This weekend I took my oldest son camping. We belong to the YMCA Indian Guides, and this weekend we took our annual voyage to Catalina Island for some hiking, kayaking, archery, rock wall climbing, good old father son bonding and the new camping favorite - Nintendo DS playing.

Here’s the deal, I am not against video games and neither are most of the child psychologists and family therapists on the team here at Better Parenting University, but to me there is a time and a place for everything, and camping, in a remote location, on a relatively remote island, full of activities and amazing opportunities to experience nature, isn’t one of those times. However, I was amazed at how many kids I saw walking around, sitting on the ground, or secluded in their tent cabin playing their “DS” as it was referred to.

I will admit, that for the 2 hour boat ride, it wasn’t such a bad thing that some of the kids had brought their “DS’s” with them. The kids sat huddled around the screens as we made our way across the rocky seas from Long Beach to Catalina. A boat isn’t a place you want 75 kids running around anyway, which they would most likely be doing. Could we have done without the distraction of the DS during the cruise over? Yes. But, it was convenient.

Now, where that convenience ended, is when we landed on the island. We had just 36 hours on the island - and there was so much to do, wasn’t it time to put away the DS’s? Apparently not. Some kids playing their Nintendo’s wanted nothing to do with the planned activities. Some Dad’s would tell their kids to turn it off and stop playing, and their son’s refused. The refusal worked with some Dad’s, and they let their son continue to play. With others, their son reluctantly turned off their game to join the activities.

This issue was even highlighted in a skit performed by one of the Indian Guide “tribes.” It went something like this:

Three boys are talking with a football in hand, 2 more boys walk up to the 3 boys; “Hey, what are you guys doing?” “We’re going to play football” “Can we play too?” “Sure” These lines are repeated as more kids want to join the game. Then the group heads off to the field to play, where they come across a boy sitting by himself with his head down pretending to play his DS. They group says to the lone boy “Hey, what are you doing?” The boy says…”I am playing football on my DS.” The group of boys say “Cool, can we play too!” and they throw the football down on the ground and huddle around the boy who was playing football on his Nintendo.

Unlike most of the other skits, this skit was more true to life than fiction.

I think the bigger problem here, and I do think there was a problem, is that it wasn’t the kids who failed to do put the video games away, it was the Dad’s who failed to provide the opportunity for them and their sons to get the most of this father / son bonding experience or the opportunity for the boys to truly play with their buddies, instead they allowed the DS to be the primary source of entertainment.

What did my son do? Well, we have a DS. He did not bring it with him. He did play with a friends DS while on the boat over. He did go into a tent to play his friends DS. I found him in the tent, and I told him this wasn’t the time to be playing video games. He whine and moaned. Then he went out to play soccer in the grass in front of our tent.

Does this make me the perfect Dad? No. But, I certainly felt better about seeing my son play soccer with his buddies, rather than sitting in the tent playing video games - and for me, it is all about being a better parent because that is the most important role of my life.

The next time you head out on a family outing or adventure, think about whether or not to pack along the video games or to just put up with a little whining about missing the video games while participating in the adventure. My recommendation: Deal with the whining. The real life experience with your child is worth it.

If you found this posting interesting, here are two online parenting seminars that might interest you:

Raising Little Adults: The Problem With Kids Growing Up Too Fast And What Parents Can Do About It

Kids and The Internet: How You Can Keep Your Child Safe