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By John Haydon

My 5-year old son loves his leapfrog.

He loves playing Batman and Diego and entering his name as the “highest scorer” at the end of each game (well, most games).  He also enjoys playing PBS Kids games and the games at KidsAreHeroes.com.

Playing Video Games

And while I’m not a child psychologist, I believe that too much time in front of a video game, is not good for his development. I also believe that the most important thing I can give my son, and what he really wants the most, is my attention.

So we’ve developed the habit of frequently playing these games together.

This allows us to connect with each other on his terms. Plus it allows me to be the game’s “teaching assistant”.

Playing Together Developing our own Games

As we played together, these games would start to “play out” in the other activities we did:

Drawing pictures
Very naturally, my son started drawing pictures of the characters in the video games. He outlined the bowling lanes, the race car tracks, the mazes. This allowed him another way to understand what he was learning. Drawing also allowed me to extend my role of “assistant teacher” into these drawing activities. More… »