I Killed the Nintendo

At least once a year, my boys and I make the grueling 10-hour trek from Cali to Florida to visit my family. To ease in-flight boredom, we bought our son, Nate, his first Gameboy.

That was a year or so ago, and we were impressed by how well he cared for the machine and his games. In November, we upgraded him to a fancy Nintendo DS for his 5th birthday.

Nate's love for all things Nintendo was pretty well established by this time, and I should have seen the signs. But we were being doting and indulging parents and wanted him to have what he wanted. And we allowed a very bad habit to form.

Nate's love for video games was turning him into a kid I knew he wasn't. A kid with no other interests than to sit on the couch glued to a machine. It's all he talked about with his father. It's all he talked about with friends. He wanted to take his game to the park or beach to play it there, and it was a fight to make him leave it at home. He demanded it from the moment he woke to the moment he slept.

Throughout the Gameboy era, as I call it, I didn't keep a strict, consistent time limit on the amount he played. That, of course, crossed over to the DS era.

I finally wised up and last month applied a one-hour time limit, which he could use in a single sitting or in segments. I'd set the timer so Nate - and I - would know when time was up. I set up a chore chart for him to earn time on the Gameboy. Nate took pride in being good at the games, so I tried to turn that into a positive life lesson as well.

It was all good and well, but it didn't solve the bigger issue at hand - my kid was addicted to video games.

So a week ago, I rid the house of the beast. No more Nintendo. Period. My husband took the DS to his office so he could play it on his lunch breaks. The Gameboy is around here somewhere, and when I find it, that's gone too.

Nathan pitched a fit at first, of course, but it hasn't been as bad as I thought it would be. I explained to him that I took the DS away not because he was naughty or in trouble, but because I'm concerned by his need to have it.

He now tries to compensate by playing games on Noggin.com, so I still have a challenge on my hands. But I'm starting to see an improvement - he's interacting with us more, playing with toys and his train set, and being a real kid.

I know that video games can be fun in moderation. And when Nate gets older (age 7 or 8) and can handle playing in moderation, I'll reconsider the ban.

For now, I'm just happy to have my kid back from the clutches of Mario.









Sayonara, dude!