daddy in charge

via parenting blog

What happens when a mommy blogger leaves daddy for the weekend to look after their children and her blog? A fun time for the kids and an even more fun post for her readers!

Meet impromptu but not quite reluctant blogger dad over at his wife's cyber corner. Be entertained by his entry: Parenting via Wii and his five-point argument on why playing the home video game until the wee hours of the morning with the children will improve their physical coordination, introduce them to the all-important basics of business, the benefits of teamwork and teach them the value of patience. Here's a peek at his defense:

When Mummy is home and in charge, there is a very strict rule that Wii is only to be played on weekends. Well when Mum is away, we all come out and play! I admit that it’s completely lame on my part. It reflects on my laziness to be more creative and proactive as a parent. It’s terrible, really, and I do get why. The kids should be outside running in the fresh air using their own imagination to play. And I should be laying down foundations for life that are not based on instant gratification. In my defense, I find it quite hard to be a single-parent to two young chidren (even if just for a few days) when they are so used to Mum being the central figure of discipline.

With Mii Golf (& quite a few of the other Wii games) there is a lot of “stuff” that one wants to acquire. Both kids learn the value of the coins that they have won and that they can’t afford to buy everything with them, so need to selectively choose. Plus they learn to attach additional value to the items they do own according to how hard they worked to acquire them, so it isn’t like a “pocket money for toys” lesson, as they have to also decide which items they care least about when betting them in a game (wait…am I encouraging gambling? Yikes!).

A lot of the holes one has to complete in Mii Golf are pretty hard to do, even for me. The only way to master them is via trial and error, sometimes doing them over and over until you want to pull your hair out! Weirdly enough, Wii has helped them both learn that “trying and trying again until you succeed” can reap rewards.

All this backed up by Time, Evening Standard and a few other "experts". You can read his full defense here. I can just picture all the other dads taking down notes quick.

Gotta love dads.