Many Parents Avoid Video Games With Kids

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I’m not really a fan of polls like this because it gives a skewed view of reality by limiting the questions to “video games.” The poll says over 40% of parents don’t game with their kids and a full 30% of the ones that do, only do it for less than an hour. It would have been nice to see what percentage of those parents spend ANY time with their kids…gaming or not.

Besides those who simply don't play the games with their children, another 30 percent say they spend less than an hour a week doing so. All told, about three in four parents of young gamers never or hardly ever touch the stuff.
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The numbers aren’t really as important as WHAT people say that don’t game with their kids, I would LOVE to see what amount of time those parents spend with their kids. The one lady says "I don't think it's good for them, the violence, the obsession," yet her kid plays more than 25 hours a week. Real nice lady, real nice.
 
My parents never played video games with me and my brothers. Didn't even play Legos with us. :D

Granted, probably 65% of the time I was playing RPGs. You can't expect parents to learn the controllers. My mom can't even remember to hit the TV button on the remote to turn off the TV. Instead she turns off the cable box, leaving the TV aglow. :(

Plus, parents want their alone time. They buy the consoles to keep their kids entertained and happy. I highly doubt most parents are at the store thinking, "This would be so much fun to play with the kids."

I don't think this a bad thing, although not spending any time is a bad. You need your space. You need to indulge in things that others may not appreciate like you do. I don't think I would've wanted my parents to play with us anyway. Parents need time away from the kids, and kids need time away from the parents.
 
All I gotta say is, you try being 10 years old, loving hockey (your dad loves hockey too), and handing your dad a SNES controller to hack at some NHL '96 with you.

Now lets be honest.. when you were young, playing NES and SNES, did you ever try to get your mom or dad to join in the fun? I did all the time, my parents would always try at least a game or two before they up and said 'I just dont get it.'

So clearly this poll wasnt taking into consideration all the parents of yesterday. Sure maybe today some 30 year old with a kid is going to be more likely to play some Xbox with their kid, heck the 30 year old grew up playing video games so its some bonding. But when it comes down to the older parents, lets be real, they can hardly operate a remote. =]

On the other hand though, when Tiger Woods was really popular on Xbox, I sat down with my pops and said 'Hey lets play some golf you should be pretty good at this game.' MAN did I ever get my ass handed too me, not to mention how I cant even begin to fathom how to explain the awkward contorted position he held the controller with.
 
I'm 31, father of a 2 year old daughter and a son to be born within a week and I will be doing my best to encourage them to play video games. My daughter loves watching me play games on the wii so it shouldn't be too much longer before she wants to start playing as well. I think that if you took the same poll 10 years from now of the 40+ year old parents, you will see a very different result. I grew up playing on the atari and now mainly pc games and I don't see my stopping gaming anytime soon. Sure I can't play nearly as much as I would like but do game wheneve I get a spare hour here or there.
 
I am 27, back in the day my dad tried to get into Nintendo, but it never happened. He loved Duck hunt. Now at the age of 52 he is very much into video games, he plays them all the time.
 
It's about doing something with your kids they enjoy. Can't hang in Halo 3? Get into a game you CAN do. Still can't hang? ...

....I got an idea, go into the bedroom / game room and PRETEND to be interested in what he/she is playing. Try to play it, make an ass of yourself, let your kid get a good laugh and then just LISTEN to your kid talk about what he is doing on screen (they are dying to tell you). Talk about the game, what makes it "cool" and so on. You can work in a few non-gaming related questions, take a few notes if you have to and do it again tomorrow. You never know, you might learn something from your kid and...if all else fails, you still spent time with him/her.

The people in this article that don't have time for their kids are asshats... I work from 3am to 3pm every day (here...duh ;) ), my wife works full time and we have plenty of time for our kids. Sometimes the gaming IS our quality time for the day when we can't get out and around to do other stuff.

Sorry, people like the ones in the article just irk me. :mad:
 
Actually, group gaming is what my family is about. My mother, "Granny", plays Pokemon and RPGs and has worked up to a few "finger" rpgs like Crystal Chronicles and such.

Her, myself, my sister and her husband played the DS Mana game over Xmas last year. Now, she has a full set of every Pokemon that a lot she got trading around the world. My son (7 years old) is jealous and she trades him some of the legendarys that she has multiples of for his lame ones.

It is a social bonding thing that I'm sure few families have and makes gaming a lot more enjoyable as you don't have some foul mouthed brat questioning your sexuality because his parents don't take an active involvement in his hobby.
 
My grandpa played more NES than I did. We used to play NES as a family activity in the living room after dinner.

Why this isn't more commonplace now, I am not sure. Especially considering how family-friendly the new consoles are.
 
Steve said:
The numbers aren’t really as important as WHAT people say that don’t game with their kids, I would LOVE to see what amount of time those parents spend with their kids. The one lady says "I don't think it's good for them, the violence, the obsession," yet her kid plays more than 25 hours a week. Real nice lady, real nice.
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Nail on the head.

