Basically, a mother writes from her perspective, falling for her children's whines for a Nintendo or else they'd be 'left out'. What happens? Hell for her. She had read articles that praised the Nintendo DS, saying that it'd 'bump your mental ability'. So she bought it and the kids loved her. Yay! Too early to celebrate. The kids started to become addicted and fought over it. They desperately searched for it and found it when the mother hid it from them. They were hooked. When they lost the charger, the madness slowly faded and the house became 'DS-free' and more calm over the situation. The charger gets found, madness starts again, back to hell. The mother, finally fed up, gave the DS away and was hated for a brief period by her children, but after another short while, they seemed to have forget about it. To be honest, the mother said, it did have good times, like when she could distract them with the gaming system and do something she wanted, like get them a haircut. However, what does this have to say about gaming, especially for little kids?

I finally buckled to buy a Nintendo DS Lite after considerable and sustained pressure from my children.

What finally did it was a suggestion from my oldest child that without a Nintendo in her school bag, she would be unable to fit in at school. (Yes, I know - oldest trick in the book. And I fell for it.)

It was that, plus reading a piece in one newspaper which suggested that if you regularly played Brain Trainer on your Nintendo, you'd bump up your mental acuity.

And another piece from child expert Dr Tanya Byron, of all people, which, as far as I recall, actually suggested that regular use of interactive toys such as the DS helped your children to be caring and creative.

I also had a sneaking and totally selfish wish to be Mother of the Year. Which I was, for about a day.

When the pale blue, £150 Nintendo finally arrived last November, fresh from Hong Kong (I had bought it on the net), crammed with a 'bundle' of 20 games including Brain Trainer, Fifa 08, and Nintendogs, my children hugged me tightly.

"Thank you, thank you, Mummy," they chorused. "We LOVE you!"

Synergized via dailymail.co.uk »