Who else is tired (tired as a dog) of fending off request after request from their kids for the newest, most exciting, blood-splattering, bone-crushing game? Is anyone else tired of explaining why it’s okay for a friend’s parents to give “Gorefest 2 – the Splattering” a thumbs up, but it’s not appropriate for our house? Why we chose educational video games for kidsthe same reason we don’t watch R-rated horror movies. Or, namely: why I’m unfair, why I’m a tyrannical bully, why I’m hell-bent on destroying his popularity.

Why is life unfair?

There are always doubts. Is it unreasonable to deny him a game that I would actually like to play? I mean, I’m a gamer too. I was his age not too long ago, growing up in the infancy of console video games. I can say with little doubt that if the roles were reversed, if he was my father and I was his frustrated son, I would be begging, cajoling and manipulating my head to get the same games he wants. I find it very unfair, honestly, that his friends are allowed to play the games that we don’t allow in our house. It’s unfortunate that parents don’t have some kind of secret pact to come to a consensus, a common understanding, about what’s right and what’s wrong.

Initially, his mother and I agreed to limit his playtime to educational games for children. And, at first, he was happy with what we gave him. Arthur was a common sight on the computer, telling a story, increasing vocabulary, encouraging reading. Mickey also appeared from time to time, jumping over numbers, helping to reinforce the basic math he had been learning. He enjoyed educational video games for children because he saw himself as a child. He was happy being a child; in fact, we were all happy with his situation. Juice boxes for everyone!

Then, we stretched our rulers a bit while he stretched. He talked me into a baseball video game. He didn’t have to try too hard to convince me; As a huge Mets fan and, at one point, unashamedly addicted to video games, the idea of ​​playing virtual baseball with my son was an easy concept to accept. I turned around and sold Mom on the idea. That it was not so easy. Baseball, fun as it is, was definitely not an educational video game for kids. I weakly mentioned something about the game that teaches math (division and averages and such), but we both saw the weak argument for what it was.

She frowned, shook her head, and went back to her book.

Slippery slope, he said.

I assumed that meant “fine”.

However, he put conditions on it. Time Limits, an imaginary pie chart showing the time allowed with the baseball compared to your educational video games for kids. This was the beginning, unfortunately, of my son no longer accepting his “boy” role anymore. I’m not saying that buying him a baseball game caused the change; rather, this was around the time I noticed him saying some of his childhood cheats: the blanket went into the closet, for example.

And while I have some fond memories of punching his Yankees in the pants with my Mets, this was also the time he began to prefer playing against the computer, rather than his father. Both in its educational games for children and in others.

It wasn’t long before he started testing us, asking us for games he knew he wouldn’t get. Provoking a copy of a game he’d been told he couldn’t play, then throwing a tantrum when he inevitably got caught. It is at the unfortunate age where no matter how entertaining or funny the game is, if it is an educational game for kids, it is rejected out of hand. Where before we could bring home anything from the game store, we have now given up buying children’s educational games as they end up dusty and forgotten in a pile near the television.

We’ve realized that we can’t control what he does at his friends’ houses. We have kindly asked other parents, whenever they felt it appropriate, to keep the violent games on the consoles when our son visited us. Unfortunately, there have been times when his friends have ostracized him for our requests; His friends sometimes blamed him for his parents’ rules.

I’m glad that more and more Wii and DS titles are bringing more fun and innovation to their educational video games for kids. It’s good to see that some of these recently released learning games aren’t receiving the same stigma that learning games in recent history suffered. It’s a good thing developers spend time and money making them fun enough to forget they’re learning while playing. Cosmos Chaos, “Brain” games, and “Think” games are changing the layout of the terrain.

For now, though, we’re caught in the trap that makes good parenting so difficult. Violence in video games is not an issue I’d like to see regulated by the government – the ESRB works just fine for me. Violence isn’t even really a “problem” for most people. It just means that parents continue to expect a bigger stream of fun educational video games for kids, as we watch the river of violent games continue.