With almost every home in the UK a gaming console is used by children, it can even be the 30 year old child you married! But one thing is for sure, you have to be careful and follow the guidelines in the user guide for the console to avoid any unnecessary accidents.

There are an increasing number of cases every week were children have been engrossed in their roll play in the game that they have not attached the wrist strap of the handset and inadvertently let go of the handset which in turn smashes against the LCD screen and causes the screen to fail.

There are two points that the user has failed to retain form the user guide, the first being put the wrist strap around your wrist and the second point is to stand back so you are away from the TV and cannot hit it. I cannot count the times I have asked my children to move away from our television, just watching them play on either console is a frightening thought.

Why is it that we do not follow the guide lines anyone sets out? They are set out for our benefit and this ensures that you enjoy the gaming experience to the best of your ability.

When I have observed my children playing on the console I notice they get very competitive and then start moving closer to the screen, to what I tend to do is put an obstacle in their way so they know they cannot pass that point and if they do they know I will ban them from using the console for 2 weeks, this works very well for me and we have never had a broken screen, well not yet!

Another option would be to put a TV screen protector up in front of the TV so should an accident happen the handset hits the protector that is guarding the screen rather than the screen itself, or an other alternative is to run the console through an old CRT TV but you do not get the benefit of the graphics that way and this will put the children off using the console.