11 Important Parenting Lessons Learned Playing Video Games
1. Size is not proportional to impact
Sometimes it can feel like a much smaller being is controlling everything you do … kinda like how a Titan must feel in Titanfall.
2. Don’t fear the chaos
Kids sow disorder. You can view these messes as a problem. Or, if you play The Lego Movie game, maybe you see smashed things as an opportunity for … creative rebuilding.
3. There’s no escaping sibling rivalry, so don’t even try
Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros. has dozens of characters, and they cannot stop fighting each other, and they all have the same parents. Basically. Kinda.
4. Feeling overprotective is natural
Just ask any angry bird that has ever had an egg kidnapped by a green pig.
5. There just might be something to this whole tiger parenting thing
Skyrim players can master stealth, archery, shield skills, two-handed weapons, lock picking, and several schools of magic, all in a single character. Maybe your kid really does suck at soccer. Or maybe he’s just not practicing hard enough.
6. Whatever works, works
Any parent who has suffered a child’s meltdown on a plane knows that getting creative can be the key to peace. If Minecraft players can use pumpkins on their heads to survive Endermen, then you’re allowed to sing Let It Go in falsetto for an hour until your toddler falls asleep. Do what you gotta do.
7. Let ‘em help
If Captain Elias Walker can let his two sons help him defeat a South American space-invading cartel in Call of Duty: Ghosts, you can let your 7-year-old help you rake the leaves. It’s not that big of a pain.
8. Don’t fear their dress-up choices
Perhaps your child enjoys pairing Hulk hands with a Darth Vader mask and a tutu while riding around on a Roomba and wearing a bathroom trash can as a hat. So what? That’s not nearly so tacky as the Macklemore costumes in GTA V.
9. Teleportation is real
One second, your toddler is the living room, and the next, he’s in the kitchen rearranging your measuring cups. Kind of like those teleporting, electric-knife-wielding Bladedancers in Destiny … only more dangerous.
10. Don’t be fooled by cute
Babies look adorable. So does Candy Crush Saga. But Candy Crush Saga is not easy. Neither is a 6-month-old, even if she’s dressed up like a Chiclet.
11. Oh just let them explore already
The notion of free range kids may scare you. But children who explore are rewarded with adventurous lives, and in exotic places, like Versailles in 1776. Just ask anyone who has played Assassin’s Creed Unity.
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