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Video Games and Discipline: You're Doing It Wrong

Posted by Nadia Oxford

Just so we're clear: I'm not referring to using gold-plated copies of Zelda II for kinky spanking activities.

(Everybody gets up and leaves, muttering disappointedly)

I was usually a pretty good kid. With my big blue eyes and dark pigtails, nobody suspected any trouble out of me. When I did feel the inevitable jab of rebellion, I at least had the good sense to keep my activities on the down-low. Of course, that was a different age before the pull of YouTube and Facebook photo albums.

But even I fell off the schoolwork wagon often enough. Part of my problem is that I just didn't like school, except when I was learning something I was genuinely interested in...and how often does that happen? I prefer spacing out to studying, and of course, video game obsession knocked me off course from time to time. I had my systems and games taken away now and again. My mother might have sold them entirely if she wasn't so determined to pass the first level of Castlevania III...however many times she had to try.

The other day, I was reading an article by one of them fancy college-edjyoucated "child psychologists" who had some advice for correcting "bratty kids." None of the disciplinary actions I would employ showed up on the list (nobody uses holes full of hungry rats for anything anymore), but the psychologist recommended against taking away an unruly kid's system and games. Why? Because "if a child is away from video games for long enough, he'll forget he ever liked them."

Can I be the first to call bullshit on that one?

Having my games taken away from me always stung bad. It's true I would take up other pursuits--reading, writing, running under cars--but games were more than a shallow pastime. The stories, the characters, the thumb-twitcing action...it all left an impression on me that, obviously, has not gone away since.

Or maybe I'm just weird.

Our psychologist friend did recommend one course of video-game related discipline: deleting game saves, memory card data and such. Such actions, she said, are more permanent means of punishment.

Personally, that strikes me as pretty cruel. I know she's obviously not putting much stock into video gaming as a hobby--probably doesn't consider it a constructive pastime with real goals and accomplishments--but if you delete a kid's memory card on purpose, you're really tearing down a lot of shit he worked for, and that's just not right. I would think it on the same level as destroying a painting he/she made, or knocking over a house of cards he/she put together as an afterthought. "By the way, this is for teasing your sister."

So, hyperbole on my part? What do you think?

Related Links:

All Ages: Viva Pinata and Building Games for Children
The Impetuousness of Youth
Mario Will Not Die. He Will Outlive Us All


+ DIGG + DEL.ICIO.US + REDDIT
Posted Sep 05 2008, 08:09 PM
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Comments

Amber Ahlborn said:

Discipline should never be a sort of revenge.  It should always have some sort of relevancy to the "crime" committed.  You know, the whole actions have consequences thing?  Deleting games saves is just mean and what does that teach a kid?  It's okay to be mean when you're bigger and stronger than your victim?

September 5, 2008 9:17 PM

Nadia Oxford said:

Yeah, exactly. I had games taken away from me because they distracted me from my schoolwork. Fair enough. But my parents recognised the value of getting through an adventure, so they'd never delete save data, etc.

September 5, 2008 9:40 PM

Roto13 said:

My husband is a psychologist. He also happens to be right here in the room, so I asked him what he thought of this.

Taking video games away from a child is not going to cause them to forget they ever liked video games in the first place unless they're like four years old. Taking games away would, indeed, be an effective punishment for anyone old enough to be playing games in the first place.

Deleting save data as a punishment would be pretty bad. A save file isn't just a bookmark, it's the product of everything you've done so far and how well you've done it. Deleting save data would be a blow to the child's self esteem, and would leave them with the impression that if they do something bad, others have the right to destroy the things they build or work for. Think of it another way. If a child enjoyed building model planes as a hobby, what kind of an impact would it have on them if you punished them by smashing one with a hammer?

I think the problem with this psychologist is that they don't know what game save data is. Living with a gamer as passionate as myself has given my husband that insight. :P

September 5, 2008 10:45 PM

eric_c said:

ouch, deleting a save could be a really huge and cruel punishment, depending on how much time the kid invested in the game. fortunately, the thought never occurred to my mother, as she never really understood how video games work, much less saves. if anything, this seems like a sure way to get your kid to resent you.

September 6, 2008 12:48 AM

Demaar said:

I have nothing to add to what you've said. My friend's son doesn't forget he loves games after having to go without them, so it's not a matter of "kids these days..." either.

September 6, 2008 5:48 AM

Bob Mackey said:

Part of being raised by a single mother and then a two-parent tag-team working a combined 80 hours a week meant that I had virtually no boundaries as a child.  Hence, I played an appalling amount of video games.  Seeing other kids get their Nintendo/TV privileges taken away was like an atrocity to me--it's the pride that comes with being a latchkey kid.

September 6, 2008 2:14 PM

corky said:

The concept of actually deleting something your child worked for through effort and concentration as a means of punishment is an abomination.It's no different than taking a drawing he or she created and tearing it up. The fact that a psychologist actually recommended this is criminal. Um, let's see?  How does taking fun stuff away and maybe you'll "forget that you ever liked it" work? - that REALLY worked during Prohibition and the Catholic church's brilliant preaching that masturbation is a sin before God. Get these psychologists away from children.

September 7, 2008 6:02 AM

Peter Smith said:

Yeah, deleting a save would be really savage. I almost murdered my poor little brother once when he--in complete innocence!--over-wrote my Actraiser save. (I STILL feel guilty about the fit I threw at him.) Get these psychologists away from children is right.

My parents only let us play an hour a day. I still haven't decided if I wish they'd given us less or more. I don't know which would've given me more self-control than I have today.

Finally, I'd like to tip my hat to my friend Tadge, who, while playing Adventure Island II, said "EN-ER-GY" in a robot voice so many times that his sister descended into shrieking apoplexy, causing his mother to storm into the room and smash the NES. (!) This was terrifying enough that some years later, when she gave away his SNES and all his games to the neighbors while he was at school, it seemed relatively mild.

September 8, 2008 10:17 AM

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John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Hooksexup, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

Cole Stryker is an American freelance writer living in York, England, where he resides with his archeologist wife. He writes for a travel company by day and argues about pop culture on the internet by night. Find him writing regularly here and here.

Peter Smith is like the lead character of Irwin Shaw's The 80-Yard Run, except less athletic. He considers himself very lucky to have this job. But it's a little premature to take "jack-off of all trades" off his resume. Besides writing, travelling, and painting houses, Pete plays guitar in a rock trio called The Aye-Ayes. He calls them a 'power pop' band, but they generally sound more like Motorhead on a drinking binge.


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