Kids can be overwhelmed
Today there's a lot of pressure on parents
to give their children many "advantages." That
can mean music lessons, sports teams, church activities,
and a great education ... all at the same time.
Some children are scheduled for 10 to 16 hours a day. While many enjoy
the whirl of lessons, homework, games, and practices, a growing number
are finding that the hyper-scheduled life is more than they can handle.
They are dangerously overloaded. Some simply decide to drop out of everything
but school for a time. Others suffer in silence, afraid to disappoint
their parents. Some of them are at the point of burnout.
Looking at a kid's list of activities doesn't necessarily tell the story.
Instead, you have to look at the child. Children under stress exhibit
a range of symptoms from headaches and asthma attacks to nail-biting
and sleeping problems. Like adults, they have different thresholds for
stress. What is too much activity for one may not be enough for another.
In Hyper-Parenting: Are You Hurting
Your Child by Trying Too Hard? (St. Martin's Press),
psychiatrist and co-author Alvin Rosenfeld says some
families make firm rules, such as one sport per child
per season. If you say yes to too many things, the
whole family will pay the price, says Rosenfeld.
Children are with us only a few years before they
head out into their own lives. Enjoy them, the doctor
says. If your family is too busy to hang out together,
leave some empty spaces in the calendar. Unscheduled
time teaches kids to create, imagine, and see new
possibilities.
Video Games: from Cheats and Tricks to Reviews
You know, nobody likes a cheater.
But when it comes to discovering video game cheats, "cheating" isn't
what you're doing. I prefer to think of it as "discovering
shortcuts, tips and tricks," or video game hints.
Video games have gotten so complex, since the days
of Pong and PacMan, that the game authors have purposely
thrown in some back doors and other shortcuts to
aid the weary player. The problem is, most of these
back doors are so well hidden that these same authors
have to leak the game cheats or no one would every
find them on their own.
And it's not only the blood and guts
video games that offer cheats. Take the perfectly
bloodless "Finding
Nemo" for the GameBoy Advanced. Who'd ever guess
that there were at least six video game cheat codes
hidden there?
Don't make the mistake of thinking that it's just
the handhelds either. If you play a video game online,
like XBox Live, for example, there are a whole slew
of video game hints available.
Of course, video game cheat codes and game hints
are sort of useless if you don't own any video games.
And that's where video game web sites come in...
Any web site worth visiting will
not only have video game reviews and cheats for
you to peruse, but they
will also have game walkthroughs. Video game walkthroughs
differ from cheats in that they actually "walk
you through" the process of achieving some goal.
Video same cheats, on the other hand, are often cryptic
one or two liners like "Enter xx312 in the password
field."
There are different types of video
game reviews. Each have their good and bad points.
Professional
video game reviews are typically written by paid
reviewers who work for video game magazines. These
are generally well-written, in depth, and definitely
worth reading. The other most common writer of video
game reviews are the actual end users. While an end
user will generally have spent a great deal more
time actually playing the various video games on
the most popular video game systems, you'll often
find that they are men and women of little words.
It's not unusual to see a review that says "Wow!
Kick Bu** man. I love it!" Now, that's probably
actually saying quite a bit about a particular video
game, but -- your mileage may vary.
The key point to remember is that you don't want
to invest in a video game until at least a couple
of people have taken the time to write a review of
the game. Of course, if everyone took this advice
then there wouldn't be any video game review on any
game web sites, because everyone would be waiting
for someone else to write the review.
Right up there with video game reviews are video
game previews. A video game preview is a lot like
a movie trailer. They bundle all of the really exciting
parts together and give you a fast and furious glimpse
hoping that you'll believe that the entire video
game is actually as cool as the 90 seconds of video
game previews that they let you get a peek at.
The video game industry is at a crossroads.
With more and more people clicking the play game
online
switch, and video game systems like XBox Live and
all of the XBox video games out there, it is quite
possible that the days of jamming your joystick alone
in your room are slated to become "back in the
day." As more and more video game systems opt
for Internet connectivity, you're likely to find
that you never have to play video games alone again.
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