I Learned It From You Dad!: The Gaming World I Want For My Daught

 Riley June Daigle will be born march 22nd 2011.

I'm excited, man I'm really excited. To see a new life brought into this world, to watch her grow and become the woman she wants to be and not the woman the influences of the world would make her. School, boys, sports or academia (hell, both) its truly an exciting time for me. I think back to being young and digging through my parents book collection, their movies, my Dads old comics, the world was new. Everything had promise and they never had a taboo, if I wanted to know about something they'd tell me, sitting reading my Stepmothers Heinlein books as she watched over me making sure I didn't mess up the covers and genuinely wanting to know what I thought of them.

I'm also terrified, I mean scared to death

Riley has a long way to go before games come into play, but with every system under the sun around this house somewhere games are inevitably going to impact her life. What will she like? What won't she? Should I just let her run wild and play it all (my parents let me read everything they had) or do I limit what she can play? Should I impose my own personal taste? Should I try to explain why 2d gaming is still the best sit down and play time to be had? Or do I give her the history lesson? Try to put my 25 years of gaming into her brain and give her the history I lived? Or just let her run free and discover things at will?

Now I know there are a lot of other things to be worried about when raising a child and believe me, I'm just as worried about what school to pick, babysitters to use and boys (oh man, can't wait to terrrify the first young suitor who comes a callin). But gaming is one of the biggest parts of my life, I write these articles on the side, I game constantly and even her mother can rock the shit out of Mario Kart. So whats a young father to do?

My main concern are games marketed directly towards girls and how to approach them. If she picks up a copy of Imagine do I snub my nose and tell her its stupid or do I let her play and see if she shows interest? She really loved that new Disney movie we just saw, should I let her pick up the licensed game that I know is probably terrible or do I encourage it just happy at the fact she is in some way enjoying the hobby and helping her relate to me. As she grows I am sure she'll figure these things out and who knows she may not even like games, and that would be fine with me. I think my job as a parent would be to help her explore every possible form of entertainment and guide her through it all, never imposing my will and never being critical of her choices.

As a parent I will have to learn and grow with her, she may not think Donkey Kong Country 2 is the best game of all time and dammit, I've gotta be cool with it.    

 Riley June Daigle will be born march 22nd 2011.

I'm excited, man I'm really excited. To see a new life brought into this world, to watch her grow and become the woman she wants to be and not the woman the influences of the world would make her. School, boys, sports or academia (hell, both) its truly an exciting time for me. I think back to being young and digging through my parents book collection, their movies, my Dads old comics, the world was new. Everything had promise and they never had a taboo, if I wanted to know about something they'd tell me, sitting reading my Stepmothers Heinlein books as she watched over me making sure I didn't mess up the covers and genuinely wanting to know what I thought of them.

I'm also terrified, I mean scared to death

Riley has a long way to go before games come into play, but with every system under the sun around this house somewhere games are inevitably going to impact her life. What will she like? What won't she? Should I just let her run wild and play it all (my parents let me read everything they had) or do I limit what she can play? Should I impose my own personal taste? Should I try to explain why 2d gaming is still the best sit down and play time to be had? Or do I give her the history lesson? Try to put my 25 years of gaming into her brain and give her the history I lived? Or just let her run free and discover things at will?

Now I know there are a lot of other things to be worried about when raising a child and believe me, I'm just as worried about what school to pick, babysitters to use and boys (oh man, can't wait to terrrify the first young suitor who comes a callin). But gaming is one of the biggest parts of my life, I write these articles on the side, I game constantly and even her mother can rock the shit out of Mario Kart. So whats a young father to do?

My main concern are games marketed directly towards girls and how to approach them. If she picks up a copy of Imagine do I snub my nose and tell her its stupid or do I let her play and see if she shows interest? She really loved that new Disney movie we just saw, should I let her pick up the licensed game that I know is probably terrible or do I encourage it just happy at the fact she is in some way enjoying the hobby and helping her relate to me. As she grows I am sure she'll figure these things out and who knows she may not even like games, and that would be fine with me. I think my job as a parent would be to help her explore every possible form of entertainment and guide her through it all, never imposing my will and never being critical of her choices.

