This particular individual happens to be one of the smartest and most successful people I know.  At 5 years his senior he makes me feel like some sort of devolved monkey.  While talking about him we came to a theory about why he is more successful than his peers.

He likes to try new things.  And he spends his time doing new things.

I think parents need to encourage their children, even at very young ages, to try new things.  Kids need to be raised without fear – of course as long as they won’t recieve physical or mental harm.

Take my daughter for example.  She likes bugs and dolls. When we find a bug crawling around neither my wife or I freak out and start swinging at it. We calmly explain to Kari what it is and how to interact with it.

If it’s a dangerous insect we tell her to stay back and let us handle it.  If it’s something benign we encourage her to watch it, ask questions and tell us what she sees.

These days parents are fearful of everything.  Every object, social scenario, environment – is a mine field of things that we only see as potential harm. I witness far too many parents who won’t let their kids play video games, for fear of what they might see.  

These same parents, frustratingly, would willingly plop their tyke down infront of the TV for hours and be comfortably oblivious to what they’re experiencing.

If there are no other benefits of video games over TV but one, let it be this – Video games, even the most basic, offer more interactivity and create more mental stimulus than your average television show.

My theory is that parents are too fearful and don’t want to try new things.  Therefore their children suffer the same fate.  We wonder why so many children rise to mediocrity as adults when the cause is us, the parents.

Once again, I’m not suggesting you plop your children down with a video game.  You need to interact with them regardless of the medium they are experiencing.  (Yes, books too!)  But video games are inherently curved to produce a more meaningful experience than most mainstream media.

For more on this subject I encourage you to check out two books.  The first is Free Range Kids - a book about allowing kids to take risks as they grow up.  The second is by Malcom Gladwell called Outliers.  In Gladwell’s book he discusses how benefits at young ages creates opportunities latter in life that give some individuals a leg-up on their peers.  Both are highly recommended.

This week the ESRB has announced a new campaign (press release). They are partnering with the Parent Teacher Association to help parents within the community to recognize and utilize the rating system in order to identify appropriate game content for children. The initiative includes a booklet (view the electronic version) that will be distributed throughout the 26,000 PTAs nationwide.

We at Game Apparent always encourage families to look for the ESRB ratings on games before purchasing them. It’s a simple way to help parents filter media for which their children aren’t prepared. It’s good to see the ESRB engaging in proactive initiatives like this and the Game Search Widget (see the yellow box in the upper left corner of our main page).

“Trigger Happy is a book about the aesthetics of videogames — what they share with cinema, the history of painting, or literature; and what makes them different, in terms of form, psychology and semiotics.”

It’s offered under a CC license, for a limited time only.  You can download a copy here.