💭 Things I've Learned About My Son Through Mario
So it's a heatwave, and unfortunately, I didn't really get a chance to sit down and really write anything this week. The schools are closed because of the heat. We don't have snow days here; we have sun days (get it? 😅). Too much sun, too much heat, the schools can't handle it, so the kids are home. Which means my son has been with me for the last three days, somewhat unexpectedly, and while I had all these grand plans to write something, it turns out that looking after a five-year-old and sitting down to do some focused writing at the same time is not particularly effective.
So instead, I thought I'd talk a bit about screen time. Please do note that I am not a professional. I'm just a mom. With a five-year-old. Adjusting as I go. Learning on the job. And not judging others in any way for how they do it.
We do have screen time limits in our house. 90 minutes on weekends for TV or a movie. But I've always felt like there's a difference between different types of screen time. Because I love video games. It's something that has been a huge part of my life growing up, and something I've really wanted to share with my son, so this year I slowly started introducing him to games.
We started with Yoshi's Crafted World, which he enjoyed (he really loves the gacha machine and changing the costumes on Yoshi...). Then we moved on to Super Mario Wonder, and wow, he absolutely loved it. We played through the whole thing together, both of us as Yoshi, which helped manage some of the chaos (and trust me, if you're playing with a five-year-old, you're going to want to play as a Yoshi so you don't throw the controller at the TV). We beat Bowser, and I genuinely thought that would be the end of it. But instead, he keeps going back. Not to replay levels, but to actually collect things. The missing wonder seeds, the flower coins. All the little bits and pieces we missed during our playthrough. And that surprised me. Because I don't remember caring like that as a kid. For me, once I'd beaten a game, that was it. I was moving on to the next. In fact, to this day, I'm not much of a completionist in games.
This week, because of the heatwave, I thought it might be interesting to see what other games appealed to him. One of the really cool things about our local library is that they lend games, so we've borrowed Mario 3D World. He's enjoying it but not nearly as much as Mario Wonder. And I think it's the same issue I had as a kid. 3D movement is hard. I know people regard Mario 64 as a breakthrough in gaming...and I'm sure it was...But I struggled with it then, and I struggle with it now. I actually tried it again recently and still found the 3D navigation surprisingly difficult. What I'm noticing from the demos we tried is that my son really prefers side-scrolling platformers. He likes challenge, but not confusion. He likes a bit of chaos, but not so much that he loses track of where his character is. He likes forward momentum. Something needs to be happening. But he also likes having enough breathing room to figure things out. And he really likes collecting things. Coins, seeds, hidden items, anything collectible. What he doesn't seem interested in are what I'd call "baby games"...the Dora the Explorer, the Paw Patrols (though we love the Paw Patrol in this household!)...he wants challenge. We also played a bit of TMNT: Shredder's Revenge, which was funny because our skill levels were basically identical. We were both just mashing buttons and hoping for the best. He enjoyed it, but it didn't grab him in the same way Mario Wonder did.
So yeah...screen time...
I know people have strong opinions about it, but playing a game together feels fundamentally different to me than sticking him in front of the TV while I do something else entirely. It feels more like doing an activity together than consuming content. But maybe that's me rationalising. Youtube is completely banned. He doesn't have an iPad. He has my old Nintendo 2DS, the doorstep version, and, more recently, I've handed down my original Switch. I'm trying to teach my son to be intentional and mindful with his gaming. I'm trying to teach him about balance. And at the same time, I'm learning balance as well. I have this rule for the Long Play project that I'm not allowed to buy new games because I already own far too many. And most of the time I'm pretty good about it.
But every now and then I get obsessed with something.
Right now it's Yooka-Replaylee and The Adventures of Elliot. I've played the demos. I really enjoyed the demos. And now part of my brain is convinced that I need those games.
The ridiculous thing is that I absolutely own games that could scratch exactly the same itch. But somehow they don't count.
It's not that I want a platformer. It's that I want that platformer.
And I know this because I literally built an app to help me deal with this problem. The app works. It reminds me I already have plenty to play. The problem is that the backlog was never really the issue. The issue is that sometimes I just want something new.
Something shiny.
And unfortunately, there is no app that fixes that.
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