When my son acquires a fulfilling, creative, and high-paying position as a video game designer someday, will I be able to look back at the countless hours spent with a controller in his hand and deem it career training?
He’s a good student, he writes stories, he plays hockey, and he has a great sense of humour but playing video games is his favourite pastime, gobbling up more of his time than I care to think about. We’ve tried to come to a compromise over the years regarding limits, to no avail. Last summer, when I had him think of a project that was screen-free, he drew illustrations of his video game covers; and when I insist that he spend the same amount of time reading as he does gaming, this hardly ever works and I eventually resort to nagging. I’ve settled for reading aloud to him as he plays with the sound off; however, he’ll be a teenager next year so my time is running out with this manoeuvre. He’s had his PlayStation3 for a year now and we have not allowed online access but I can’t avoid it much longer. This isn’t like his pursuit of passing fads such as Pokémon or Webkinz that I was able to put off until he lost interest. There are many good reasons why I’m hesitant to open his little world into a massive one whose scope I can barely appreciate, but my greatest concern is about how much more time he may spend playing video games. And because my son is a good sleeper, going to bed at 9:30 most nights, he’s also an early riser so he can get in an hour of game time before the sun even shines. Most days, I want to throw those game systems out the door. I’m tired of saying, “Take a break.” or asking, “How much longer is this game?” or in my most frustrating moments of the day, “Get off that thing and get ready for school!”
The genre of the game also makes a difference. I’m better with sports games and car racing, but I lost the battle for a gun-free home when the war games became his favourite thing to play. Ne’er a plastic gun has entered our home over his childhood but now he recites a repertoire of weapons and ammunition that he loves to rhyme off as I shake my head. My reluctant acceptance of violent games seeped under my guard in subtle ways over time. It started with cartoon characters carrying pseudo-weapons in games rated E10 for Everyone over Ten. He quickly graduated to war games where he pointed out, “I only kill zombies, Mom.” Now, when I wince at the blood splattered across the screen during war re-enactment games such as Call Of Duty, he rolls his eyes. I’ve watched for changes in his behaviour but honestly, he does not seem to be ill-affected by them. If anything, his focus and concentration resembles meditation and his memory for the exhaustive details is astonishing.
My resolve was officially undermined when I read an article in The Economist from Sept 13, 2010, which cited a study by cognitive scientists at the University of Rochester that suggested video gamers make faster and more accurate decisions. Subjects using fast-moving action games, such as COD, saw improvement in decision-making skills, enhanced sensitivity to their surroundings, and it helped with multitasking, driving, reading small print, navigation, and keeping track of friends in a crowd.
The best I can do is continue to supervise game-playing and expose him to new things, until he is older and his choice of activities is officially beyond my scope of motherly duties.
Update: We granted permission for online playing this week and all my fears came to light within 24 hours when he was invited to play a game by someone named Mr. McNasty. Yes, this is a learning opportunity and I will take it in stride but the world never gives a parent a break! It also looks like I’m among the last parents of his group of friends to come over to the dark side when he brought home a list of online classmates he can play with. I’ll still be adamant about conveying my views on these games because I hope what I think still carries some weight in my son’s development but just like everything else in parenting, I'll look at it as preparing him for the world because I can’t change the world for him.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Face-to-Face
Betty White said a game show like Password wouldn’t make it on TV today because contestants can’t think on their feet anymore. I agree. I’d like to think that I’m getting smarter every year but I would hazard to guess that the Jeopardy questions are less difficult than they used to be. At one time, I would see a show like Cops or America’s Funniest Home Videos, and fear for our future. But now, there is a whole culture of stupid out there. And they’re proud of it, not to mention, well paid. An article in UTNE Reader (Jan.-Feb. 2011), first published in The Humanist, reads, “The belief culture thrives on the false principal that all opinions are equal, even those without a shred of factual data, documentation, or reasoned methodology.” And Homer Simpson said it even better, “Facts are meaningless. You can use facts to prove anything that’s even remotely true.”
This dumbing down of society has brought our below-average members to the surface—of my TV. We are drowning in media personalities who are obnoxious, selfish, fake, and ignorant. From my point-of-view, sitting in front of my television, attractive people are happy, young people are sex fiends, old people need copious amounts of prescription medication, I know more than certain politicians (scary thought), and all your problems can be solved with a prayer and a small donation. We are being deluded into thinking extremeness is normal. Thank goodness for programs like The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to let me know that I’m not the only one looking for a little sanity, a wider perspective, and a good laugh.
Looking around, it appears the cream of the crop who are currently on topic, and worth listening to, are those with a constant Twitter feed, getting updates of their acquaintances on Facebook, while streaming the latest YouTube sensation. I'm all for the internet bringing us closer together and propelling the world forward, but not at the expense of drowning out more important topics. And you are out of touch with the real world if you’re not connected 24 hours a day, knowing what everyone around you is doing every second, feeding an addiction to the daily minutiae of our existence.
