{"id":1727,"date":"2009-01-21T10:18:31","date_gmt":"2009-01-21T16:18:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamingwithchildren.com\/?p=1727"},"modified":"2009-01-21T10:18:31","modified_gmt":"2009-01-21T16:18:31","slug":"gamerboy-the-beginning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2009\/01\/21\/gamerboy-the-beginning\/","title":{"rendered":"GamerBoy: The Beginning"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I’m the GamerDad, I’m an expert, 10 years professional experience, host of credits, blah, blah, blah. . . I’m also a gaming advocate and because of this most people assume that my kids play games ALL the time. Actually I’m willing to bet my kids play less than the national average and much less than most of my audience’s kids. The reason why has always been because it is my work. Because Linda isn’t much of a gamer (this is changing rapidly). And it is because I don’t like gaming when conversation could be had instead. I’ve been the stay-at-home parent but up until very recently, I didn’t game in front of the kids. I have an office, that’s what it’s for. <\/p>\n

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve been sharing games with my kids, I’ve just refrained for forcing it on them. If they want to game, I figured they’d come to me eventually. Well Henry just did and in a BIG way.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Up until now Henry has been noodling with the Wii Cars games and playing kids games like Cosmic Family. Simple fare. But this summer I gave him New Super Mario Bros. and you could actually see the gamer, wreathed in flame, arising like a phoenix in his eyes. He mastered the controls and got fairly far into the game until – I showed him Mario Party (DS and Wii). From then on he’s become a gamer and his upcoming birthday sees me scrambling to track down as many Mario character plush dolls I can find (see, he wants to play “Mario games” in an offline way). I really can’t tell you how proud I am that it was New Super Mario Bros. that sparked what will undoubtably be a lifelong love affair with gaming. \u00a0I have more to report on Henry’s progress later on.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Maggie gets it, but I think gaming will be a more casual hobby for her. Wii Bowling and then Cooking Mama have really sparked her interest but she has a problem with the traditional controllers. Like her mom, she’s all thumbs. Meanwhile Henry is doing things with his games that I don’t even know how to do! I think Maggie might need some training. Maybe it’s time for her to play some Super Princess Peach?<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

(Please note, all gender roles above are my kids choices. Henry likes blue, sports, action and Mario while Maggie loves pink, Hannah Montana, and Princess Peach.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m the GamerDad, I’m an expert, 10 years professional experience, host of credits, blah, blah, blah. . . I’m also a gaming advocate and because of this most people assume that my kids play games ALL the time. Actually I’m willing to bet my kids play less than the national average and much less than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1727\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}