Excess (Part 3 of 7)- Gaming

Picture it. A 30-something year old woman supposedly exercising on the Wii Fit Plus. She's burning calories like crazy. No, wait. She's trying  to run over a gopher/mole. That woman would be me. A few days ago I was perched on the Wii balance board trying to defeat some sort of critter, while pretending to ride a Segway on a beach. The premise of the game is you are riding a Segway on the balance board while trying to gain points by running over balloons that pop up. If the balloons turn into gophers (Wii says they are moles but they look suspiciously like a character from Caddy Shack) and then the gophers taunt you while you lose points. Sounds fun right? In order to get the Segway to go faster you must lean forward on your toes and steer with the handheld control. I'm not sure how many times I actually played the game but I looked up and realized that quite a bit of time had escaped me. I continued however, singing "I'm alright, nobody worry 'bout me." for all I was worth. I was obsessed. I had to run over that gopher. The next day my calves ached and I had lost at least an hour of my life.

It's easy to see how children can become equally obsessed with gaming. I'm 30ish and I should know better, but there I was trying to run over a defenseless animal (he was mocking me). Children when not monitored, don't know better. What is it about these games that draws our children? Perhaps boredom. Perhaps seeking the feeling of accomplishment that is so hard to find in the world we live in. The world says if you are not number 1 then you shouldn't play. The world teaches it's not about how you play, but that winning is absolutely everything (there's a whole other blog in there). The problem with excessive gaming is that it is too much too soon. The images in games are often not exactly what we want our kids seeing, but it keeps them busy so we say nothing. The rating for each game is on the box, but some parents fail to look at it, or assume the big T means Totally Awesome and the M means Mostly OK. Kids also lose track of time when they play and half their life is spent, not on finding that which fills their soul, but that which takes their mind off everything else. Then everyone wonders why the work force is full of people with no imagination or work ethic. Again, as I've said before, I am not anti tech, I am just pro child. Give them some legos and see what happens. Pull out a board game (a what???) and watch your kids' eyes light up. Our kids are craving us, not the images they see on games. I think I will let the gopher/ mole rest this evening and have a chat with my kids instead.