As you may have surmised, I’m not a texter, therefore I am not on the same wave length as someone trying to communicate with their thumbs in as little time as possible; I’m on the side of people worried about the demise of proper punctuation (I can hear the moaning through the computer screen). It’s true, I’m old fashioned, and this method may seem obsolete but it works for me: apart from writing and reading—and I’m not referring to anything penned by authors named Snooki—I use face-to-face communication to feel connected to the world around me.
Admittedly, I usually have my nose stuck in a book at my kids’ practices, but when I do venture into a conversation, I find myself relating to real people. I do have a terrible habit of being so nervous when I talk to someone that I babble on, my inner-voice screaming at me to shut-up, but still I make an attempt because it makes me feel refreshed and energized. As Ms. White reminds us, being able to come up with a coherent thought at a moment’s notice is challenging; it’s a skill that needs to be honed: greeting someone you cross paths with on the sidewalk, speaking up at public meetings, asking questions of a stranger, small talk at a party. Mind you, there are some conversations going on around me that I would rather not be privy to: the gossip and intimate information you overhear people say—even though you, a stranger, are only two seats away—makes me cringe. I must remember, though, that these people are just like me, trying to make a personal connection, only in a less discreet manner.
This dumbing down of society has brought our below-average members to the surface—of my TV. We are drowning in media personalities who are obnoxious, selfish, fake, and ignorant. From my point-of-view, sitting in front of my television, attractive people are happy, young people are sex fiends, old people need copious amounts of prescription medication, I know more than certain politicians (scary thought), and all your problems can be solved with a prayer and a small donation. We are being deluded into thinking extremeness is normal. Thank goodness for programs like The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to let me know that I’m not the only one looking for a little sanity, a wider perspective, and a good laugh.
Looking around, it appears the cream of the crop who are currently on topic, and worth listening to, are those with a constant Twitter feed, getting updates of their acquaintances on Facebook, while streaming the latest YouTube sensation. I'm all for the internet bringing us closer together and propelling the world forward, but not at the expense of drowning out more important topics. And you are out of touch with the real world if you’re not connected 24 hours a day, knowing what everyone around you is doing every second, feeding an addiction to the daily minutiae of our existence.
As you may have surmised, I’m not a texter, therefore I am not on the same wave length as someone trying to communicate with their thumbs in as little time as possible; I’m on the side of people worried about the demise of proper punctuation (I can hear the moaning through the computer screen). It’s true, I’m old fashioned, and this method may seem obsolete but it works for me: apart from writing and reading—and I’m not referring to anything penned by authors named Snooki—I use face-to-face communication to feel connected to the world around me.
Admittedly, I usually have my nose stuck in a book at my kids’ practices, but when I do venture into a conversation, I find myself relating to real people. I do have a terrible habit of being so nervous when I talk to someone that I babble on, my inner-voice screaming at me to shut-up, but still I make an attempt because it makes me feel refreshed and energized. As Ms. White reminds us, being able to come up with a coherent thought at a moment’s notice is challenging; it’s a skill that needs to be honed: greeting someone you cross paths with on the sidewalk, speaking up at public meetings, asking questions of a stranger, small talk at a party. Mind you, there are some conversations going on around me that I would rather not be privy to: the gossip and intimate information you overhear people say—even though you, a stranger, are only two seats away—makes me cringe. I must remember, though, that these people are just like me, trying to make a personal connection, only in a less discreet manner.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
World's Best Pet
Being nature lovers, we are fortunate to have a backyard that entertains us with an array of creatures. Throughout the year, we watched a mother deer and her twin fawns travel, and eat, their way across our yard, dazzling us from their first spring days on feeble legs, to their effortless jumps over shrubs, fences and our little creek, throughout the summer and fall. Several times a week, our lawn would be graced with their presence, a moment that never lost its thrill.
Many other animals visit or live near our home, located on a forested watershed: weasels, foxes, owls, cranes, groundhogs, opossums, muskrats, rabbits, moles, hawks, chipmunks, and squirrels.
Highlights of our animal encounters include sitting on our steps watching a brood of baby raccoons cross our path, until their mother joined the group and we quickly rid ourselves. Each summer, the mother ducks will often let us get close enough to count the ducklings. Not long after we moved in, we found a gigantic walking stick bug on our deck, and last summer, my daughter noticed a walking stick no bigger than a fingernail. On our butterfly weed plants, three cycles of caterpillars transformed themselves into monarch butterflies, and we wake up to discover elaborate webs strung across our gardens overnight, catching the sun in the dew drops. We marvel at the colour and song of dozens of varieties of birds, including the real Woody Woodpecker, a pileated woodpecker, a prehistoric-looking bird larger than a crow. All this, on just under one acre of land in the middle of our town.
In the summer, there’s another animal you will find in this outdoor menagerie: a bearded dragon.
Riddick, our 3 year old orange bearded dragon, has back legs like a frog, spikes like a dinosaur, and patterned scales like a snake without its slickness. He’s not cuddly, but he is fascinating.
Although his first few weeks in our home were touch and go, he pulled through and has been roaming around with us every since. Literally. He has a terrarium to keep him warm and safe during the night, but his mornings start under a heat lamp on our main floor. From there, he is free to wander; however, you can usually find him sitting near the sidelight windows of the front door catching the early morning sun on his back. In the late afternoon, he will be pacing in front of the sixteen foot sliding glass doors on the opposite side of the house trying to figure out how to get onto the sunny deck.
