Video Games

I love video games. At one point I loved them so much it was hurting my marriage so I all but gave them up.

Lately I've been jonesing to buy a Wii. It looks like fun, but two things are stopping me.

1.) I don't think the games are good for kids. It is only a personal opinion, but I think it contributes to the rise in ADHD as I think television does. Believing that, I can hardly indulge knowing the kids will be included. On rare occasions dg5 and I will play a racing/crash game. I don't like the way it makes me feel when we play together. For that reason I refrain foremost.

2.) In my last stake the number one reason for divorce was not infidelity, or pornography, or money issues, it was video games. Men would not put the games away to be with their families. What an empty existence. To that point there are signs of addictive inclinations and incidents in my family. These have never been healthy. Knowing the kids may have a predisposition to addicitions and knowing that video game studies have proven the games are addictive, how can I put the two together?

I am sometimes a lazy parent. I would prefer "wrastling" to reading or playing a game. I do both, but I very much want to try harder to be a more engaged parent and "wrastling" isn't going to get me there.

The end game is I want healthy children. One day I will die and when they look back I want them to know I loved them because I gave them the most precious thing I have to give, my time. It is not enough to feel love. Love is a do word, a verb, an action. Do = Love, Do Not, but feel Love = Broken, Do Not = no love.

And I think a notch up from that is to give them the very best time I have. Sometimes that will be wrestling, but more often than not it will be exploring, or playing pretend, or reading, or teaching and sometimes just laying with them so they can get to sleep. I love being a Father.