I'm a mom and I love video games

I always hear mom’s complaining about their kids playing video games.  I’ve never understood the “motherly” distaste for these games.  Of course I understand that some kids and husbands only want to play video games and they “forget” to have conversations or they “forget” to play outside or they “forget” to do their homework.  But there is a wonderful place in our life for video games.

I’m not a gamer but I do have a gamer tag.  It is “aimichka.”  My husband and both of my girls also have gamer tags.  We signed them up early so that no one else would have their tag.  For our wedding, we returned everything that was a duplicate and bought an XBox with the money.  When I was taken off bedrest, one of the first errands I went on was to locate an XBOX 360 days after the release.  And my second errand was to go and pick one up for a friend.

Here are the reasons that I love video games…

• When it is cold outside, the 4 of us can play RockBand and laugh together, sing together and learn how to watch the screen and make our fingers, or drumsticks/foot translate what the colors on the screen want them to do.
• Scott almost always beats the girls at whatever game they are playing and they get to learn that you don’t always win and it is more about the time playing – not who wins.
• Sometimes Jade beats Scott and this helps him remember it isn’t always about winning and more about the journey.
• The way many surgeries are preformed now, a good question to ask your doctor is if he was a gamer.  According to something I read years ago, doctors who play video games are more agile with their hands and have better hand eye coordination.  ESPECIALLY on the procedures when they are looking at a screen instead of the patients actual insides.
• Some video games help children with their problem solving skills.  They have to determine how to get up to a certain place in the game and how to rescue whatever needs to be rescued.

Also, we have had some fantastic game nights.  We have friends all over the country that all play the same game.  We’ll pick a night and connect via XBOX Live and play for hours.  Sometimes there were just a few of us and other nights there were as many as 10 playing together.  This was a great way for us to connect with our friends from all over the country.  We actually haven’t played recently and I really miss it.  But, it is an activity we typically reserve for winter when the days end earlier and the nights are colder.

Oh sure, you have to be careful with the games you allow your kids to play.  Sometimes you have to give them a time limit so that they don’t waste the whole day staring at a screen.  Of course you can’t let them play every day (it is addictive) and you can’t let it interfere with their school work or other activities.  But, for our family, video games are great.

I’m a mom and I love video games.

What is your take on video games?