Video Game Phenomenom

A long, long time ago, (last Christmas) in a land far, far away (also known as San Diego), T's cousin gave his old Nintendo Game Boy to T. It was a very generous gift to a boy who was two at the time. He loved the game boy because it was his older cousins. T had no idea how to make the game work, but if his  cousin could do it, then he would pretend he was playing it too.

 Since then, he had played with the game sporadically every now and then. The game hasn't always been a Game Boy. It has doubled as other things for him. While watching GO! Diego GO! for example, the game became his field journal. When he watched Super Why, the game was his super computer. At one point I remember him holding the game and telling me he was going to go watch his movies. I guess it was a dvd player at the time.

 The reason I mention this Game Boy now is because he has finally played with it so often that he taught himself to play the games. This past week is the first time I noticed that when he plays the games, he can really 'play' them. Before, he pushed buttons and listened to the noises it made and when the game itself was actually loaded up he would usually turn it off and start it over so he could listen to the songs and sounds it makes as it started up. He has a couple of games, but mostly the games that are in there most often are Mario Kart, and another one named Yoshi.

This week I noticed that he was moving the car around on the Mario Kart game. So I sat with him a short time and gave him some tips on playing, and he was off and going with it. He actually completed a race on the game by himself soon after. Believe me, to go three laps around the course on that game is no easy task.

 Then another time he had put in Yoshi. He was moving this little character around through the game screens. His only problem was that he just didn't know what he was supposed to do because the instructions are written on the screen before each round, and he can't read yet. I read the instructions to him for the first couple rounds, and let him watch me play it once. He went off and played for a while, and not long after he came running up to me with his all so proud grin on his face yelling,"Look daddy, Look!" I took the game and looked at it, and the screen read,"Mission Completed!" He had gone through the entire first round, and completed all the required goals. He had to find and have Yoshi eat a certain amount of apples; some of which required some difficult jumping maneuvers to get the Yoshi character to be able to eat them. I was amazed, and so proud of him for working so hard. I gave him a great big hug. 

Don't think I don't hear what you are thinking. I think it too. After all, it is the beginning of the video game phase. That possibly dark time when kids focus so intently on video games that parents often become invisible and only the game screen exists. I see it in his eyes at times already. He focuses so hard on that screen while he plays. But here is what I like about it for right now:

I like that he is so determined to figure it out. 

I like his curiosity about the whole thing. He asks me tons of questions. 

I like, for now, that he can focus on that game for an extended period of time. 

I like that he is able to stop playing at bed time without any problem.

I like that he likes to share and let me play so he can watch. 

For now, I think it is a good thing for him. It also works as a great reward when we need him to do something he doesn't want to, and that is priceless.