Nintendo switch

Our 11yr old insists she wants it. She feels left behind compared to her peers, these days youngsters' status is linked to what stuff they own. Mind you, it was identical when I was in school 35yr ago. Actually not sure how much different is for adults, why do most adults buy overpriced unnecessary flashy cars after all, but never mind...

We are against buying because 1) videogames are uneducational, and 2) okish with buying some junk, but not when it's this expensive.

I'm amazed how many parents apparently buy this to their children.

Where do you stand?

I no longer really can be arsed posting here but feel compelled to post on this complete madness. You have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about if you think video games are uneducational and expensive junk, in particular Nintendo games!

You’ll be saying playing draughts and ludo is far more ‘educational’ and wholesome next :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fellbeast

I no longer really can be arsed posting here but feel compelled to post on this complete madness. You have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about if you think video games are uneducational and expensive junk, in particular Nintendo games!

You’ll be saying playing draughts and ludo is far more ‘educational’ and wholesome next :)

---

Yes Yes. But what do you really think?:D

[QUOTE=Fellbeast;676072]I no longer really can be arsed posting here but feel compelled to post on this complete madness. You have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about if you think video games are uneducational and expensive junk, in particular Nintendo games!

You’ll be saying playing draughts and ludo is far more ‘educational’ and wholesome next :)[/QUOTE



I largely agree with this my 7 & 4 yr old grandsons both have Nintendo consoles and I am amazed at what they have learned and managed to achieve from there use of them,( although they are limited by there mother as to how long they spend on them) they also have computer access to enable them to do there Homework/Schoolwork etc.

I will say though that i was sceptical when the eldest first got his console but when I saw how it helped him with a multitude of different aspects of his life and developement I quickly changed my view and realised the days of sitting quietly studiously studying books etc are long since gone.

Of course as with adults every child is different and needs to find there own way forward with the aid of whatever works best for them and unless they are given the chance to see what works for them they could inardvertently be held back.

Just my take on it,

By the way I agree on the adults and material possesions cars etc whats the point.:confused:

I'm not a fan of children being stuck behind a screen at all, and always get my nephews outside in the garden at every opportunity.

Eldest nephew uses an ipad but only plays educational type games on it, and i can see that they have their place in development.. Thankfully he prefers reading books, and long may it continue.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fellbeast

I no longer really can be arsed posting here but feel compelled to post on this complete madness. You have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about if you think video games are uneducational and expensive junk, in particular Nintendo games!

You’ll be saying playing draughts and ludo is far more ‘educational’ and wholesome next :)

---

Don't drone on like this, get to the point.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Travs

I'm not a fan of children being stuck behind a screen at all, and always get my nephews outside in the garden at every opportunity.

Eldest nephew uses an ipad but only plays educational type games on it, and i can see that they have their place in development.. Thankfully he prefers reading books, and long may it continue.

---

Having a games console does not mean a child is condemed to spend its childhood behind a screen (that will probably come with adulthood), in my grand childrens case they have an allocated amount of screen time and that is dependent on them having put all their more serious daily tasks behind them.

AS to excercise and getting outside they walk 1 mile + to school and the same back home again 5 days a week Monday evenings is football, Wednesday is Tennis (Swimming in winter) and Friday is Swimming (so twice a week in winter) weekends are spent cycling or walking with either ther parents or grandparents, the eldest lad allready has several Wainwrights to his name.

Given the way that technology is advancing screen time is an essential part of a childs education to help them forward into adulthood and most probably a working life not far from a screen;).

Yes books still can have a place but they do very little for hand, eye,limb, finger, body and brain co-ordination

Again just my take.

My nephew is also football and swimming, but cricket in the summer rather than tennis!

I had hoped he would follow my footsteps and end up at my athletics club on the junior section, as the kids are so well looked after... But alas football is his main passion at the moment...

Above my pay grade, what does Nintendo do?
Forget that question, I will never understand the answer. Hide under my duvet oggling my Silva compass and still trying to work out why the needle thingy always points to the North.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by molehill

Above my pay grade, what does Nintendo do?
Forget that question, I will never understand the answer. Hide under my duvet oggling my Silva compass and still trying to work out why the needle thingy always points to the North.

