Good Use of Time...

I know a few parents and grandparents who get a little frustrated when their kids and grandkids have a tendency to spend a lot of time playing video games. They often wonder how they can get those youngsters to get off the couch and get some exercise or just burn off some energy. What approach should a parent use?

I’m certainly not an expert on the subject since I don’t have any in my house, but I’ve watched and even played a couple of road racing games, which can be a little aggravating to say the least. What I’ve really noticed though is that you can run a car into a tree or a wall and still be able to continue with the game. That’s not reality.

In real life if you are racing a car and it runs into solid things, your race day is done. If that were the case with a video game, as in every time you would happen to hit the wall the game is over, most kids would quit playing out of frustration. What fun is seeing the game over signal show up on the screen five seconds into a race? I believe these games are designed for success so that the player can get to the next level and then of course on to the next game.

What if sports were like that? Easy to master without a lot of spent energy, wouldn’t that be fun? Of course not! Think of what constitutes success in sports. In football, if a QB completes 50 percent of his passes, that’s considered fairly good, but then 50 percent of those passes are also incomplete.

Basketball players with shooting percentages around 50 are pretty good but 40 percent is often more usual. Wouldn’t you think that kids would want to get after it and try to improve those percentages? Some do but most don’t think much about percentages. Free throws are a lost art where 75-80 percent is considered pretty good but 50-60 percent is the norm. A great hitter is often batting about .300, which means that seven out of 10 at bats go for outs. Most Major League hitters are worse than that. Go figure. Pitchers are measured by their earned run average (ERA) as well as strikeouts and wins. Closers are measured by saves not wins. But none of those things are easy to accomplish.

Golf can be incredibly difficult to master. I’d like to golf my age but I would need to be 105 to do that. Bowling isn’t easy either. I don’t bowl because my golf score is usually higher than my bowling score.

For some reason, mastering a sport doesn’t seem to be as exciting as playing a video game where success is measured immediately. I know that in our family if you didn’t get pushed around and wear some dirt-playing ball it wasn’t a typical day.

I would really like to see these video game youngsters have the same kind of excitement to win a sporting event that they have with a game player in their hands.

Sports really aren’t that difficult to master but one has to take the time necessary to improve their game. Patience is also important. I know that kids can’t become great football players by playing Madden 2011. These games need to be practiced and constantly worked at, but it has to be something they want to do and it can’t be something one can dream about only mastered on the field of play.

Funny thing though, it is probably cheaper to play sports actively than it is to purchase a gaming system and all the games than it is to play baseball, football or basketball and it’s a lot healthier, too.

It’s just a matter of how one wants to use their time that really matters.