She objects to what her kids watch or play, but lets them do it anyways?

That's the worst form of parenting ever. That's letting your kids run amock.
 
My cousin, when asked about why she plays with her kids on the 360, told me this:

If you don't have time to spend with your kids, why did you have them in the first place?

My cousin plays on the 360 a lot. In fact she plays a lot of Rainbow Six Vegas and Graw 2 almost exclusively. Her kids play Halo 3 and whatever she rents as a reward for the weekend, and she's there to play with them or watch them play. She doesn't allow her kids to play games during the week. And even on the weekend they're not allowed to play games until all their homework is done. They keep the 360 in the family room so it's not like they can just try and sneak on to play it, since everyone can see it.

While I was growing up my mom would try to get involved and play a lot of the stuff I played. She found a few favorites among the things I played. And now she's dying to get a Wii.

You know, it's amazing how much they study video games and how much kids play them. But nobody really asks how much the parents even CARE that their kids are playing these things. And it even gets pointed out that some parent lets their kid play violent video games 25 hours a week or more. People have part time jobs with that kind of weekly time investment!

What I'd love to see is a study done on criminals to see how much their parents got involved in their lives, or even the kids sitting in juvey. Then compare them to the kids who actually have parents actively trying to be a part of their lives, and see how fucked up they are.
 
I found this thread and it remind of my dad sitting for hours playing Dragon Warrior on the NES when I was like 9. I own a Wii and he's nearly blind but he still manages to pull off a 120-180 game in WiiSports bowling. My kids (3 and 4) love watching me play and I'll sit and watch them play. It's a lot of fun and I don't see how parents don't enjoy to spending time with their kids and use time as an excuse.
 
again with 2000 people. :(

According to this article 81% of children ages 4 - 17 play video games every now and then, while only 38% of adults play games every now and then.

According to the ESA, 69% of head of households play games

Then broke it down to say that all gamers 28.2% are under the age of 18, 47.6% are 18 - 49, and 24.2 are over the age of 50.

Looking at those two sets of numbers it would appear that one of them is wrong. It should always show why 2000 people is not enough.
 
Poll would be much easier if it was

"Many Parents Avoid Contact With Their Children"

Thats basically how it is.
 
Does this mean those parents playing GTA with their 8yr old, beating up random pedestrians as a family are better parents? If that's the case my parents sucked, they wouldn't even play Super Mario with me... That damn father figure kept taking me fishing, the real kind!
 
hl3395 said:
Does this mean those parents playing GTA with their 8yr old, beating up random pedestrians as a family are better parents? If that's the case my parents sucked, they wouldn't even play Super Mario with me... That damn father figure kept taking me fishing, the real kind!
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I think the point is that parents that spend any time with their kids are better parents than those who don't.
 
I used to play Madden 96 and some baseball game with my dad on an old sega when I was much younger. I remember those as some of the more fun times.
 
When I was in grade school I was cooping Doom, Heretic, Hexen, Quake, etc with my pops. I'm 21 now and cooping Gears of War with him. :D
 
My mom beat the original Doom with no cheats! :) Also she beat the original Alone in the Dark. She was very much into PC gaming for awhile. But she calls every console an "xbox", it don't matter if its a PS2 or 360 :)
 
As a 37yr old dad, with children 8yrs and 3yrs, I LOVE playing games with my kids. I started playing MS Flight Sim 1.0 on a freaking Apple way back in the day.

Someone else said something about spending time with your children, no matter what the activity, is what's important, and I agree 100%.

My 8yr old has A's in school, good manners, listens *most* of the time, is well adjusted, etc., etc., and he has been playing PC games since Quake3 when he was 3yrs old!!!

Kids CAN be shown that games are games, and game violence is NOT real. For Christ's sake, I played "violent" games in the pastures when I was a kid, it was called "cowboys and indians" and we "pretended" to kill each other all the time!!!! Do I murder people because of that? Nope....music and games don't make kids violent.

It's mostly lack of parenting!
 
RIP mom

But before back in the super nintendo, sega, nintendo days, we all would still bust out the ATARI 2600, and my mom would go out and buy like....... 20 dollars in candy. and she would give us like half of it up front, and save the rest for prizes. and we would stay up till sunrise playing battle tank and air sea battle and shit. She used to sit up with us and watch us play super mario three until we were blue in the face. Then we got a sega and we would have like gran tourismo 1 competitions and stuff.
Right before she died, she used to try to play Delta Force black hawk down with us in the novalogic servers. She was never that good at it, but she would get all excited when she acctually killed someone lol.

I miss those days.
 
ha my parents never played with me on anything until i got my Wii and now they always want to play it cause the games are so easy to learn compared to 15 button controllers
 
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