their teens.

[Crabmaster2000]

I don't have a kid yet, but my wife and I plan to in a few years. Games and other media are an interesting topic for me. I don't know how I want to handle things in terms of when I let them play the more violent games or watch violent movies and TV. I'm not morally opposed to watching that stuff and I'm not sure at which age I would consider it appropriate/inappropriate for a kid to watch. My only real concerns are that they would find it particularly disturbing and have nightmares, copy cat the fighting, or get all wound up and act out.

Have any of you parents decided on a good age or developmental milestone to let them view media with sex or violence?

Have any of you noticed your kids being more tempermental after certain games?

I think it really depends on the violence. First you have your basic Zelda and Mario cartoon violence, then maybe something like Streets of Rage or Double Dragon, next comes Goldeneye, finally there's the modern military shooter. Kids are going to copy cat any kind of violence there is, so that's hard to avoid. What I'd worry about is nightmares, so when I have kids I plan to keep them away from the realistic shooters until they get into their teens.

I'd echo this and suggest that maturity level has a lot to do with it. Some kids may be ready to start FPS style games earlier than others. If you've got a responsible kid that has a clear grasp of reality vs fiction why not let him try them (assuming he even wants to) earlier than the suggested age on the box.

My friends and I used to play "Mortal Kombat" at school and it was basically us picking our favorite character and then playing king of the hill on a snow pile as said character. No one was older than 10 and to my knowledge none of us developed any sort of undesirable traits from playing such violent games at an early age.

I'd just make sure you play along side with them at first so you can talk about what he is seeing/experiencing in case he has questions.

[MrPopo]

I don't have a kid yet, but my wife and I plan to in a few years. Games and other media are an interesting topic for me. I don't know how I want to handle things in terms of when I let them play the more violent games or watch violent movies and TV. I'm not morally opposed to watching that stuff and I'm not sure at which age I would consider it appropriate/inappropriate for a kid to watch. My only real concerns are that they would find it particularly disturbing and have nightmares, copy cat the fighting, or get all wound up and act out.

Have any of you parents decided on a good age or developmental milestone to let them view media with sex or violence?

Have any of you noticed your kids being more tempermental after certain games?

I think it really depends on the violence. First you have your basic Zelda and Mario cartoon violence, then maybe something like Streets of Rage or Double Dragon, next comes Goldeneye, finally there's the modern military shooter. Kids are going to copy cat any kind of violence there is, so that's hard to avoid. What I'd worry about is nightmares, so when I have kids I plan to keep them away from the realistic shooters until they get into their teens.

I'd echo this and suggest that maturity level has a lot to do with it. Some kids may be ready to start FPS style games earlier than others. If you've got a responsible kid that has a clear grasp of reality vs fiction why not let him try them (assuming he even wants to) earlier than the suggested age on the box.

My friends and I used to play "Mortal Kombat" at school and it was basically us picking our favorite character and then playing king of the hill on a snow pile as said character. No one was older than 10 and to my knowledge none of us developed any sort of undesirable traits from playing such violent games at an early age.

I'd just make sure you play along side with them at first so you can talk about what he is seeing/experiencing in case he has questions.

What school was that? That sounds exactly like what I used to do in grade school with my buddies.

[Crabmaster2000]

It was in Manitoba and my character of choice was Reptile .