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!"
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What I'm saying is, gaming consoles, especially portable ones, should not be given to small kids. These problems won't occur then, would they?
Anyways snergy, sharing sucks. I would know I have had to share a SNES, PS1, PS2 and PS3 with two brothers. Luckily we got over that fighting to play phase back with the PS1.
Meh, kids get addicted to 'cool' stuff sometimes...It depends on the kid....My bro games way more than I do (mostly on the same games....Currently it is Lego Star Wars that has him obsessed).....
Sounds like another case of a parent using video-games (or in some cases, TV) to "raise" their children, then blaming said games when it doesn't quite work out the way they planned.
so we dont argue over it
It is a funny story, but when playing the blame game people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
The DS is definitely not a Playstation. Playstations can actually be shared among a family of children, with the multi-tap, you've got a chance for four to play at once. With the DS, no such luck. If one of the kids takes it to school, the other suffers. If one of the kids goes on a camping trip, the other suffers. With portable systems, each kid should get a system of their own. If it's too expensive, invest in a Wii.
But like said above buying 1 for 4 kids is just asking for trouble.
So she should know better than that.
It is not the DS's fault, it is not some kind of demon like she is making out. They could've easily been fighting over something else - a TV remote for example.
Oh, and lol @ "Gabriel became obsessed with playing the football game Fifa 08: over meals, on the loo, in bed at midnight." and then "In the end, last week, I walked into my local branch of Cancer Research UK and gave it away.". I hope she cleaned it first.
Guess what's on those kids birthday/X-Mas lists?
It is all the mom's fault for being cheap and not getting them all one, then there would be no problem...just get a Wii and some extra controllers
I think this madness has more to do with the way the mother raises her children instead of the fact that she only got one DS.
My bratty half-brother never stopped asking to play my DS and PSP whenever I saw him, so he just got his own DS at the age of 7 for his birthday, that is all he does now