Plug in and forget

Wet play time when I was at primary school, a gazillion eons ago, meant fighting over the 6 available chess sets (bit geeky but fun), making up funny rhymes, tiddlywinks competitions, colouring in wallpaper squares and manufacturing fortune tellers by the dozen (weirdly at one school I went to these were called frogs - why?! and I really must revive these on a wet weekend).  Apparently these past-times are too dull for the children of today - Anya has reached the grand old age of 7 and is now deemed old enough to be allowed to take a Nintendo DS to school for wet play.

Forgive me because now I rant......you what!! Someone once said to me that the DS is brilliant, it keeps the kids quiet for hours. So that's how the Victorians did it then. I thought the days where children should be seen but not heard had long gone, maybe it's me that's behind the times?

Obviously lots of the other class parents think that this is a good idea because plenty of the children were asking Anya where hers was. To me allowing such an expensive toy in school is just inviting bullying, but according to the head teacher they aren't that expensive but are very educational....mmmm?  The children will all be spending their play times on brain training games and the shoot'em ups will be left at home.

Amongst my out of school friends I'm also Luddite-mum, not allowing my little bundles of joy to have a handheld plastic packet of fun. We have had a talk about it today and they've decided that they would prefer new bikes rather than a DS and I like to see more than the tops of their heads - we're all happy. Childhood lasts such a short time that I want them to enjoy every minute of it being proper children, even the ones where I'm bellowing at them to keep the noise down.

Nintendo DS are toys of the devil - or should the overtiredfamily just get with it?