So, in the beginning of the school year last year there was this article that I read concerning computer gaming and brain development. It said that allowing kids to play computer games was causing harm to the parts of the brain that have to do with discipline and delayed gratification. That basically, they are hard wiring the brain to seek instant gratification and to abhor hard work with delayed gratification. Actually, the article made it sound like gaming would hard wire the brain to be unable to work hard for delayed results. The researchers came to this conclusion because of the parts of the brain the lit up when they observed the brains of kids playing video games. The pleasure centers that are associated with instant gratification lit up.
Yesterday, I read an article by a mom that reminded me of the previously mentioned article. Her point was pretty much the exact opposite. Her subject was different. Not about brain development. Her article was about allowing our kids to value the things that are important to them. That we shouldn't limit their time and ability to do something they enjoy because we don't see the point. That we need to offer everything that is good and fun and allow them the time to do and explore those things and then we won't make the thing they love and we don't the ultimate object of their desire.
The second article really made sense to me. There are adults who are in their forties and fifties who have been messing around with computers and programming since the Commodore 64. A lot of those adults have become some kind of computer related professional. Some of them haven't. But the ones that have, if their parents had restricted their "screen time" when they were teens to something like 30 minutes, would they have ever had the basic knowledge to even know that they wanted to be programmers, software engineers, hardware engineers, or system engineers? If they hadn't been allowed to build their own programs and games would technology be as far along as it is today? It's an interesting question.
Maybe my logic is flawed. I'm not the most logical person I know even though I'm trying to be more logically minded as I mature. Maybe letting kids play with computers and programming doesn't give them and advantage as adults over adults who didn't have that ability to play with computers. I guess in thinking about these two articles and also other parenting articles I have read, I realize that everyone has an opinion about parenting and every aspect of parenting and they are all just that. Opinions. If I think of myself as a reasonably intelligent person with average reasoning skills, somewhere in the middle, not the smartest and not the dumbest, then why would I value someone else's opinion over my own? Do I really think I am incapable of taking the information given in an article or report and logically reasoning out whether it seems truthful or realistic? No, I don't think that. So I shouldn't let the tone or voice of an article guilt me into feeling like I've made some deadly error while raising my kids. I can look at them and see that they are intelligent, they are individuals, and they are capable of reasoning when they need to. Keep in mind that they aren't full grown adults and still need some time to learn self control and mastery of emotions. Geesh, my teens more mature than a whole lot of adults I know.
Trust your reasoning skills Mom, you aren't an idiot. Also, listen to your gut because women's intuition is a God given thing. In my opinion.
