Am I the only parent who won't allow an xbox, DS or playstation in the house?

[MINIBondGirl]

Am I being unrealistic in this issue as I only know a very few parents who feel the same? Having seen other children playing on them (sometimes looking like zombies and getting headaches) I am really put off. I know some parents restrict usage and don't allow unsuitable games but a lot don't.

As my boys are 4 & 7 I would rather they played outside, used their imaginations and concentrated on school for now.

Realistic or not?

Quite a mix of views. I have not problem with children having these things providing they are limited. Mine have an x box and are perfectly aware that they do not get it on school nights but can play on Saturday morning for an hour (timer on). They also have a Wii (I use the Wii fit a lot) and the same applies but only one or the other, not both in the one day. Has never been a problem, they know the rules and it can be great fun all playing together but it's not a huge thing in their lives. DH plays it more than anyone.

TheEpilator- I feel very differently. I am aware that my ds plays games I don't approve of at friend's houses, although luckily most of his freind's parents share my view. However, I think it's really important to maintain my position that I won't have them in the house. I don't agree with the "if you can't beat 'em join 'em" approach- although I can see why you take it!

Hmmmm well a screen is a screen and to be frank I see no difference between kids sitting in a zombie state in front of Cbeebies for an hour,playing crap games on the net or a DS.

Makes me laugh my mil takes great delight in telling me how her daughter won't let her kids have a DS(mine do)yet sil's kids seriously watch hours of TV,don't read half as much as mine do and never go outside.My kids practically live outside and I have limited screen time(TV,laptop or DS).

We thought long and hard and gave into DSs when the dc were 6/7.Dp is a software developer and we both thought some of the stuff on DS was quite good.Now we've got them I think they're fab, there is some super stuff and to be frank I'd rather they were doing something than sitting slouched in front of the TV if I had to pick.Ds8 made a slide show story today complete with sound on his DSi,it was fab and a great use of imagination.

I don't like violence so to be honest I don't think we have any need for anything else however we had a go on a friends XBox Knex and it was brilliant.We played the bowling and it brought us all together.

All of my 3 read avidly,have fab imaginations,are outdoors a lot and we're not scared of saying no ie we ration screen time and it isn't a problem.

The dtwins 8 are waiting for a Raspberry Pi and have started some simple programming,screens are part of modern day life whether we like it or not.To be honest I think in this day and age kids with absolutely no games knowledge are going to be at a disadvantage.Technology aside the dc's entire school are Moshi mad and I think being clueless as to what it was,not being able to join in conversations etc would be a bit hard for a child.

Why does it have to be all or nothing and why this assumption that TV and surfing the web are ok but consoles are bad?

I read so much I sometimes sat up at night finishing a book. I still do sometimes. I must have been rather tired at school the next day. Everything in moderation!

I read under the bed clothes with a torch when I was supposed to be asleep! You can't stop keen readers reading. If they wouldn't read with games they are not a keen reader- they just have a parent who wants them to be.

I agree.I did that as a child and I'm sure it's why I'm so severely short sighted.All 3 of mine do it now at 8,8 and 7.It's hard as I hate telling them off for reading but I caught ds 8 still reading when I went to bed last week.

Interestingly he adores his DS but when my dmum asked of he'd like a Kindle when he's older he said no as he said he likes smelling books,dd said the same.

I used to like playing games when I was that age... space invaders on my father's first office computer, a bombing game we programmed into the ZX81 with 1K of memory! Horace goes skiing on my boyfriend's ZX Spectrum (before he got hopelessly into D&D and I finished with him). And I know people have always played games, and there are lots of different kinds of games (I hate cards, but love party games). So I agree, what people find boring when it comes to games is a question of personal taste.

But the thing that gets me is how dominant games (in their electronic form) have become. More interesting things are being squeezed out, and brain structures are changing.

It's not the screen time that bothers me, it's the game time.

We can ban him from certain friends' houses altogether (not very fair), speak to their parents (not very productive) or allow him to play the games here where we can see them, assess their suitability for ourselves and impose time limits. We've chosen the latter, as I suspect have many other parents.

This is unfathomable to me. When I was a teen, I used to go round to a mate's whose mum used to let us smoke there. My mum went totally ballistic and absolutely refused to let me go there anymore. She didn't say 'oh, ok, if you're going to smoke there you can smoke here where we can impose limits'.

Either you agree with something or you don't, if you don't surely stand up for what you think is right? If you don't think it is a big deal, then don't make a fuss in the first place. Maybe I have got a big lesson coming my way, but I can't imagine letting my child go round to a house where the other child's parents let them play a game that I have banned in my own house.

on the other hand, why does everything have to stimulate the imagination and be good for you in some way?

Yes, my point exactly. Some people forget there are times where kids just want to have fun. I cant stand the games myself personally - the actual games as opposed to the fun stuff we do on the Wii together - but I can understand why a 10 year old boy would think Lego Stars Wars etc would be fun!

And thats why when people say things like There are so many more interesting things to be doing..... I think , yes well maybe for me but certainly not for my boys, I don't impose my views on them.

Actually, duckdodgers, all of us do kinda impose our views on our children; we have to and we can't really duck out of it. It's part of being a parent and I have no problem with saying we have never owned a games console or a handheld device and my kids are 17 and 12. We do however have a games laptop, and my dd did play Monkey Island 2 a lot on my phone for a horrible wet holiday weekend once, but said laptop is in the shared part of the house, so that makes limits easier to enforce. Ours is 1 hour of screen time a day - tv or computer - unless you are VERY ill.

