Are we playing with our children's future?

I loved my carefree childhood, spent under the african sun in Cape Town, hours upon hours of outdoor fun and adventurous and even though we don't really have the same warm weather over here in the UK, the love of the outdoors is certainly something I have made a real effort to pass on and instil in Mr A, come rain or shine.

For the first 3 years of his life we had pretty strict screen restrictions which I have learnt to loosen up since he turned four and I can see the advantages of certain kids films and TV shows that encourage friendship, manners and good morals, as well as educational documentaries - he loves anything to do with whales and the ocean at the moment. We have also very recently delved into the use of educational apps to assist his learning at home and as long as everything is monitored to a degree it's gone pretty well, although even with some of the most innocent looking apps there are chances for very young children to rack up a small bill for various add-ons as well as being somewhat addictive in nature.

Mr A watching a film on the EuroStar

This easily addictive nature to games is what makes me nervous as there are already so many things in the world to distract us, encourage us to spend money and basically waste our time and you are also seeing an increase of children leading more sedentary lives, lives that are based around technology and staring at screens for hours on end. This brings me to the moral question of wether you should allow your child to play certain games targeted at children but are leaning towards the casino industry, I know this is personally this is something I am not comfortable with. It is so easy to see how easily these type of games tap into a child's mind, on the occasion we have visited places like Porthcawl or Barry pavilion which are both scattered with Kids Arcade machines and without even knowing what they are all about Mr A is immediately attracted to them.

How do you feel about Casino games aimed at children? Is it all innocent fun or are we setting them up for potential problems in the future?