Nigel 10

Nigel's current obsession with Ben 10 is worrying Celest because of the fake boxing and punching moves, the "boom boom" sound effects and his constant rantings about Swampfire, Chromosome and so on - like I know who they are, and it's highly likely I spelt theirs names wrongly too. What's amazing is all this started even before he actually really watched an episode of it on TV - apparently his friends in school talk so much about it that he picked up all the fine details - so much for learning useful information in school.

So I started recording Ben 10 episodes on the Hubstation, to her disapproval, to let him actually watch it at home. Of course, he was delighted and started making his own running commentary each time. Celest has no limited his watching to only the weekends now, in an effort to control him.

My rationale is that it is better for him to watch it at home then to get second hand (and probably highly distorted) information from his school-mates. In my opinion, the show isn't as violent as we (at least I) initially thought it was and there is some form of educational or maybe brain stimulating content in the show (just that I haven't quite figured out exactly what it is). In addition, I think the more you expose him to something, the faster he will work it out of his system (look at sports cars, drifting, Dora, Diego ...) and move on to the next thing.

He managed to convince his grandpa to buy him a highly overpriced Ben 10 toy, as you can see in the picture and has also made Shannon aware that she needs a Ben 10 toy too - meaning she will bug her grandpa and anyone else who is willing to listen - which is a clever ploy to get himself another toy to play with.