Video Games

How do you introduce your kids to video games?

My 4-year-old son is beginning to discover the joys of gaming, mostly through Pixar's Cars and Wall-E games, and I'll admit I'm both nervous and excited about where things go from here.

Here's the catalog of my own plunge into video games:

• My youthful interest in gaming began in about 1982 or '83, when I was 5 or 6, and I got an Atari 2600.

• That was followed by a Sega Master System. (Yeah, I was that kid, and I actually picked it over a Nintendo.) Later came a Sega Mega Drive (the European version of the Genesis, as I was living in Belgium at the time) and portable Sega Game Gear.

• I made a detour into PC gaming when I moved to South America in high school and had to sell my consoles (big mistake, as I dearly miss those childhood treasures).

• Having skipped a generation of consoles, I bought a Sony PlayStation in college and then a Sega Dreamcast in 1999 after I graduated.

In some ways, I feel as if I've grown up with the technology, but I suspect modern gamers today won't have the same experience.

When I was a child, most games were childlike. They were Kaboom! and Hang-On. Also: Mario, Sonic, Wonder Boy, Alex Kidd and Phantasy Star.

The number of truly violent or otherwise offensive games was tiny, and whenever I read roundups nowadays about some of the more gritty titles that were released on those early consoles, I'm always struck by the fact that I never heard of those games when they were released.

On the other hand, even if kids today aren't allowed to play titles such as Grand Theft Auto, Gears of War or God of War, the majority are undoubtedly aware that those games exist and are hugely popular. That's because most gamers now are older, and game companies are increasingly targeting their products at more mature customers, hence the gore, profanity and other adults-only content.

With such kid-unfriendly games beckoning, I am a little leery of introducing my son to even harmless modern games. When I was 6, my parents didn't have to worry about me getting my hands on a copy of GTA, because games like GTA, for all intents and purposes, didn't exist.

So being a parent of a young gamer is, I think, a much more challenging and demanding task than it once was. But, there is also something fun, family-friendly and still innocent about games that kids can enjoy.

When my son clambers into my lap to race around Radiator Springs on Cars, asking me to help when he falls behind in a race or delighting when we uncover secret areas or get into goofy fender benders, it is genuinely satisfying.

I'm not saying it's not work – and I certainly understand parents who, not being gamers themselves and uncertain how to tell the good games from the bad, decide to just forgo video games altogether.

But for my generation of moms and dads, who grew up with games and are now shepherding our own flocks of joystick-jockeys, this issue doesn't have to be addressed with a "just say no" mandate.

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