As a parent I will have to learn and grow with her, she may not think Donkey Kong Country 2 is the best game of all time and dammit, I've gotta be cool with it.    

Great post, dude. You know, I kind of feel like you should let her play what she wants to play, but introduce her to certain other games from time to time. Oh, and dude, I think it's a safe bet that she'll think DKC2 is at least one of the best games of all time. That game rules so hard. SO HARD. Congratulations, man, and good luck!

Love this blog.  I can relate to a lot of it.   I can give you my opinions from my experience with my daughter (now 11 and in middle school) of course, but what you do is ultimately up to you :)
 
Don't think she has such a long way to go!  My own daughter started playing with Morrowind at age 3.  Children like to imitate their parents.  That's why toys like these are popular: 
 

Congrats on the kid, you know what would be even weirder, if you didn't let her play video games. Like at all, send her to sports or art school or some shit like that.
 
Anyway good luck with your future endeavors!

Congratulations! Kids are cool. I'm a kid. I'm cool.

Congratulations,  yeah if you're a gamer, she will likely be too
I would however be a litte careful in her early age ( below 10 or so), limit the time spend gaming to 1-2 hours or so  or use it as award.

Really cool blog duder. I am not even close to being a parent but in my opinion, let her play everything (within reason) and shell decide what she likes. also congrats on becoming a dad! 

Congratulations on your first child! As a girl who learned how to enjoy games from her dad, I definitely agree with melcene. Let your daughter figure out what she likes to play. It worked for me. If your daughter really wants to try that Barbie Sparkly Fun House game that just came out, go ahead and let her try it. My siblings and I often played what were probably crappy Disney games quite often when we were kiddies, but we still had fun with them, and that's what's important. We also got hooked on  Sonic the Hedgehog and Mario (of course), and eventually moved away from the more childish games on our own. While the urge to play video games faded from my sisters relatively quickly, it stuck with me. I often watched my dad play video games and asked him questions as he played. It was a great way to get in some quality father-daughter bonding time, now that I look back on it. And I still watch him play from time to time, unless he's playing his beloved sports sims or imported Japanese wrestling games. Those never managed to hold my interest very well. :P
 
I do recommend a bit of discretion when playing more intense games around your child. My dad was rather lax and had no problem letting me watch him play Resident Evil when I was 5. I remember him trying to get passed a giant alligator (and failing) while he talked about how he got a little freaked out playing last night by himself in the dark. I wasn't very scared by it, though. I was more frightened by Mortal Kombat, which he played when I was a little older. I ran out of the room whenever a character got knocked out of the ring and fell into a spike pit. Oddly enough, I was also terrified of Earthworm Jim as a child, which I don't think was supposed to be scary. I refused to go down into the basement in our old house for awhile because I was certain that worms were going to jump out of the shadows and eat me. Go figure.  

This is a really interesting thread! It's scary to think about kids and I'm not sure what I'd do, but I think i'd try to guide her to play good games while also allowing her to play whatever she felt interested in. I think you could use games like Imagine or whatnot as a hook to get them interested in the hobby as a whole. Although virtually all kids play games nowadays, so it won't really be anything abnormal to her I'm sure. I still remember seeing this young girl like 5 years old or something walk up to this machine in a restaurant and start touching the screen! She didn't even think about physical controls, she knew it must be touch operated! :D I think that's really interesting to watch and I look forward to seeing how the world evolves and the generation after us grow.

Lets be honest here. Gaming is terrible. My kids when I eventually have some will be banned from video games so they don't shit half their lives down the toilet. I personally wish my parents had done the same, but here I am.

I remember reading a blog about a dad who introduced his son to games by having him start at the 2600 and then working his way through the consoles over time, that way his kid learned to appreciate games "properly". Or at least learned that graphics aren't the most important thing in a videogame. 
 
Personally I think that is a good lesson to teach a child because it translates very well to a more important life lesson: That beauty isn't skin deep. 
 
I believe the kids favourite game at the time of writing was Ocarina of Time, which I can heartily agree with.
 
I think I will probably do something similar with my child/children, that way they can experience the games of my childhood and see why they are so important to me.