Video game junkie??

My son has discovered the joy of video games. This is not surprising given my own interests in the subject. We obtained a game that he loves to play at school--Hot Wheels Velocity X and he craves playing it 24x7. This is not surprising either. He is very young and hasn't learned to exercise the discipline and will power necessary to avoid falling into the deep hole of video game addition, and all the addictive behavior related (you know, stuffing the dog in the closet, arranging snacks and water and a little bucket for...waste, and then completely ignoring the outside world and the body's need for sleep). Unfortunately, neither have I at the ripe age of 40...so its a fairly bleak outlook. All of this is fairly normal for a youngster his age.

What's not very normal is that while he LOVES to play his video game, the word 'play' has a whole different meaning for him. For the most part what he really wants is to force Dad (that's me) to play the game while he sits nearby watching and bossing me around. "Turn there, Dad!" "Oh, you missed it AGAIN, Dad!" and various frustrated noises fill the room and for a change they aren't coming from me.

We have him on this somewhat complicated system of reinforcement and control whereby he can earn or lose video game time on a daily basis by being good or not. The system has a certain arbitrary aspect to it (its well designed to support the somewhat arbitrary needs of the Parental Units). So at any given time, he's got a fairly limited amount of gametime and he regularly chooses to have ME play ("Unlock the purple car next, Dad!" or "You drive and I'll shoot, Dad!") rather than playing by himself.

What does all this mean?