Our kids got Webkinz for Christmas. If you don’t have kids you probably have no idea what this is. Let me explain.
You purchase a Webkinz stuffed animal. They are roughly the same size as a beenie baby, maybe a tad bigger. On the tag is a Webkinz registration code. Basically, you register that stuffed animal to your child’s Webkinz account and their animal comes to life on the Webkinz website.
At Webkinz there is a mini-reality set up. Your child is responsible for taking care of their pet, including earning money to buy food and other stuff. Basically, kids play games to earn cash.
Our kids are hooked on this, Megan especially. She obsesses about waking up and feeding her bunny, Sparkles, and making sure she goes to the doctor 2-3 times per week. At first Megan was horrible with her Webinz cash but has since learned how to manage her money a little better. (She keeps a balance of about 3000)
Of course, Webkinz is good and bad. We love that our kids are good at computer stuff. Paul (4) can easily navigate the site. Plus in the course of learning how to do that he can now put in his complex user name and password. To see a 4 year old navigate a mouse, type his name, play games like checkers and classic Atari titles… it warms my heart. The bad part is that they want to play 24 hours per day. They fight over time and would happily skip getting dressed, eating, going to the bathroom, brushing their teeth, or otherwise socializing with the family.
So our house has been learning about boundaries. We use a timer system and we even use Webkinz as a reward/discipline system.
This is the world our kids live in. It’s not 100% different than the world I grew up in (Nintendo and Atari) but it is a tech savvy generation. They will spend hours doing something they like and are instantly bored if something has the least bit of imperfection.
Quite a challenge to reach this generation for Christ, isn’t it?
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