Lesson 19 - Gaming

This lesson is a real eye-opener to the temptations out there confronting young children. Parents beware! These "free" gaming sites are loaded with ads and pop-ups with click to purchase buttons. It is easy to click on something by mistake when trying to play a game. It makes me grateful for our Sno-Isle website to which I often refer parents of small children.

I did play a couple of games - Word Roundup and Sudoku. Even at the lowest level of difficulty, I was unable to successfully complete them, but it was kind of fun trying. I am not competitive by nature....

I hope families will continue to gather around the table and play boardgames with their young children, but I do realize that online gaming is particularly popular with the tweens and teens of both genders, more so with boys. Sometimes adult patrons complain about the young people using library computers for gaming purposes, but I think they should be encouraged to do so - perhaps during certain hours or in certain areas of the library. For many boys today, it is their primary means of socializing. Anytime that a group of young people are gathered in the library, I do think that a librarian should be nearby and focused on their behavior and language. The roving librarian is a concept that should be used much more often and staffing levels increased accordingly, if we want to accomplish our mission of being a community center.