Resources for Parents - Video Games

10 tiny ways you can make the world a better place today

You can make the world a better place TODAY. 10 tiny ways you can make the world a better place today.

Co-Viewing With Your Kids

One of the most important things you can do to raise media-savvy kids is what’s called shared media engagement. That includes listening to their music, watching TV, movies and videos together, getting to know their favourite apps and playing the games they enjoy. It also includes talking to them about their media lives: what they like, what they’re excited about or looking forward to, and what worries or annoys them. While just being with them is an important step, this is also a great opportunity to help your kids think critically about the media they consume, by asking them questions about it and, sometimes, answering back.

Getting the Rules Right

When screens started being part of our daily lives – not just for work, but for entertainment, communication, and news – we parents had to do some serious thinking. What would the rules be? How would we govern these new devices? What were the best choices?

Talking to kids about racial stereotypes

Racial stereotypes abound on television, and children's programming is no exception. The turban-wearing bad guy, the brainy Asian, and the Black basketball whiz are just a few of the stereotypes reinforced in children's cartoons, films and TV shows. Spotting these stereotypes is often difficult for children; to them, the tomahawk-wielding Indian or the Asian karate expert is a familiar, easily-understood and often funny character. So how do you help children understand these images for what they are – oversimplified, generalizations?

Meaning and action in games

At its core, a game is constructed from several essential components: a defined Goal (the end state players are trying to reach), Rules (the formal structure establishing what can and cannot be done), Obstacles (elements preventing easy goal achievement) and a Core Dynamic, "the main action of a game, what the player does most of the time in order to reach their goal(s)."[1]