Bonding over video games
We’ve been using video games to bond with our kids for a while now. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, right?
We’ve been using video games to bond with our kids for a while now. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, right?
An interesting thing happened the other day. My husband was talking about some recent political events in the United States, and my kids and I didn’t know what he was talking about.
If you have children who have access to a phone and the ability to text, you may be venturing into a completely new area of communication with them. Have you noticed emoji replies? Or abbreviated statements? GIF-only responses or memes that you have to Google to understand? You aren’t alone.
So what should parents make of this?
Online news is one of the hardest things to verify. Sometimes early reports that turn out not to be true still circulate on the Internet, and people may spread false reports for commercial or malicious reasons, or even just for “fun.”
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?
We have a few smartphone rules in our house: no phones after 9:30 p.m., no phones at the dinner table or other family events, and no phones in bedrooms.