---

Get a young gamer to explain it to you:)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by molehill

Above my pay grade, what does Nintendo do?
Forget that question, I will never understand the answer. Hide under my duvet oggling my Silva compass and still trying to work out why the needle thingy always points to the North.

---

When you've worked it out can you explain radio waves and how the sound gets inside my radio? Is it just magic?

And as for thinking about electricity - that just makes my head hurt.:confused:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JohnK

Get a young gamer to explain it to you:)

---

But not under the duvet ;)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Graham Breeze

When you've worked it out can you explain radio waves and how the sound gets inside my radio? Is it just magic?

And as for thinking about electricity - that just makes my head hurt.:confused:

---

I can't get any grip on electricity either, many an hour I have spent looking at explanation diagrams and reading how it should be compared to water in a hose pipe. I still fail to comprehend it.

I was fortunate enough to grow up in Ambleside. When I wasn't swimming in the lakes and rivers, scrambling up Stock Ghyll or discovering how to use a map and compass on a misty loughrigg ( things which people now seem to pay other people to show them how to do) most of us spent many hours clambering all over the rocks in the park. They were polished clean by use, we had loads of routes and abseil points and it was just what we did. Sadly over the years they have fallen in to disuse and it's very rare to see anyone on them nowadays. But a few years ago I was running through the park and saw a young lad part way up a low slab with his Dad encouraging him from the bottom - except when I got in to earshot I discovered his father was telling him to get off there this instant - or he wouldn't be allowed to play on the iPad. How very sad.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mark G

But a few years ago I was running through the park and saw a young lad part way up a low slab with his Dad encouraging him from the bottom - except when I got in to earshot I discovered his father was telling him to get off there this instant - or he wouldn't be allowed to play on the iPad. How very sad.

---

Reminds me of when we had a family holiday in North Wales when my son was about 8. Walking below the Ogwen slabs, we stopped to watch the climbers. I turned my back, and when I looked round again, my son's feet were at a higher altitude than my head. He soon worked out that he wasn't able to make the next move, so I guided him back down. He has actually become a very competent boulderer, although tennis is his consuming passion now.

I was always independent and wanted to get outdoors and about as a kid...

I remember on a school-organised ramble to the Long Mynd i got a massive telling off for leaving everyone way behind across Pole Bank, and then attempting a run down the steep side of Cardingmill Valley where i ended up falling most of the way down (a pointer to my crap descending now).

First trip to the Lakes i got a massive telling off from my parents for again leaving them way behind on the climb to the summit of Pike O Blisco... and then throwing a massive paddy because after we'd climbed Catbells, Maiden Moor and High Spy, they insisted we turn round, and wouldn't let me complete the rest of the Newlands Round on my own.

I did feel out of my depth once when me and my dad went climbing round the rocky coast between two sandy bays in Cornwall... i think our attempt at adventure is what is now called "coasteering"

Before i got into fellrunning, me and my brother liked to pick out unorthodox routes up the Lakeland peaks... not graded scrambles or anything, but making it up as we went along... a rough scramble up Dow Crag from Goats Water, by the side of the real crags.... and up the scree gully through the axe factory onto Pike Of Stickle, etc.

About ten years ago we had an eventful walk up Sca Fell Pike when my son lost an IPod touch.

Don't judge me for letting him take it on the walk. He liked making videos as well as playing games on it.

Maybe it was the bribe to get him up the hill.

Anyway he didn't realise it had gone until half way down the Corridor Route.

I remember a nice sit down with two small boys while the husband went back to the top looking for the lost item.

Needless to say it was long gone.

The pint in the Wasdale Head took the edge off the trauma.

I used to drink out of puddles when i was a lad, and dig holes in the veg plot with my bare hands. These are the sort of things today's youngsters don't do enough of, that and eating firelighters because they smell nice.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mr brightside

I used to drink out of puddles when i was a lad, and dig holes in the veg plot with my bare hands. These are the sort of things today's youngsters don't do enough of, that and eating firelighters because they smell nice.

---

Yes, but did you swallow a lighted match after you had eaten the firelighter? :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mr brightside

I used to drink out of puddles when i was a lad, and dig holes in the veg plot with my bare hands. These are the sort of things today's youngsters don't do enough of, that and eating firelighters because they smell nice.

