Comment My experience from 0-10 (Score 1) 503
I am a geek and a pretty major gamer.
Early on, my son was fascinated by me working on the computer, so I would put him on my latch and he would watch and quickly realize what keyboard was all about so start hammering on it a little harder then me. I then added an extra unplug keyboard in front of mine for him and he would hammer on his while I would hammer on mine and most of the time fall a sleep head on the keyboard.
Pretty quick he became interested in his own games, so I use an old PC just for him and set him up with game of his age, and that was fine for a while. Pretty rapidly he could install games him self, accepting "T&C" on his own and so on (That part was sort of funny, without reading he know accept vs reject)
Around 4-5 year old, he started to notice we were not playing the same type of games and he seem to think my games were much better then his, he had great interest to the few FPS I played (That sort of bothered me) and other games.
I love Strategy game and he was asking a lot of questions about what was going on and wanted to play. I finally set him up on Age of Empire and we would play collectively, early in the game I would run to his camp, build walls, and we could finish a game like that without him being wiped out. His progression was astonishing, pretty quickly we were combining strategy together to finish campains and it was a lot of fun. At that moment the relation with my son started to change, I was no longer the dad that says no, but his playing buddy and his friend.
Shortly after this we started to play role playing game together, Neverwinter night was the game we could play networked together and we did that for a little bit. He quickly grasp that as well.
He notice then my computer was much faster then his, so we agree that if he wanted a better computer he had to build it. so we went shopping for parts and he did put it all together, I was proud :-) But also when he complains something is not working I can tell him to fixe it himself now :-P That's a releif
Then came World of Warcraft...
I think he was around 5-6 when I started to play and when he saw it, it was obvious he wanted to jump in as well, so I setup an account and decided I would play with him. Because we moved, he was having real hard time at school, specially in language because where we came from was not as advance as to where we move and he was having a real hard time, home work were a fight each night, he did not want to learn to read or write and was not motivated at all. Now WoW is a very much social game, you need to interact with people and read quests...
We had long chat as to why reading/writing was important in relation to Wow, reading quest, asking for help... The change in attitude was overnight, he was extremely motivated to learn now because there was a reason and a direct meaning as to be able to read and write. Wow became the motivation to do home work, and once we had the home work done, we would play wow together, he has been doing amassing at school ever since. He has also learn a lot about the social aspect of the net and how to behave socially, since we always play together, I am there with him and can see what he does and how he react so I can sort of guide him as to what to do. Because english is not his first language and he barely knew how to write, a lot of people were making fun of his writing on wow, now he takes great care in writing well, he does not use any of the lingo older kids use and i sort of like that.
some observation:
-Obviously we do other things then play games in life, but playing with him as brought me very close to my son, he has open discussion with me on all sort of things that I sure did not have with my dad. (My dad is a great guy BTW :-) )
-He does not play more on the computer then watch TV, play outside or play with legos. Without having to limit anything it's fairly well balance. When he is playing a lot he tend to watch less TV, what I don't think is a bad thing.
-He does not like his friends to see him with his mother, but I can freely walk to his friend with him and chat with them about anything.
-I don't like it when he plays violent FPS but he is still in contact with them, from his friends and so on, so I much rather play games with him and guide him then let others do it.
anyhow, my buddy is 10 now and we have a great time, I don't believe playing games is bad as long as you are involve. It has brought me very close to him and even my wife encourage it now cause she notice too this very special relation I have with him.
BTW make sure he has is own computer, it's a risky business otherwise :-)
English is not my first language sorry for the typo :-D
Early on, my son was fascinated by me working on the computer, so I would put him on my latch and he would watch and quickly realize what keyboard was all about so start hammering on it a little harder then me. I then added an extra unplug keyboard in front of mine for him and he would hammer on his while I would hammer on mine and most of the time fall a sleep head on the keyboard.
Pretty quick he became interested in his own games, so I use an old PC just for him and set him up with game of his age, and that was fine for a while. Pretty rapidly he could install games him self, accepting "T&C" on his own and so on (That part was sort of funny, without reading he know accept vs reject)
Around 4-5 year old, he started to notice we were not playing the same type of games and he seem to think my games were much better then his, he had great interest to the few FPS I played (That sort of bothered me) and other games.
I love Strategy game and he was asking a lot of questions about what was going on and wanted to play. I finally set him up on Age of Empire and we would play collectively, early in the game I would run to his camp, build walls, and we could finish a game like that without him being wiped out. His progression was astonishing, pretty quickly we were combining strategy together to finish campains and it was a lot of fun. At that moment the relation with my son started to change, I was no longer the dad that says no, but his playing buddy and his friend.
Shortly after this we started to play role playing game together, Neverwinter night was the game we could play networked together and we did that for a little bit. He quickly grasp that as well.
He notice then my computer was much faster then his, so we agree that if he wanted a better computer he had to build it. so we went shopping for parts and he did put it all together, I was proud
Then came World of Warcraft...
I think he was around 5-6 when I started to play and when he saw it, it was obvious he wanted to jump in as well, so I setup an account and decided I would play with him. Because we moved, he was having real hard time at school, specially in language because where we came from was not as advance as to where we move and he was having a real hard time, home work were a fight each night, he did not want to learn to read or write and was not motivated at all. Now WoW is a very much social game, you need to interact with people and read quests...
We had long chat as to why reading/writing was important in relation to Wow, reading quest, asking for help... The change in attitude was overnight, he was extremely motivated to learn now because there was a reason and a direct meaning as to be able to read and write. Wow became the motivation to do home work, and once we had the home work done, we would play wow together, he has been doing amassing at school ever since. He has also learn a lot about the social aspect of the net and how to behave socially, since we always play together, I am there with him and can see what he does and how he react so I can sort of guide him as to what to do. Because english is not his first language and he barely knew how to write, a lot of people were making fun of his writing on wow, now he takes great care in writing well, he does not use any of the lingo older kids use and i sort of like that.
some observation:
-Obviously we do other things then play games in life, but playing with him as brought me very close to my son, he has open discussion with me on all sort of things that I sure did not have with my dad. (My dad is a great guy BTW
-He does not play more on the computer then watch TV, play outside or play with legos. Without having to limit anything it's fairly well balance. When he is playing a lot he tend to watch less TV, what I don't think is a bad thing.
-He does not like his friends to see him with his mother, but I can freely walk to his friend with him and chat with them about anything.
-I don't like it when he plays violent FPS but he is still in contact with them, from his friends and so on, so I much rather play games with him and guide him then let others do it.
anyhow, my buddy is 10 now and we have a great time, I don't believe playing games is bad as long as you are involve. It has brought me very close to him and even my wife encourage it now cause she notice too this very special relation I have with him.
BTW make sure he has is own computer, it's a risky business otherwise
English is not my first language sorry for the typo
