To Fortnite or not

I’m very excited about writing my first blog because I always thought of myself as a writer. I hope the subject matter is juicy enough for someone actually to read it. Today’s blog is about video games, in particular, fortnite.

I named the blog,  fortinte or not to fortnite, a very important question for all. As a camp director and a father of two boys, it’s obvious that I’m an expert in this matter, lol.  Truthfully, speaking, I only heard about fortnite from my campers last year.

I couldn’t understand what the fuss was all about, it’s not like its, Madden football or hockey.  It’s probably another awful video game like grand theft auto or hello neighbor where both games are super violent. They feature things like shootings, stabbings, theft,  murder, mayhem and more, completely inappropriate – not just for kids.

Personally, I’m happy for my kids to play video games as long as it doesn’t affect other aspects of their lives. Ensuring this doesn’t happen, however, can at times prove challenging.  At camp, we kept an eye on the kids during their breaks and saw that fortnite does not promote violence nor mayhem but actually team building.

Players need to work together to win the game. It also challenges the players to be creative in the way they look online. While it is a good idea to keep a close eye on your children when they are playing online, they can also benefit from being allowed the freedom to learn for themselves.

Finally, researchers speak about the importance of strong communities and peer relationships. Even those forged in cyberspace can provide children with a sense of belonging and can help them boost resilience to issues they may face in the future.

We’ve spoken before about how fortnite isn’t as bad as some suggest, and yes, there are extreme cases of children becoming addictive, and nobody is suggesting that we let our children do whatever they want online.

The bottom line is that we should look beyond the guns and shooting, and recognize the benefits of such games. Arm yourself with knowledge, and even get involved if you can, but don’t write off the benefits of the controlled use of games like fortnite.  Camp maritime loves fortnite.

Hope you enjoyed :).