How much time should kids be allowed to stare into their screens like zombies? New guidelines issued by the American Academy of Pediatrics upturns conventional thinking on the matter, showing that a sweeping one-size-fits-all approach is not the right way for parents to go about limiting their children’s screen time.
Mike Lanza, a dad and tech entrepreneur from Menlo Park, California, thinks we’re experiencing a crisis in child-rearing: Boys aren’t allowed to play rough or run free, and moms hover nervously at the margins of children’s social worlds, chirping reminders about sharing and playing nice. The result, he explains in a…
Look at this little boy’s face. He is the saddest little gamer who ever gamed. What sort of video game does this to a child?
“Please defeat these children,” she said. “It looks like they won’t learn without some pain.” Don’t worry, it feels pretty good. Wait...
I went to my local video game store on Friday to pick up a copy of Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer, and I walk out with an entire generation’s worth of Nintendo console goodness. Thanks, random game store guy.
For some parents all it takes is a cuddle or a short story to send their little darlings into dreamland. Not me. I have to play video games to get the kids to go down. Poor me.
Yesterday was Father’s Day, and what better day to launch the inaugural episode of a series about connecting with my twin boys through the magic of gaming?
This is an image of a happy family; a father and his two adorable children bonding over a video game. It's a stock photo, of course. Their excitement is fake, their game controllers disconnected. It's cheap theater, but I have to believe that somewhere in the country a genuine version of this scene is playing out — I…
The Legoland amusement part in Billund, Denmark is holy ground for fans of the colorful plastic bricks. Back in 1968, when the park first opened, it was an opportunity for charmingly British narrators to say things like "sprawling landscape land of make-believe."
Grand Theft Auto isn't exactly the most family friendly franchise around, what with all the illegal activities and mature content. But with a few adjustments, even kids can safely enjoy GTA's crime-world.
Another year, another Nintendo handheld packed with pornography under the Christmas tree. Last year it was a five-year-old and a used 3DS. This year it's an eight-year-old and a supposedly brand-new 3DS.
Today on televison, somebody said something reasonable about violent video games.
The Assassin's Creed series has always been full of weird ambient dialogue. People on the street mutter the same few lines, and the mix never sounds quite right. Most of us have less-than-fond memories of the "Mah-ney mah-ney mah-ney!!" guy from earlier games in the series, and those accursed bums who bump and bug us…
Commenter GiantBoyDetective is going to cry, because little kids can be dicks. In today's Speak Up on Kotaku he tells the sad story of misplaced trust and children that need a good spanking.
A preschool-aged boy in Saudi Arabia reportedly fatally shot his father this weekend because of a PlayStation.
Whenever I post a story about a parent neglecting their children while playing a massively-multiplayer online role-playing game I can't hide my disgust for that sort of person, so you can imagine how I felt about myself this weekend when my two ten-month-old children left the house in the middle of a boss fight.
It's become a well-worn truism over the past few years now that video games, far from being "just for kids," appeal to a wide and diverse audience. The average gamer is in his or her late 30s and has been at it for many, many years.
On Monday employees at a Super CD in Johannesburg, South Africa realized two PlayStation Vita systems were missing from the store's inventory. That was shocking, but not nearly as shocking as what they saw when they reviewed the closed-circuit television footage and discovered the culprit was a five or six-year-old…
In today's completely grown-up edition of Speak Up on Kotaku, commenter DukeofWulf muses on how easy it is for kids today to fill all of that free time they've got with copious amounts of free gaming, the little snots.
Attention parents of the world: GameStop is not a babysitting service. That fact was made abundantly clear to 21-year-old Kethia Dagrin-Francois of Florida when police arrested her for child neglect after her five-year-old son was found wandering the parking lot of Boyton Mall.
