My son is 6 and recently discovered from one of his buddies how to play video games (Pac-Man, Centipede, Doodle Jump and the like) on Netflix and our LG smart TV.
My wife and I are generally trying to limit video games but acknowledge that a complete ban, especially on these relatively simple games, may be excessive and that we could always meter the amount he plays. At the same time, we remain concerned about a slippery slope and every friend we have with older boys tells us they wish their sons had never started playing.
Any parents here who could share their experience navigating kids and video games? Any feedback is welcome.
Thank you!
24 comments
I let my sons play Super Nintendo once a week for one hour. Saturdays.
They’re 5 and a half and 3 and a half
So far it’s been working. Just have limits and designated play times.
My kids aren’t at that age yet but I started gaming around that age and it hasn’t been a negative impact on my life. I’d suggest you set a daily limit on game time that you’re comfortable with and monitor his activity on games especially if he’s going to be online with friends. Maybe even find some couch coop games to play with him.
What’s wrong with video games?
I let my son watch me play TOTK and BOTW back to back when he was 4 and 5.
It was fine. Screen time in general isn’t great for kids or even us but he enjoyed it. He was Link for Halloween that year.
I had my first video game (super mario on the SNES) at age 4. I like to think I am a fully functioning adult now. My parents basically limited what I played that was it. It seems to have worked. And eventually I got into some of the more mature games. I remember my older cousin letting me play twisted metal black story mode. That one was bad in retrospect for a 10 year old. But it never made me violent nor made me a bad person. I dont have a 6 year old yet, but I am not letting my kids use ipads or brain rot until they are older. And I am definitely setting limits on it.
That being said, as long as you monitor the games and set limits, your son will do fine. Like the rest of us 90s babies.
It’s all about time limits. I set much looser time limits on screen time if my kid was interacting with another one of his friends. Too much solo screen time turns him into a zombie. He couldn’t self-regulate until he was about 13 or 14, otherwise he would be on there all day and all night.
Video games are fine, just limit the amount of time they play. My wife and I grew up playing video games, still play today, and are perfectly normal. I wouldn’t let them play online games with strangers yet since that place is a cesspool.
Total bans never work. My cousins grew up in strict religious household and omg did they rebel as teens and 20 somethings
Sleep, School, Social life, Sun (physical activity). If games start hurting any of these, dial back.
Offer activities outside of video games that are more enticing. Most of the kids I know addicted to video games it’s directly a byproduct of their parents.
This is actually a great learning opportunity! Just setup boundaries and time limits. It will teach him how to play games responsibly.
Have fun 🙂
I played video games from the age of 4ish. Zero negative impact on me. To be fair it’s more engaging than watching TV
All my video game frustrations are from online play and microtransactions. Particularly Roblox. Offline Nintendo-style games with time limits are fine.
Use it as positive reinforcement and in controlled amounts, say, 30 min sessions. Reward him after doing his homework, finishing his meal, cleaning up his toys, etc.
I credit MineCraft and Wobbly Life as having a hugely positive impact on my child’s early reading success and use of Chromebooks when they first attended school
Videogames are great for people of all ages but of course parents should watch that it doesn’t get out of hand. And the mobile games are mostly just absolute brainrot material. It’s better to sit an hour a day playing proper games on console or PC than to waste hours playing some crap on their phones. Another brainrot genre is online shooters. Don’t let your kid get addicted to them and learn bad language and behavior from the other players. I consider one of my duties as a parent to be a kind of cultural ambassador. I want to show that there are more videogames than the 3 games all gen alpha kids play: Fortnite, Minecraft and Rob Blox. Me and my daughter have played Zeldas, Marios, Final Fantasy X, Cities Skielines, Portal and tons of other gamed from different genres. I’ve done the the same with movies and music too.
The big part I’ve found now is that I play video games with my kid. It’s primarily a together activity. It started with Minecraft actually and I had to dust off my old original mojang account. I’m able to moderate and track activity while they are on steam now and allow them to play with others but check their coms and groups. We talk about toxic behaviour and making them a good person online.
So I’ve been gaming my entire life, literally since I was four. I recently haven’t been able to really play the games I used to due to having a 7th month old daughter, but as a result I’ve been getting into emulators for older game systems (n64, ps2).
If possible I would say get him an n64 and a few games. If that’s too expensive I would say get him a cheap laptop (like $100) and set him up with some emulated games.
The reason I would say this is that the games are just… different.
Games today are setup to be endless engagement. They have no stopping points, they constantly barrage you with stimuli, they encourage grind, and they’re made to be accessible enough that there’s very little thought involved in playing them.
