My kids are grown so I leave their choice of entertainment up to them. They love to be with people and hang out. They love to be here at home, which even though they have moved out will always be their home. When they are home, they relax. They get to stay up late and sleep in. Lately they have been organizing their stuff. Stacy wants all of her stuff at her place in Florida so she has been going through everything, giving stuff to Goodwill, throwing stuff away. She is making an area in the basement as her designated spot for stuff. We will pack all of that stuff into the truck and take it to Florida in a month or so. Greg has a small apartment and won’t be staying there for more than a year so he has put much of his stuff into boxes in the basement. His car is full of things he is taking to his apartment after the holiday break. I turned his room into my sewing room.

Both of the kids have enjoyed playing Nintendo GameCube games. They have been into some football game (Madden?) where they build their own team and play a season. It must be challenging because I hear some whining now and then.

When they were younger, I would check out what they were playing to make sure it wasn’t too violent. I hear that there is an Entertainment Software Rating Board, ESRB, that is an excellent source to check out the content of games. You can get information on a game to see what amount of violence, language, sex, controlled substances and gambling are involved. That is a tool I would be using before I let my young teens play any game.

Kids will sit for hours and play games. I would want to know what is being drilled into their brains. A friend of mine noticed her son seemed to be down and in a state of depression. She checked out what music he was listening to and it seemed very down and anti social. She asked him to stop listening to that music for awhile and sure enough, he became the happy person he used to be.

In our busy lives, it is easy to let things slide. It is worth our time to make an effort to know what our kids are feeding their brains with and exercise some control. Our kids are counting on us.