---

I was kind of with you with you all the way till the last bit :confused:

I think video games are just another interest, just like the great outdoors, books, TV, theatre, art, film, fell running, cycling, going to the gym or whatever. At its simplest playing a video game requires far more interaction with what you are doing than say watching anything on TV. Or reading a book come to that. Oh and it is possible to like all of these things - be outdoorsy and read books and watch films and play video games and cycle and fell run and go to the gym

I think it was Gambatte calling the Switch expensive junk that riled me :). In the same way that there’s always been be lots of crap things to do outdoors, crap books to read and crap TV and films to watch, yes there are also lots of crap video games to play. But the very best video games can be super creative works of art, beautiful, super clever and stacked full of puzzles and problems to solve. And arguably Nintendo perhaps are the masters of the art :)

Like so much in life, it's a matter of balance, moderation and proportion -innit?

"...young children who are entertained by screens will learn to flatten their emotional range; they do not expect humanoid forms to respond to them".

"We are embodied beings. Our screens may compel us to believe that we are mere brains in jars that can manage to type sarcasm and anger and emojis — but we are in fact more, and far better, than that. And it is during our long, lovely childhoods that we find out how connected and creative we can be."

Paraphrased from:
A Hunter-Gatherer's Guide to the 21st Century: Evolution and the Challenges of Modern Life
by Heather Heying, Bret Weinstein

I think one of the best 'gifts' we can give to children is the opportunity to experience, tolerate amd contend with (master), boredom :)

Yeah I had two sheath knives at the age of 10, plus in the wrong hands a fairly lethal bow and arrows. I fashioned both knifes as Bowie knives as was the fashion and spent a great deal of time building wild camps and bonfires and generally running rampage in the woods with my friends. And seeing who could hold bangers in their hands in the run up to firework night the longest and firing them out of handle bar tubes. We also made wooden trollies (go karts) and used to hurtle down the pavements on one of the hills in our estate nearby. I also managed to axe myself in the leg whilst camping with the scouts (nothing severe just a massive gash)

I suspect playing a cutie turnip farming game like Animal Crossing on a Switch, has one existed at the time, might’ve been a too tame and nice to be honest. Fortunately I didn’t kill myself but I reckon I visited A&E at least once or twice most years for stitches

One November, aged about 10 years, a group of us fashioned a cannon out of a sawn length of an old metal sun-lounger leg, hammered one end closed, and drilled a hole above the hammered end, mounted it on a block of wood with nails and dismantled several fireworks for their gun-powder and stuck one of the banger fuses in the drilled hole. Stuffed the tube with the powder and added a ball bearing and...

Not to mention the antics with air-rifles and pistols. Ah, Happy Days

Growing up in Mid-Wales appears to have been no different to anywhere else as many of the japes already mentioned were enjoyed.
In addition, two of my favourite activities were egg collecting and tickling fish!

Frowned upon these days, in fact illegal, but being out in the countryside formed my love of it and nature. And the skill involved in blowing a Long Tailed Tits egg. I doubt if I could do it now.

I was pretty good at tickling trout too, but use a rod and line now! Many of us kids went bird nesting and blew eggs (doubt I had a long tailed tit in my meagre collection), looking for bird nests all spring was quite normal, and like you started the learning process of natural history.

We were just football in the park, all evening, every evening... all day every day in the holidays.

And winding up the big kids off the estate and getting chased by them... but we knew every road, every alley.

Most of us Coventry City mad... when you could get into Highfield Road for £4 as a junior... when money was a problem (which it was for some), we all pile into someone's dads car and watch Cov reserves instead as you could get in for pennies.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Marco

I think this is largely because you grew up in a later era than the rest of us. For kids, particularly boys, growing up in the 1970s and earlier decades you could get away with an awful lot. And we did

---

Thats the point comparing what we did as kids with to days generation of kids and saying that the newer genrations should be doing what we did is pointless.

We just need to remember that things have moved on and each generation is evolving into something different to the previous generation, so that it can adapt to the very different world to that which we grew up in.

Living in past is futile we all need to move on and adapt and accept evolution.