Happily Bonding Brothers or Zombie Children?

Day Four of the Wii-- they began playing immediately upon waking.

No Breakfast?  No problem.  Just eight more levels!

Wouldn't you know it?  Just as I'm beginning to get comfortable giving my children more choices and allowing them to make decisions, they up the ante by getting a Wii for Christmas and playing their new Skylanders game nearly non-stop for the last three and a half days!  (Not entirely true, but close enough!).  This morning I went to work-- they were already on the Wii-- and I came home-- they were still on the Wii.  I called them into the dining room for lunch and they expressed surprise at not being offered breakfast! 

Although my impulse is to turn the thing off and tell them to go outside and play in their treehouse or on their zipline or ride a bicycle or jump on a pogo stick or at least read a book, the truth is they are having fun together.  They are problem solving together, reading the storyboard on the screen, looking up tips in their Skylander guidebook, laughing, cheering, taking turns, talking strategy, and having a ball.  Does it matter that it takes place in front of a television screen?  I'm not sure anymore.  Would I be happier if they were playing charades with their Latin vocabulary words or trying to stump each other with math problems?  You betcha!  

I know I am biased against video games.  I must admit, however, that their obsession with the Skylanders game reminds me a little of a day when I was maybe eight years old.  I opened the book Ribsy.  It is a sweet story about a dog who jumps out of his owners' car and gets lost and has adventures.  I lay on my bed one morning and read that book until my eyes ached and until the light through my windows went dark on a summer evening.  It was one of the best reading experiences of my life.  I read the whole book in one sitting.  My parents allowed me to do it.  They didn't make me stop and go outside.  They didn't make me break for lunch or dinner.  The book was purely entertainment, but I loved it, and it is still a favorite childhood memory. 

Could something similar be happening today with my sons?

Somewhere along the parenting path, I concluded that children who play video games become mindless zombies incapable of analyzing literature or finding solutions to complicated math problems.  I think I also threw in some assumptions about their becoming drug users and drop outs, too.  I don't know exactly where that conclusion came from, but it is a difficult image to shake-- though I know it is an untrue and ridiculous stereotype. 

If the boys were outside chasing each other around the yard, I wouldn't have any problem with it, and I wouldn't worry about whether what they were playing was "educational."  Likewise, if the boys were each curled up with a book all day, I wouldn't worry too much about whether they were reading great literature.  It only makes sense, then, that three happy boys who are playing a strategy game together should be allowed to continue as long as they are enjoying it or until there is some other work that must be done.  After all, it is Christmas break. 

So if you need my sons, they are standing in the living room, talking excitedly, waving their Wii remotes, and having a great time . . . while I putter around the house trying to overcome my prejudices by keeping myself busy and smiling at the sound of their ringing laughter.