There’s one very interesting impact of a seven year old playing on a game where he has a warrior that undertakes quests. Normally, he is not very good at remembering to eat and drink while he is playing on the computer. Even when a sandwich is put in front of it he doesn’t get round to eating it. However, when the game includes the warrior becoming weak through lack of food and drink, Andy feeds both the warrior with the necessary food and drink and himself. At least it means he gets to the sandwich before either me and Shadow, which is much better for him but a bit disappointment to the dogs of the house. I’ve been wondering if it is a feature of the game that can be turned off, so that I’m in with a better chance of the odd half a sandwich or so.
I have been thinking some more about the whole question of being a role model. Perhaps we could start on a small scale and build up. I was thinking that there ought to be a National Good Deed Day, where everyone is encouraged to do something good for someone else. If we started with just one day, then maybe we could increase it to one day a quarter and then one day a month. If we built up slowly then we might get people to slowly change their behaviour so that eventually they looked for opportunities to do something good every day. I’m now going to spend some time trying to work out what good deed I can do even though I am sitting here in kennels with Shadow.