New Computer Rules

We got a new computer game for Christmas, "Battle for Middle Earth, 2" which is based on the Lord of the Rings movies. We have checked out version 1 from the library many times, so this type of game is not at all new to our kids. I loved the movies, but I have been less then enamored with my sweet, young children playing the game. There is no blood or gore, but the objective is to win battles and that involves lots of killing. My husband says it is more about strategy than violence. This is one of those disagreements where I have chosen to submit to my husband and trust that he knows best.

Partly because it was a new game, and partly because of the addictive nature of computer games, our children began to obsess about this game. I mean not-able-to-sleep, planning-my-next-move-when-it's-my-turn-again, don't-want-to-play-with-anything-else kind of obsessed. Not only were they obsessed, they all wanted to watch everyone else's turn. So the older 3, who have been limited to 2 hours a week of computer time, were now having 6 hours each in front of the computer instead of 2. This troubled me. Greatly. I prayed about it and my husband and I talked.

We decided to take a week off from this particular game, and to limit the children's watching to one hour per week. They may still play two hours per week, but they can only watch others play for one hour total. And THEY need to be responsible for keeping track of this hour (though I will keep an eye on it at first to make sure they are assuming responsibility for this). This way their developing eyes are only sitting in front of a blinking monitor for 3 hours a week instead of 6.

Our children were amazingly receptive to this plan. When we explained the reasons behind it, they seemed to buy into it completely. This was a great encouragement to me for the importance of explaining "why". I think this will become even more important as our children get older. I am so thankful they are now at ages that we can begin to reason with them. And I am loving not having to deal with this game for a week!!