Gaming

A bNetS@vvy Interview with parent Rich Wood.

Q:        You are a father who is savvy about and enjoys online technology, like gaming.  Tell us about your tech knowledge and how it compares to that of your sons.

A:        I’ve spent the last 20 years in front of a computer. I first used Apple Macintoshes when they debuted in 1984. I like digital gadgets of all kinds. iPods, GPS, digital cameras. I’m on Facebook. I really want a supercool smartphone.

Yet my two sons, ages 10 and 13, are wired in ways I couldn’t imagine when I was their age, in the era of Pong and Radio Shack TR(a)S(h) 80 computers. If we let them, William and Henry would spend all day dinking around with the iMac. Or the Wii. Or their mom’s iBook. Or my Windows laptop. Or on their iPods, or our Flip camera or my Canon digital SLR. My wife, a kindergarten teacher at a low-income school, says third-graders who don’t have computers at home have their own MySpace pages. 

Our sons, like the kids at my wife’s school, have been wired since the age of 2.

Q:        Within limits, you do allow your kids to play games, like on Wii or games they can access via computers and mobile devices.  You’re comfortable with giving them some freedom online, so long as you and your wife monitor their activity.  In your opinion, what role do parents play in this online, digital world our kids inhabit?

A:        We’re in a time of transition. I’m a GenXer. We helped invent this stuff, yet it still seems so new. We’re adapting. The new generation, the Millennials, they don’t know any other way. But both generations are learning:

• William logged on to our eBay account. It was easy. We’d set up the automatic eBay login. William waited until there was 30 seconds left, and then bid $500 on a Wii (about twice retail). I e-mailed the seller and explained that William was 10 and did not have $500. The guy understood and went with the back-up bidder. Lesson: Manually log in to sites like eBay, and don’t tell your kids your password. (A few weeks later, we bought a Wii at a bricks-and-mortar retail store for the regular price.)
• When Henry was seven, he had a friend over. They Googled Bob the Builder. They put an extra O in Bob. Hours after the friend went home, his mom called and described the Triple-X Web site her son had been exposed to at our house. Lesson: Teach your kids to spell. Seriously, invest in some good filtering software, hover over your kids’ shoulder (not very practical) or accept the fact that kids today are going to see and hear things that we’d rather keep secret. If they do see and hear those things, then talk to them about it!

Soon, we’re going to talk about appropriate ways to create alter egos in the online, interactive Mii part of Nintendo’s Wii.

Q;        You seem so comfortable with your kids’ online activity.  You’re informed enough to know that you need to talk to them about what’s appropriate in the world of interactive, online gaming, for example.  What some might see as a threat, you see as an opportunity, given responsible parental oversight.

A:        Yes.  Creating alter egos for the Mii part of Wii, that’s a chance to talk about race, gender and stereotypes. With the Wii Mii, you create new people from existing parts, kind of like a digital Mr. Potato Head (PLAYSKOOL actually has an online Mr. Potato Head coloring game for pre-schoolers).

And who knows what’s next? Maybe in a few years, William and Henry will become video game programmers or create the next YouTube or Facebook.

Q:        What advice do you have for parents who want to learn more about helping kids game safely?

• Don’t buy your kids excessively or gratuitously violent video games. Kids don’t have a natural predisposition for violent games, so why encourage them? (We apply the same principle to movies.)
• Put the computer or game console in a prominent, public place in your house. That makes it easier to keep on an eye on what your kids are doing. Bedrooms are bad.
• There are a lot of free, Web-based games, such as addictinggames.com. Avoid the violent ones (see above). But many of the games are silly and simple, and they’re free. You don’t have to spend $50 to have fun. Pbskids.org/games is a great site and no violent games.
• Limit the amount of time your kids play video games, whether it’s on the Web, CD-based or on their game console. They DO have better things to do.
• Play video games with your kids. Some of the basic Wii games, like baseball and bowling, are so simple even adults can play them. (Super Smash Bros. Brawl? It’s way too frenetic and fast-moving for your typical 40-year-old.)

Q:        Can you please define a few relevant gaming terms for our audience?

Rich Wood’s Gaming Glossary:

• Mii: A cartoon-like character, or alter-ego, created on the Nintendo Wii. Miis can interact via the Internet.
• Flip camera: A small digital video camera with four buttons that can retail for $129.99. It can upload videos to YouTube in three steps and 10 minutes.
• Sims: The ultra-popular computer game that allows players to create characters, cities and families, among other social constructs.
• Super Smash Brothers Brawl and Mario Cart: Remember roly-poly Mario from Donkey Kong, the 1980s arcade game? He’s still around in these current Nintendo Wii games.

A former newspaper reporter, Rich Wood is media specialist and an organizer for the Washington Education Association. His wife is a kindergarten teacher and an NEA member.

Selected gaming quotations from the author’s sons, William and Henry (ages 10 and 13)

• William: “My favorite games are Super Smash Brothers brawl and Mario Cart. They’re fun. They just are.

• William on Web-based games: “You hear about them from friends and kids at school. Then we Google them to find them.”

• William on store-bought CD games: “I like Zoo Tycoon and the Sims. You get to build stuff.”

• William: “My Mii looks like me.”

• Henry: I go to friends’ houses and play the games. Then I ask my Dad to buy them.”

• Henry: I don’t like glitches, like when the games don’t work. The manual doesn’t tell you anything. We try the games on someone else’s Wii.”

• Henry: “My favorite Wii game is Mario Cart because I like to race people. I race people from other countries on the Internet. You have a profile and it has your Mii. You can do it on Guitar Hero, too, but it doesn’t tell you their country.”

• Henry: “I like addictinggames.com. Because they’re addicting!”

• Henry: My friends tell me about YouTube videos, like “How to be Ninja.” The funny ones.  People acting really dumb.”

• Henry: “It’s not very hard (to make a movie). We made comedies with our cousins.”

Ed. Note: The article and sidebar above contain references to brand-name devices and games.  These references reflect the experiences and viewpoints of the authors and do not reflect any official endorsement or recommendation on the part of bNetS@vvy.

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