Older games, as I’m rediscovering, are very much not that. They’re slower paced and less bombastic. They don’t constantly slather the screen with stimuli to keep you hooked. They have puzzles which are solved via thoughtful environmental assessment and careful reading, rather than following yellow lines on the floor while an assistant tells you exactly what to do.
I find myself, as I play these other games, engaged and enjoying myself but also not… sucked in. It’s a lot harder to lose the entire day playing Mario 64, Gex, or Ocarina of Time than it is any sort of mobile game / moba / ect.
As stated above, I also fine the games far more thoughtful in what they ask of me.
For that reason I would suggest trying to let them play older games exclusively if possible. Not only will this help prevent the games from crippling their attention span, but I think there’s actually the potential to learn some problem solving skills and such through these games, as opposed to most of the ones out their today / those his friend is playing.
At least that’s what I intend to do with my daughter. But obviously your mileage may vary.
There’s these simple games and then there’s stuff like Fortnite or Minecraft or cod that are designed to be time sinks. Your kid will get bored of doodle jump within probably 15 minutes I’m guessing. I will say looking back I regret wasting so much time especially in my teenage years playing video games. My 20s have been a totally different story (I’m almost 28 and the past 8-9 years have been a wild ride in the best ways) but that took me realizing just how much time I’d wasted and what I could do instead. If you can keep him spending <30 minutes of gaming on an average session you’re doing great. He just needs other activities that he’s genuinely interested in, that’s the main thing.
Outdoor hobbies and passions matter.
Growing up, my youngest brother in the early 2000s had all the gaming hardware, Playstation 2, whatever was the best console at the time. He was also the national paddleboarding champion in his age division in high school.
When he went off to college, he left the video game system at home and never came back for it. He told me once that he stopped playing because “Games had just gotten too good” and he didn’t like how his relationship with the playstation was affecting his relationship with his other passions. He saw the playstation as a boredom box that interfered with his passions of skateboarding and surfing.
I’m not gonna say it was the most important decision of his life, but he’s in his early 30s, has a good career as a lineman, and has a wife and a 2 year old daughter, so I’d say whatever he did worked for him.
The problem is not video games. It’s video games in a vaccuum. When your only hobby is video games, you become a couch potato. But if you like anything that is active and engaging MORE than video games, then the video games won’t stand a chance, and will be limited to a healthy time or just fall off completely.
My 7yo plays games, but it is limited.
We play Mario Kart together and I’ve been teacher her about winning and losing with it, by having different “Daddy difficulty” levels. Now we play together and she either gets a half lap head start, or I don’t use power ups and it’s 50/50 on who wins.
She also has an older DSLite with some games on to play.
Lastly she plays some educational games on an amazon tablet, tt rockstars and teach your monster to read are good, along with BBC numberblocks and alike.
Everything just needs moderation, so if she’s naughty she doesn’t get to play them and they’re kept as a bonus treat.
Also she can’t pay games within an hour of bedtime.
I think limiting gaming is cruel if you aren’t doing something more to ensure a good childhood. Example- season passes to a water park. A cool program with other kids. If you have land with like dirt bikes and shit. Cool.
If you got him locked in some shitty suburb and it’s 115 outside with nothing going on. I’d let him game as much as he wants
I feel like banning video games in 2025 is like banning music, movies, or books. It’s an entire medium of art to be appreciated. Some of my most important memories throughout my life are related to social gaming. Gaming has been a bonding hobby between me and my family, me and my friends, and even me and my partner.
Surely you don’t want a kid to get addicted to any one thing, so limitations are perfectly fine. I think a general ‘screen time’ restriction is all you really need in this case. And keep them away from predatory games with F2P/MTX traps; don’t allow ANY spending in that category (no matter the age of your kid). That might be what your parent friends could be having problems with. Or they just didn’t do a good job of teaching limitations and restraint and moderation to their kids, which is not a problem with the games themselves.
If you want, even make it a social activity you can do together. Take turns playing Pac-Man or Doodle Jump and encourage him to try harder to beat your scores. Playing Pac-Man with my dad in the arcades and Tetris at home with my mom and comparing scores are core childhood memories for me. Plus seeing you stop could encourage him to take a break and move on to other activities, too.
Don’t let them play games on a tablet or phone…. Those are the trashiest, most addictive, gambling-esque games with little to no redeeming qualities.….. I suggest getting your kid a switch, and then being very selective with what games they play….. any first party Nintendo game is gonna be a good place to start. Also Minecraft is good, Roblox is terrible.
EDIT: I forget to add that the switch has good easy to use parental controls too
I can’t believe that “video games are bad” still persists after all these years.