Screen-agers

When the kids got a Playstation from Nanna at Christmas, I was happy for them – despite my feelings about computer games, borne from experience of Josh’s transformation into a zombie like snotty kid when he had one. I even entered into the spirit of the thing, playing with considerable enjoyment (for a while) a game where Homer Simpson drives around a street circuit in cars that he’s stopped and commandeered, hitting innocent fictional others whose cries of ‘idiot’ are as water to a ducks back for Homer. He, for reasons unclear, has a feature that allows him to go up to someone and kick the bejesus out of them. The game is called ‘Hit and Run’.

The question is; do the game manufacturers make these games because they know that the average gamer contains an inner git, or does the average gamer contain an inner git because the game manufactures make this sort of game available?

OK, I didn’t feel any difference when I next got into my car… not for one moment did I consider running down any innocent pedestrians or kicking them for that matter. So should I be worried? Probably not.

But there’s still the fact that playing these games has a weird effect on the ability of your child to engage in polite and considerate interaction with other flesh and blood characters that are external to the game, i.e. the rest of the family. And their inability to do this seems to be in proportion to the amount of time you leave them exposed to the machine. Left to their own devices, they’ll sit there for hours…caught up with it.

But the games engender some kind of physical loading, like adrenalin being increased, preparing them for a fight/flight response to something, and because it requires sitting still, what comes out is noxious behaviour.

Couple this with Matilda’s easy propensity to cross that line when she forgets herself, and Phoebe’s increasing skill in pushing her over it, and you have a ‘tricky’ situation.

But wait, there’s more! The local kids love it too! Especially as we have the facility to allow four players on some of the games! Having four or more pumped up girls inside the house, with all the attendant noise, (meaning that they also turn up the volume on the TV) is, well lets just say I can think of better places for them to be, and the places become less and less savoury the longer they’re inside the house playing this machine. I don’t think it’s going too far to say that having one of these in the house is like keeping a baby elephant in your kitchen. Essentially innocent, attractive to kids, but at the end of the day the house will never be big enough.

I have exported myself to the garage to work. I feel like I’m in involuntary exile.

So yesterday to loud complaint, I muted the TV mid game to suggest to the assembled gaggle that if they wanted to, Daile and I could take them and their bicycles down to Beenleigh to the BMX park and they could get some of that adrenalin out of their systems. They loved the idea, and forgave me for the intrusion…phew!

I didn’t take any pics unfortunately, but imagine the sight of ten bicycles strapped onto my ute, along with a compressor and line, tools, etc. The result was palpable. All the noise didn’t seem so wrong. In fact it felt like it was right! They belted around this track, which has lots of bumps and drops that get your heart racing. The difference of course is that you ARE racing, and it’s all GOOD adrenalin. They played really sweetly and nicely for several hours, discovering also that there was a pond with tadpoles in that they could catch with their bare hands! We returned at dusk, via the chip shop, had a few rounds of ‘Pass the bomb’ which got them all cranked up again, and a couple of rounds of ‘Twister’ which gave them a physical outlet… and then they were inexplicably invited to Tracy’s for a sleepover…!

Wooohoooo! So all of them trooped off there, and Daile and I actually got some quality time!

That was our Sunday…how was yours?