Hidden Benefits

When I worked as an assistant in our local Steiner Kindergarten, I also ran my own wooden toy business and combined my experiences and insights from both these roles into a blog journal for my toy business. Today I was reminded of one of these posts in a conversation I was having about the value of self expression through gaming.

My original blog post was advocating the importance of providing young children with appropriate role-playing toys and avoiding video games. I still advocate this, the value a young child gains from acting out what is going on in their life through play is (in my opinion) vital to their health, well-being and in understanding how to interact with the world around them.

At the time I had a young son, who has now grown into a beautiful, compassionate and wise young man (do you hear my motherly pride). His first introduction to computer games was through a friend and we acquiesced to having them in our home when he was around 12.

At first it challenged me tremendously to allow gunfire and battles into my living room on a daily basis, but gradually he has opened my eyes to the creativity, community and opportunity to address the moral and ethical issues built into many games. Not to mention the daily challenges of keeping toxicity out of online interactions with each other.

Personally, I believe that there will not be true peace and unity in the world until we reach a stage where there is no longer a desire for violent games. But until that day, there is a lot to be said for how we understand the world around us through the games we choose to play, and tremendous personal development in assimilating the moral choices we make in our personal game playing.

My preference is for peaceful, creative games or puzzlers. My absolute favourite for many years has been The Sims for its creative outlet and total absorption in role play. But more than this, I value the compassionate community around this game and enjoy hearing how the game has provided a place of healing for many players (myself included).

Role playing video games provide a place of refuge when the world around us feels overwhelming. Many gamers who struggle to fit in with their social groups in the real world find a community in gaming where they can express themselves and talk about real life issues that affect them. The Sims provides many creative aspects, not least the opportunity to create and share (through social media) stories that address issues of race, gender and social dilemmas that affect many people.

Within my community, acknowledging myself as a ‘gamer’ has been a process of ‘coming out’. There are so many prejudices around gaming and I myself have been vocal in that. It has been a tremendous challenge for me to own and declare the joy, peace and creativity I have discovered through gaming and I hope in writing this I have been able to share a few of the positive aspects of the gaming industry.