How to Avoid Becoming a Failed Gaming Parent

My friend Brian Crecente writes a great post called Confessions of A Failed Gaming Parent on Kotaku, a popular videogame website. 

He did everything right: He uses the parental controls built into the Xbox 360, and he uses a password to allow content he finds appropriate for his 9 year old.  But his son outsmarted him by getting him to allow him to play Modern Warfare 2 when his parents thought he was doing something else (making maps in Halo 3).   It’s tough to keep track of everything, I know it’s hard to monitor what my kids are doing all the time, no matter how hard we try.

From Brian:

   Eventually, we caught him in the act.

It's a reminder that as parents we have to remain constantly vigilant. Something Microsoft gets. It's part of the reason, it seems, that the company is rolling out even more robust parental controls come this fall.

He then offers more details on the Family Center coming out on the Xbox this fall:

You can, under the new system, divvy out an allowance of points that can be spent on Xbox 360 games, avatars and add-ons. You will also be able to track exactly what all four account holders are doing through an online monitor. The family plan will also include regular discounts geared toward families, like maybe a price cut for a game like Uno on Xbox Live.

What intrigues me most about the Family Center is that activity monitor, which can show you what games are being played by each account holder and for how long.

Read more about what’s coming in the rest of the article on Kotaku.