Good parents. Bad technology.

Soccer balls, checkers, slot cars, skipping ropes, bicycles, etc. don't induce this sort of extreme behavior. It's only the new technology with its demands on players to reach that next level that induces this sort of compulsion and obsession in both adults and children.

Unfortunately, our children are far more susceptible to its controlling influence than their parents who grew up without it and know it for what it is, a force that saps individual will.

I don't think spanking the kid is any sort of solution but the parents' solution of removing and controlling the technology is absolutely the correct solution by re-asserting control in the hands of people and not the software.

I love technology in many ways. But I abhor the market-driven, consumerist energies that are buried within much of its recreational derivatives. In the same way supermarkets and shopping malls are designed to control every waking second a consumer is within their grasp, these products are designed to entrap and control to create that artificially inseminated "need" and "demand" of our consumer economy.

Don't spank. Moderate the child's access to this influence for his own good. The tantrums will be well worth it in the long run.

imho.