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I don't limit. I might be one of those really weird moms out there :-) My DS8 is an only child who wakes up at 6am due to natural body clock. He's on the computer by 6:15 pretty much every day. He plays online games like Bloons Tower Defense 4, software like Zoombinis and Nancy Drew mysteries, messes around with the Lego Design by Me etc.

Literally ALL of his friends play Club Penguin. Afterschool, it's pretty common to find 5-8 of them in an igloo chatting and playing minigames and working on missions together. Since kids go to his school from all over town, playdates are fairly rare and this is really his social time.

It's not uncommon for him to be on the computer or his DS for 3 hours a day, 2 of which happen before 8am. I don't worry about it. My brother is a coder and game designer, my dad is a systems engineer and my DH is a gamer. I only would be concerned if he wouldn't walk away when asked- so far that has never happened.

I love video games myself, LOL! I played alot as a kid, although they were in an arcade since nobody had computers back then.
I sometimes wonder if video games can promote shorter attention spans and like ADD. I limit our guys to two hours on the weekend, total for the week. No more. If I let them, they would do it all day. They play this Lego Star Wars Game.
If it's rainy, they are forced to find something to do. It generally leads to imaginative play. If they could play video games then, they would, but we don't let them.

I don't limit, either. I'm definitely one of those weird moms. :-) I'm an unashamed games addict myself, so I just keep an eye on whether he's getting "hooked" by something in an unhealthy way. Otherwise, he plays Nintendo or Playstation or on his computer however much he wants, but he wanders in and out of all those pretty steadily, and he also plays outside with his friends and reads books and designs games and stuff. As long as I can pry him out of something pretty easily, I don't worry about it.

I also struggle with video game time. My DS6 was obsessed with Mario Bros and had all the worlds and galaxies mapped out in his head. He could tell anyone on the street how to get a particular star coin in any level of the game. It got to the point where other kids at school would come up to him on the playground asking how to pass a certain level. I fought the game time at first, but then decided to take advantage of the interest in the game. He now writes his own stories about the Mario characters. Yesterday he wrote a poem- staring Mario! His imaginative play is often focused around Mario, but not always. We have ordered a book from Amazon on drawing Nintendo characters. I'm anticipating hours of enjoyment from this. As for actual time spent with the video game, I found that once I relaxed and let him play the game when he wanted (within reason) and took an interest in learning about it myself he wasn't so obsessed. Also, I think once they complete all levels the quest is over and not as interesting.

His 1st grade teacher was the one who gave me the idea of using the Mario to get him to really be creative with his writing. We are having a lot of fun with it.

How much other screen time does he get? I wold limit to 2 hours of screen time a day max, including TV, video games, and computer. There is a fair bit of evidence that more than that can negatively affect weight, grades, sleep, emotional state, social life, you name it.


There is some evidence that they do, but it's also a little shaky. The effect sizes are small, and it's hard to separate it all out. There's also some evidence that violent games can desensitize kids to violence, BUT not all kids...it's complex.

Holla!

We loosely limit based on other things we want him to be doing, like playing legos, riding his bike (which he finally will do now!), and other outdoor activities. DS7 is totally obsessed with Minecraft now (a sandbox type game). He doesn't do the multiplayer version, since when I checked into it, it seems that multiplayer doesn't work so well on Mac. Which is fine with me.

We won't Video games etc in the house. No Wii, no DS, no nuthin' They used to have this TV game that you'd have to plug in, and it made me crazy watching them play that thing...truly anxious that they were wasting their childhood, like I wasted mine watching weird 70's TV.

I think that this is a subject that works differently for each family. For us the following is working pretty well:

DS is 12 and we do oversee and guide but do not limit his screen time with specific time limits. But like the original poster, DS is in general a good student, active in Music and Sports and pretty well rounded. Over the summer he spends at least 10 hours a week at the ice rink skating, at least that long reading for fun and 7 hours a day at an activity based day camp where he is physically active almost all of the time. So he does not have a lot of time for screens. But, he is usually so tired by the time he is home that watching TV or playing video games is a nice way for him to relax and unwind. Plus these activities provide a social framework for him to interact with his age peers. We do not live around many other children in his age range. Most of our neighborhood is retired.

Also I should mention that while DS watches TV, he is usually creating LEGO masterpieces, creating tent cities throughout the room and in general asking all sorts of puzzling questions during each and every commercial break