Parents Guide to The Wii online Gaming and Wii Messeging
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The Wii online Gaming and Wii Messeging
The Wii makes a great gift but what else can children do besides play games they buy or rent from the local BlockBuster. They can play those games online and make connections and befriend people from all over the world and add them to their Miifriends list so that even though they are not in a game they communicate with Miibuddies by exchanging Wii Console Codes
The first and most important step in keeping children safe is to get the Wii out of the finished basement or child's bedroom and put it on the main floor of the house where you and other parents spend most of their time. Yes I know it's more convienent to have it out of public spaces but in reality children are only young and impressionable for such a very short time that anything that is done for their best interest is worth the most extreme inconviences to parents and the worth the gameroom effect on the decor of the house.
The Next most important step in keeping children safe is to actually play some of the Wii games with them regularly. Parents need to understand the draw a specific game has on children before they can fully discuss and be considered sincere when addressing concerns with children that Parents may have with the game or games. Understanding the Video Game Rating system
Lecture over now down to the nitty gritty of what tools the Wii offers to parents to help them in their parenting of a gamer.
With the Wii there is the added concern of the highly intergrated Virtual reality aspect of gaming especially with Games rated M. That is address in the Game ratings section of this website
When setting up the Wii you Can set up some parental controls.
- The Wii through the exchange of Console numbers allows your child to connect with friends and Wii mail them as well as send them picutures across the Wii network. This is a nice feature in a perfect world but creepies are to be found anywhere children can be found and they to have discovered the Wii mail and Photo mail system. Through what can be considered innocent blog type sights they gain access to Wii console numbers that they solicit from other children. Once they solicit just one child they can use that child to gain access to other children. Please be aware of what Mii friend console numbers your child has on their list. If they say this Guy is okay they are so and so's friend have your child remove that code which will deny the possible creepy access to contacting your child via wii mail.
- Even the brightest kid or teen lacks the sophistication to recognize when captain creepy is using subtlies for creepy reasons. In fact some adults sometimes don't sense the subtlties
- The Wii also allows children to navigate the internet (it has it's own browser) which means all the same internet precautions should be addressed by parents much the same way they address them with the Computer. Having internet searchability isn't a bad thing especailly when children need to do research for papers and need your assistance. Veiwing the internet with your child is much easier when viewing it on the big screen rather then on the tiny computer monitor. Another advantage to having the internet browser on the Wii is that when your child has friends over it is easy to understand and know what youtube video is the most popular of the day etc...
- Parents can set the net nanny on the Wii web browser but that doesn't block everything especailly since some nasty sites embed trash in benignly labeled images. The net nany cannot read the content of images only what the images are named. Agood example would be when searching for classic cars on Ebay some nasty websites actually post nasty photos and have them labeled as cars. The unsuspecting kid does a search for a 65 mustang and the gallery listing comes up with listings for legit car listings as well as nasty listings with the nasty gallery photos which link to bad sites. Creepies will go to extreme lengths to get your kids and not all websites and search engines can stop it.
The ultimate family friendly setup is to have 2 tv's in the family space used most often. One for gaming and one for the rest of the family, parents included so they are able to enjoy the latest movie or just watch the news in the same room their children are gaming. (I know it sounds abnoxious) But if your 360 is in the basement anyway, you already have the second TV. We actually built a cabinet that holds both Tvs and when friends come over with their XBOX we can link the two and have a 8 player gaming party. And when we are not gaming the second TV is hidden by a cabinet door that closes.
These are suggestions that when implimented early when the children are young are very easy to maintain. When implimenting these steps only after a problem occurs usually when the child becomes a teen, the implimentation will only fuel the already natural teen resistence and suspiscions to any changes etc...