Has it not occurred to you that your DCs simply won't tell you if they are doing something at a friend's house that you don't approve of? As they get older you can't ban them from a house unless you have personally vetted it and quizzed the parents.

exotic Yes that occurs to me, but the poster said she knew they were playing it there.

I was a terrifying teen, really awful, but I so respect my mum for having a line and sticking to it. We fought like crazy at the time of course.

Yes- but if she knows and stops them, next time it happens with someone else they won't mention it.
Unfortunately!As they get older they make friends where you don't know the parents. You lose a lot of control. With some friends computer games are the least of your worries, you only have to read a recent thread to see how many don't mind their 13yr olds going to a party and taking alcohol.

Sorry- don't know how I got an exclamation mark instead of a comma.

sieg I get what you mean, although I meant my views on what's enjoyable and what's not - at the end of the day we all have different interests, I dont and have never found video games interesting as I prefer to read in my spare time but what a 4, 10 and 19 year will be interested in will be vastly different from a 41 year old

sleg your 17 year old gets one hour of screen time a day?

sorry, sieg (need eye test!)

we are strict with games and some of ds1's friends parents are, i know of at least one that isnt, even at primary he was playing 18 games! but i just explained to ds1 that different parents have different rules, i wont stop him going there he has to be able to make his own choices and if he plays them at friends then he does, tbf the other mum told me how he wouldnt play but he did sit and watch but i dont think banning him from friends houses would do any good, as exotic says they will then just lie in all likelyhood.

throughout life they will find some people have different views on what is ok and what isnt, its just like when they go to grandmas house they get more treats and sweet things than they are allowed at home, ie a pudding after lunch and dinner and treats! at home we rarely have puddings at all! but they know its one rule there and another at home adn they accept that.

i certainly wont be letting them have them at home just because their friends do int he same way i wont let them have loads of sweet things just because grandma does! they have to learnt to make the right choices themselves and hopefully with the right guidance and examples from us they will do that, but i cant police them all the time and nor would i want to, its not healthy i dont think.

My 6 and 8 yr old girls have a great time playing Kirby's World on the Wii, a chance for big sister to exercise her leadership skills and be nurturing and both of them to co-operate together, lots of laughter too, no Zombies...then they go out to play on their scooters or the trampoline.

Resist the march of the games machines as long as you can..but they're not all bad all the time.

Very true and sensible 5madthings.
If you are only allowing a 17 year old an hour's screen time you are going to have problems. That is way too much control for someone who is months off being an adult and likely to leave home. The ones who don't cope at university are the ones who have been policed at home. At 17 yrs they should be limiting the time for themselves. You can't treat a 17 yr old like a 7 yr old, or even a 13 yr old like a 7 yr old, which is why I think that parents of 7yr olds shouldn't be too dogmatic about what you will do and not do when they are older- you can't know until you get there. It is like parents of babies saying what they will and will not do with toddlers, it often turns out to be unrealistic.

We have I think at least eight different sorts of consoles and several handhelds too as dh likes old games. But we only have them in the front room, so the main restriction is that everyone has to share. A lot of gaming goes on in our house, along with long conversations about why games were designed in particular ways, the political or gender politics involved (we play a lot of strategy games), and with ds how and why he has designed levels and with whom. Also lots of discussion about what games we might buy next. We have lots of discussions about the films we watch and the books we read.

Both children also have vivid imaginations and are great readers - in fact dd's last school report complained that she would do better if she didn't always have her nose in her book...

Oh, and I was brought up in a TV free household and it had a very negative effect on my social life as a child as half the time I had no idea what my peers were talking about. My elder siblings spent a of of time at their friends houses or babysitting (having first checked that there was a TV in the house!). I just read a huge amount, and to be honest that is a far more anti social activity.

seiglind So, if your kids are unwell they get to watch TV or play on the computer far more than they would normally? I wonder that they don't pull sickies as often as they can! I would

I agree with those who've commented on imposing limits on older teenagers. They're near adults. They really need to be self-limiting now.

Ok, here's some anecdotal evidence that has no bearing on any of your lives:

As kids, my younger brother and I were not allowed to watch ITV (poor quality programming apparently, plus too many toy adverts!!!) only BBC. We were limited to an hour of TV after school. We never had a games console (ok we had a second hand Spectrum at one point but my brother took it apart and reprogrammed it )

My younger sister and brother who came after us, had no such limitations on their TV watching, plus they had unfettered access to a Playstation, including Zombie shooting games such as Resident Evil.

It made, and continues to make no difference in our lives as children or adults. We still played out, read, studied etc as much as each other.

I really think it is possible to make too big a deal out if it all. It's not the "Nice, middle-class children" who are read to, given books, taken to places of cultural interest, and have responsive, responsible parents, that will suffer from exposure to video games, even violent ones. It's the kids who come from backgrounds of social poverty, whose parents neglect their needs, who never have an adult intervene in their play, who are left to their own devices for hours every night; that really suffer from exposure to video games.

I see them every day at my school. They're 8 years old and have a TV and Xbox in their room, but haven't been north of the Thames before (I live in zone 2, south London). No one imposes a bedtime on them. They get up and take themselves to school. No one collects them. They walk home through Brixton alone, and spend the evening plugged in to Call of Duty.

Common sense and very true Badgerina.
I am still having problems wondering what good it does a 17 yr old to have his mother restrict screen time. By the time mine were 17yrs you have a responsible, adult like DC and can have proper discussion, they are driving, going out with friends, coming across alcohol etc and I really don't know how they cope if they haven't sorted out their own leisure time at home.