The lifestyle of a bearded dragon is easily incorporated into a family life. He ate crickets when he first joined us but it was apparent that he abhorred having insects crawl on him, even though he got the ultimate revenge in the end, so now he sustains himself on superworms and bok choy with an occasional strawberry treat. We can leave him in his terrarium when we are away from home, and in an emergency, he could probably be left without food for days at a time; being a resilient and instinctive creature. We don’t worry about him scratching our furniture or biting the neighbours, and apart from the occasional shedding of scales, he doesn’t need to be groomed.
As mentioned, his favourite place to bask in summer is on a knarly branch perched on our lawn, close to the house, where we watch over him. He does scamper but his self-defense mechanism for avoiding danger is to stay still, which he does very well.
The most unusual part of living with our bearded dragon is the brumation period, similar to hibernation. Our baby bearded dragon had been with us only six months when he stopped eating and withdrew into the cold, dark edges of his terrarium. I nursed him through with organic baby food, fed through an eye-dropper, every other day. As a cold-blooded animal, he needed to be warmed up first, then I would give him a lukewarm bath to clean the food off his face. I was a mess when I thought he was going to die a week after we brought him home—I wasn’t going to let that happen again.
One day, four months after it began, I went to check on him, and he was basking under his heat lamp as if nothing was wrong. When this whole process repeated itself the following year, after I had read extensively about this behaviour, I was much less concerned and let him get his rest. He finished his most recent brumation last December, just in time to enjoy climbing our Christmas tree.
Keep your cats and dogs; I take pleasure in the carefree animals of our backyard, and would rather have a lizard living in my house than any other pet.
Many other animals visit or live near our home, located on a forested watershed: weasels, foxes, owls, cranes, groundhogs, opossums, muskrats, rabbits, moles, hawks, chipmunks, and squirrels.
Highlights of our animal encounters include sitting on our steps watching a brood of baby raccoons cross our path, until their mother joined the group and we quickly rid ourselves. Each summer, the mother ducks will often let us get close enough to count the ducklings. Not long after we moved in, we found a gigantic walking stick bug on our deck, and last summer, my daughter noticed a walking stick no bigger than a fingernail. On our butterfly weed plants, three cycles of caterpillars transformed themselves into monarch butterflies, and we wake up to discover elaborate webs strung across our gardens overnight, catching the sun in the dew drops. We marvel at the colour and song of dozens of varieties of birds, including the real Woody Woodpecker, a pileated woodpecker, a prehistoric-looking bird larger than a crow. All this, on just under one acre of land in the middle of our town.
In the summer, there’s another animal you will find in this outdoor menagerie: a bearded dragon.
Riddick, our 3 year old orange bearded dragon, has back legs like a frog, spikes like a dinosaur, and patterned scales like a snake without its slickness. He’s not cuddly, but he is fascinating.
Although his first few weeks in our home were touch and go, he pulled through and has been roaming around with us every since. Literally. He has a terrarium to keep him warm and safe during the night, but his mornings start under a heat lamp on our main floor. From there, he is free to wander; however, you can usually find him sitting near the sidelight windows of the front door catching the early morning sun on his back. In the late afternoon, he will be pacing in front of the sixteen foot sliding glass doors on the opposite side of the house trying to figure out how to get onto the sunny deck.
The lifestyle of a bearded dragon is easily incorporated into a family life. He ate crickets when he first joined us but it was apparent that he abhorred having insects crawl on him, even though he got the ultimate revenge in the end, so now he sustains himself on superworms and bok choy with an occasional strawberry treat. We can leave him in his terrarium when we are away from home, and in an emergency, he could probably be left without food for days at a time; being a resilient and instinctive creature. We don’t worry about him scratching our furniture or biting the neighbours, and apart from the occasional shedding of scales, he doesn’t need to be groomed.
As mentioned, his favourite place to bask in summer is on a knarly branch perched on our lawn, close to the house, where we watch over him. He does scamper but his self-defense mechanism for avoiding danger is to stay still, which he does very well.
The most unusual part of living with our bearded dragon is the brumation period, similar to hibernation. Our baby bearded dragon had been with us only six months when he stopped eating and withdrew into the cold, dark edges of his terrarium. I nursed him through with organic baby food, fed through an eye-dropper, every other day. As a cold-blooded animal, he needed to be warmed up first, then I would give him a lukewarm bath to clean the food off his face. I was a mess when I thought he was going to die a week after we brought him home—I wasn’t going to let that happen again.
One day, four months after it began, I went to check on him, and he was basking under his heat lamp as if nothing was wrong. When this whole process repeated itself the following year, after I had read extensively about this behaviour, I was much less concerned and let him get his rest. He finished his most recent brumation last December, just in time to enjoy climbing our Christmas tree.
Keep your cats and dogs; I take pleasure in the carefree animals of our backyard, and would rather have a lizard living in my house than any other pet.
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