Games kids play

“Honey! I told you to play and you are staring outside the window. What’s up?”

“Mom! You told me to take a break of 5 minutes for every half-hour and stare outside. Instead, I am staring now for full 20 minutes and play for two hours together”

This is a joke I just read in one of the magazines. The kid without understanding what the mother said had innovatively come out with an alternate idea for a break-free game. The kid unknowingly defeated the very purpose of the break his mother wanted to provide. Lighter moments apart, this joke indirectly tells us a one dangerous evil that has entered all our living rooms without any warning.

You guessed it right and we are talking about the menace of the video games. I was born and brought up in Chennai and luckily I happened to live in a Agraharam – a secluded place where Brahmins resided in groups. We had enough space to play around there. Though cricket was the predominant game, the games used to change according to seasons. They played cricket, chess, carom, sprinting, hopping, volley ball and of course local games like flying kites, top, marbles and gilli-danda. I stayed away from sprinting and all other local games. Nevertheless, we happened to run around those spaces and enjoyed our evenings. Indeed, I was lucky enough to have such an open space (however, small it was) in a so-called metro-city.

My son, as long as we resided in Vapi, never stayed awake after 2130hrs. His daily routines started as early as 6 in the morning as to get ready by 6:45 as to catch his school bus. He will be back by 14:00hrs and will have his lunch. He will complete his homework by 17:00 and used to go out for playing. He will be back by 18:30. He will freshen up, have his prayer, have his dinner and by 21:00 will hit the bed.

I was sure, he could not stay no longer awake as he used to get tired from his hectic schedule of schooling and playing. We had a huge open space in our colony and all that he has to do is to run around. He skated at times, cycled, played cricket or football. Though Vapi is a small town, even his school had a good big play ground and my son literally had a nice time there to keep him engaged in physical activities.

Now I have shifted to Pune a relatively bigger city. It has its own advantages and disadvantages. At the outset, space is a bigger constraint here. There are no free spaces here. Even the schools lacked play grounds. I had a tough time choosing a school for my son that could engage him physically also.

I hardly saw people strolling. Everybody is busy but to themselves. Either they are hooked onto their TV sets while their kids are hooked onto their play-stations. All the gaming that kids do here is virtual game. If you cannot afford to have a PC at home, there are cyber cafes where more stations are dedicated to such kids who literally play. They play virtual cricket, fire virtual crackers and those kids in such cities playing games means playing Video / PC games and not the games that are played in open ground.

Irony is, such video games are harmful to the kids. It makes them lazy at the outset. Due to lack of physical activities, they do not get tired and sleep comes late. They wake till late night and get up late in the morning. “Early to bed and Early to rise” has no meaning in today’s living standards. Needless to mention, the harm that is created to the eyes (that go dry) and small kids with spectacles have become very common nowadays.

Apart from these well know problems, the additional problem now is the content per se of the game. No longer kids are interested in Car racing, or Mario jumping – it is the turn of terrorists winning over the good. Bombarding bombs, firing with sten-guns, use of ammunition are all quite common in games. If it is not preferred, then there is WWF. In a nutshell, we are encouraging violence from the childhood. Or we might say, we are preparing our kids to tackle terrorism (or teach them to live with it) at this young age.

If two kids played together then one of them must be Khali & the other must be Undertaker (I doubt whether these kids knew the meaning of this word). What sort of ethics are we imposing on our kids?

British Govt has come out with a novel plan of issuing a censorship certificate for such games so that parents can have a choice. I seriously doubt whether this will work. By issuing a certificate the govt approves production of such games with such topics. Is it right? At the least it gives some control. Here again the problem is sharing. Even if one parent allows their kid to have an access to such games, it spreads across to his buddies. Whoever not supposed to have an access will have an access to it and the very purpose of the certification is getting defeated.

Unfortunately, parents treat children as menace. They fail to realize that the menaces of such games are more harmful than the menace of kids. In fact, parents should start enjoying the menace of their children that would develop a bonding relationship among them. Say no to video games – if it is of violent games, then it must be a taboo. Similarly, let us stop purchasing toys like gun, pistol, etc., that can indirectly encourage violence among kids.