Losing Sleep » Parenting

You Gotta Fight for Your Right to… Game?

Chris — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 15:49:17 +0000

¹ Over at Joystiq there was a post about a Gamestop manager that was refusing to sell video games to kids that couldn’t prove they had good grades at school. (Original story here.) I’m not sure how I feel about this. A part of me is thinking that this guy really has no right to deny kids video games. That’s not his job, it’s the kids parent’s job to withhold video games if they are doing poorly in school. Another part of me is thinking, “Good for him.” Why not hold kids up to a standard?

Mostly I’m thinking that this guy is going about this all wrong. It’s a good idea but it really isn’t his job to withhold video games. He could approach this from another angle. Instead of withholding video games from kids for poor grades, why not give a discount (say 10% – 20% off) on video games for good grades. Then this plan goes from being a negative to being a positive. Another idea is to give kids with good grades a 2 for the price of 1 on used games. Give them a reward for doing something right. We constantly punish kids for all the wrong things they do but sometimes it really feels like we never reward them for all the stuff they do right.

Joypad taken by FHKE

Children’s Program at Chicago Public Library

Chris — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 13:40:58 +0000

¹ A couple of weeks ago I had to go observe a children’s program at a public library for one of my grad school classes. I originally wanted to go see a young adult program but because of time and travel restrictions I settled on going to the Harold Washington Library to watch a program at the Thomas Hughes Children’s Library. I was happily surprised by how good it was. The presenter was a woman named Katie and she had a program prepared about things that move. She had a crowd of 20 to 30 children (2-5 yrs. old with a preschool group) and she presented in the small theatre in the children’s library.

She really had the kids attention right from the beginning and they all seemed to be enjoying it. Katie would read a picture book and intersperse it with finger plays, action activities and sing alongs. It was a good mix of activities because it kept the kids from zoning out and then would draw them back in when it was time for more focused attention. It was really nicely done.

The one critique that I would make is that it was too long. The entire program was 40 minutes and at about the 35 minute mark the kids really started to get restless. It wasn’t too crazy but you could tell that the program was running too long.

All in all it was a great activity and I would recommend it to anybody with young children. It would make a great morning activity, you could take the train down, go to the program, eat lunch and then take the train home (that is if it doesn’t interfere with nap time). The programs are at 11:00am and are supposed to run about 40 minutes. At some point I’m going to bring my own children down but I’ll wait until I can get the Mommy to come with me so I don’t have to wrestle the kids on my own.

For more information you can look at the Thomas Hughes Children’s Library Calendar of Events.

Photo by Paytonc

Divide and Conquer

Chris — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 18:36:44 +0000

Does it make me a bad parent to say that I like my kids more when I have them one on one rather than both at the same time? I feel guilty feeling about them in that way, but one on one is always so much more relaxed. I’ve noticed that my children act like microphones producing feedback. When one of them is agitated or upset, the other one picks up that energy and amplifies it. Then the first one picks up that energy and starts amplifying that, ad infinitum. Of course this works irregardless of what type of energy it is, happy, sad or angry. My kids crack me up and I have a blast with them, but I sometimes feel like time spent one on one is more productive, like that time is worth more. I try to spend one on one time with both of them equally (if I spend too much time with one over the other then I feel guilty because I’m neglecting the other one). I feel guilty about a lot of things.