A Bedtime Story

I'm usually the one who puts the kid down to bed these days. For some reason he falls asleep much faster when I read to him than when his mom does. He probably gets bored, but there is evidence to the contrary, which is that he actually wants me to read to him.

I normally read an English book to him, but do spot translation into Chinese. My translation are basic and inelegant. My wife still laughs at me for the time I translated "Pride and Prejudice" as "骄傲与歧视" instead of the infinitely more graceful "傲慢与偏见". Thus "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" becomes "查里与巧克力工厂" and "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" becomes "狮子，巫婆与衣柜".

This week, however, he's been wanting stories read in the original Chinese. Fortunately we have a huge stack of nighttime storybooks. Most of the tales are saccharin-sweet, and completely forgetable. Occassionally, however, they throw in something just utterly brutal.

Take this story, "The Little Mouse". It's about a little orphan girl called Mouse who lives near a garbage dump. Okay, fine. She befriends a little mouse who dances for her in return for food. Cool? Well, now the story takes a morbid turn as the mouse is captured by a woman.

The woman put the mouse in a cage. It scurried around the cage hoping to escape. All the neighbors came over to see what the fuss was about. The little girl was sobbing in her heart.

"Bring some gasoline!" the woman said. "We're going to little this little thing up!"

The little girl stood to the side of the door, tears pouring from the corner of her eyes. The woman poured the gasoline on the mouse, then lit it on fire, instantly turning the little mouse into a fireball rolling around the cage.

"Take that!" the woman yelled.

The children all called, "Awesome!"

But the little girl was broken-hearted.

Suddenly, the fireball ran out of the cage and into the woman's house. Everyone was terrified and yelled, "The house is on fire!"

The woman cried hopelessly, "Help put the fire out! Help put the fire out!"

But the the fire burned bigger and bigger, crackling as it rose towards the sky.

Geez, just read the kid some Stephen King while you're at it. This reminded me of the two most disturbing stories I read as a kid, probably when I was about 10 years old.

I can't remember the name of the first book, but it was about a group of puppies. One was unfortunate enough to be discovered by a gang of very bad eggs indeed, who proceeded to kick and beat the puppy before finishing it off by swinging it over their heads by its tail. I tore up the book after that part.

The second was a story by Roald Dahl about a bookish little boy who loved swans. He is tormented by two bullies, who discover his fondness for the majestic birds. They shoot one, then saw off its wings and tie them to kid's arms. After beating and humiliating him, they lash him to a railroad track.

Lovely, no?

Tonight I read a different book, one less prone to include stories about torturing animals to death. Ah, here's a harmless one about a little boy named Guoguo who decides to run around buck nekkid on a hot summer day. Let's take a look, shall we?

As Guoguo ran around the forest, an owl suddenly pointed to his rear and asked, "What is that? It really looks like a big ball."

Guoguo said, "That's not a ball, it's my butt."

A small frog hopped in front of Guoguo, pointed to his belly and asked, "What is that? It looks like a little cave."

Guoguo said, "This isn't a cave, it's my belly-button."

A big fat bear rumbled over and circled Guoguo several times before stopping. He bent over, pointed between Guoguo's legs and asked, "What's that? It looks like a little sparrow?" (Sparrow? Uh, okay. --Ed.)

Guoguo said, "That's not a sparrow! It's my little wee-wee!"

More and more animals came, this one and that one. Some of them couldn't resist extending a hand to feel Guoguo, which made Guoguo shout, "It tickles! It tickles!"

People complain about the violent and sexual content in modern music, movies and video games. But is anybody left to check what's going on in storybooks?

Rise and Shine

I have to get my son out of bed by 7:15 to get him to school at around 8:00. It always takes a huge amount of effort to shake the sleep out of him. He rolls over and tries to go back to sleep, then does his best lead weight imitation when I try to physically haul him out from under the covers.

I could write this off as par for the course but for one thing: he gets up at around 7:00 on his own on the weekends.

I don't think it's his bed-time that is the problem. We put him down at around 8 on weekdays, and just a bit later -- 9 or so -- on the weekends. If we make him go to bed earlier, he just lies there listening to stories until past 8.

Moreover, we get one more variable thrown into the mix next week: school nap time. Get this: California law dictates that preschoolers have a mandatory 1-hour naptime. My son stopped his daily naps more than a year ago, about when he turned 3. If he naps for an hour during the day, he repays it two-fold in the evening by staying up later.

Now I'm worried that if he does in fact nap at school, he won't want to go to bed until 10, and then it will be even harder to get him up in the morning and will mess up his sleep cycle.

Anyone have similar experiences? Is there a solution?

Video Games and Kids

As an avid gamer and a parent who aspires to do the right thing by his kid, what is the correct stance to take towards kids playing video games?

The conventional wisdom is that games are bad for you. They encourage lethargy and lead to entire generations of kids being converted into glazed-eyed, slack-jawed zombies ever eager for their next fix of pixelated crack.

New research is showing, however, that games have definite benefits. Steven Johnson's book Everything Bad is Good for You purports to show how popular culture, and video games in particular, hone cognitive skills. After all, hunting down and capping rival crack dealers in a limited time while evading police is really an exercise in thinking out the box, albeit one wrapped in a package that is unsavory to many.

There was also a recent report (which I now can't find) saying something along the lines that military recruits who were heavy gamers were often best suited for some tasks that rely heavily on video feeds and manipulation of on-screen data.

Personally, I let my 4-year-old son have some limited playing time on our Xbox (now 360!). At his age, I think the benefit is probably more in the area of hand-eye coordination than any kind of problem solving. Indeed, I've seen him progress in racing games from simply crashing cars straight into walls, to now being able to steer (somewhat) around corners. I'm sure that's largely natural development as he matures, but I figure he can always use the practice. He's also getting better at manipulating things in kid-oriented platformers like "Lego Star Wars" and "SpongeBob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom".

Moreover, I expect to buy my first handheld gaming device when Nintendo's DS Lite launches Stateside in a few months. There are some unique games that I think resonate with parents a bit more than your typical shooter, titles like "Nintendogs", or a game that has you perform surgical procedures using the DS's touch screen (think "Operation" uploaded into the 21st century).

One other reason I let him play is that it's yet another activity we can do together. And unlike watching a movie or cartoon, it's something that has a high-degree of interaction and a sense of accomplishment for "winning". Should it preclude other forms of parental bonding? No, of course not. And we play board games, and do puzzles, and read books, and draw pictures together, too. Video games is just another thing we can do together.

In the end, I guess I take a common-sense approach. The main possible drawbacks of video games include increased aggression and unwillingness to engage in healtier physical activity. So far, my kid hasn't turned mean or lazy, and as long as it stays that way, I don't see any reason not to continue to allow him to have limited, supervised playing time.

What do you guys thing? I better wrap this up because I need to finish rescuing the Mexican president in Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter. I'm not even joking.