Get him an N64 and GoldenEye?

Games and consoles are made to be as grabbing as possible, nowadays. To my understanding, it’s the way the industry works.

I had a SEGA Game Gear and a Mega Drive, with a few games, and played on it as much as I could but back then I remember I would out of the blue get bored and turn off the game. Either because there was a save point or the entire game up to that point was easy to memorize.

Nowadays, on modern games, I don’t see that. It’s just another level, another enemy, another boss, another whatever. The games are engineered to lock the player in. And children are especially vulnerable to this.

I gifted my kids one of those retro emulation consoles and sometimes play with them. There are 20.000 ROMs in that thing and they get bored at some point and drop it. The usual “complaints” are that the games are too hard or that they had enough.

I’m not saying your take is wrong but your brother is neither.

The problem is he then needs to have the argument every single day, or even several times a day about the screen time, you just walk away. It takes so much energy to fight this fight and it’s a never ending story.

Nowadays you also play online instead of split screen, so that argument goes down the drain.

The argument that kids should learn consoles, ipads, etc. early, I don’t get it, why? We didn’t learn it early, it’s so intuitive to use there is nothing to learn.

Anyway, there are only very limited positives but so many negatives with it, it’s just not worth the hassle.

As of now my nephew never touched a phone. This isn’t anything bad but compared to his class mates I think this is weird.

He just turned six. What do you need a phone for at six? Call your kindergarten sweetheart?

Imagine when he is in school and his friends tell him to scroll and he has no idea how to even scroll? Isn’t that weird?

No. I would consider weird to think kids need to be using a phone as soon as they get out of their diapers in order to be considered ‘normal’ ;)

As a side-note, maybe you could offer that kid books, instead. He will learn a lot more reading them. A lot. And have a lot of fun too.

Plus, there is no in-app purchase in books, no tracking, no spying, no ads. And they won’t require updates either ;)

A lot of people here say that your bother’s son is too young for a Switch.

I’d like to take a different approach and point out that you do a comparison between childhood when you were young and childhood for your brother’s son. You show (rightly) that you and your brother grew up well-adjusted even though you had video games in your life.

I would rebut that “growing up well-adjusted” probably isn’t the biggest concern of you brother. It’s probably more about how much harder it’ll be to get his son to engage with other things that are important to the family if the boy has the Switch as an ever-present alternative.

I actually think you should buy your brother a beer and ask him more about it (out of curiosity, rather than looking for an argument). The beer will probably help your brother limber up and you’ll get to hear him complain about what a pain in the ass it is to try and wrangle a kid.

But all of that doesn’t nullify that you’re trying to be a good and fun uncle, so thank you for that.

Six is definitely too young. Not hard to understand at all. iPad kids are a thing.

You are forgetting the biggest piece to your puzzle. Your brother has a wife and wants to enjoy his marriage. Even if he agrees with you he has to make a case with the relationship and on a point like this it’s not worth it.

When we were kids we had goldeneye or whatever and that was it barring a weekend rental from Blockbuster. Blockbuster is dead now. Netflix and online gaming killed it. Online gaming and Netflix/Youtube/etc. are like unlimited candy to a little kid. Yeah dad can limit them, or try to anyhow, but try limiting a alcoholic, see how that pans out. Even if they aren’t drinking they’re still gonna be in withdrawal and a pain to deal with. You won’t have to deal with him. Kiddos dad will.

If you want to do something for your nephew, get them an experience. Take them camping, or to a book store, gokarts, the science museum, something he can tell his buddies about later. Dad will appreciate time without them, kiddo experiences a non-teacher non-parent adult, which is rare for them.

My nephew gets books from me on xmas and birthdays, stuff I either read at his age, or that is just age appropriate. Later I’ll take him to a bookstore to let him pick what he wants, then we go get food. Sometimes what he wants, sometimes we go do stuff like get dumplings so he can try something new.

Kids, especially at 5, just don’t need it. It isn’t helpful or social for a 5 year old.

IMO, you shouldn’t give any gifts to kids under 10, that you don’t intend to allow them to use unrestricted. If it’s meant to be restricted, don’t call it theirs.

Also, every kid is brought up different. I don’t think they’ll be embarrassed not knowing how to scroll a touchscreen… Stop hating on your brother’s parenting styles unless it’s harming their kids. Buy him some kids scissors and glue if he needs the practice.

Yeah, I gotta echo the hassle of it.

I dunno if you had time limits or not, but if you did, and you weren’t throwing a hissy fit when the limit was up, you’d be a rare duck indeed.

It doesn’t help that gaming does turn into a form of addiction for some people, adult or not. They’ll chase that dopamine hit, well beyond what is reasonable. Hell, I know that, and I still catch myself feeling it, despite not being a dedicated gamer.

The sooner our brains start that process, the worse it can get.

Mind you, I do personally know kids that do okay with screen limits. They’ll definitely look for any opportunity to extend it, but don’t go crazy with it. The problem is that they had to learn self control to get there. And that ain’t happening at 5 for sure.

Remember, you just said “when our parents went to bed, we sneaked out of our beds” and “started playing… all night long”. C’mon, you know that’s not a healthy and well adjusted response to a reasonable parental limit. You were chasing that stimulation against your parents’ express wishes, in a way that was harmful because sleep is a vital part of brain development and overall health.

You’re relating a memory that demonstrates exactly why your brother wants to delay the bullshit. Since some kind of screen time has become essentially mandatory in some schools, he’s not even going to be able to delay it for long, but every year he does is another year that addiction to stimulation gets delayed too. Those arguments and tantrums get delayed.

My daughter is 6 and allowed to, with limits. She used to make a whole thing of it when it was time to do other things, but doesn’t anymore, it’s fine. On the other hand, my nephews will scream about it, and they’re older than her. Every kid is different, so maybe they expect their kid to be on the worse end, or maybe they wanna focus on those motor skills before they get to use a console.

The scissor thing might be explained by them only recently being allowed to use scissors. My daughter had a pair of plastic safety scissors for a good while, but not every kid is gonna do that.

Him not knowing how to scroll isn’t weird without having used a screen, and he’s definitely not past some minimum screen time age.

I mean 1-2 hours a day is a lot to begin with. At 6 kids are doing homework and learning to read.

I’m definitely pro gaming and my son and daughter today maybe an hour or two a week and usually it’s Animal Crossing. We spend much of the time reading what is written (they are French first so this is English exposure). I rather they game than watch nonsense TV.

For Christmas my brother bought them an Android handheld with retro ROMs. That is much more difficult to control and my kids do get warped into bingeing.

Maybe recommend Omh it’s a great iOS game that’s educational.

Six is definitely too young. iPad kids are a thing. What do I as a parent need to add?

I’d agree. At that age it might to be more appropriate to learn how to ride a bike, explore the real world, practice social skills, dexterity, balance, learn to read and write… And kids have lots of energy and sitting on their butt in front of a screen kind of takes away from other things. It might be better to wait until they’re 10 or 12 or something. But yeah, I think at 6 you should be able to hold scissors. Or cut the meal on your plate with a fork and a knife.