Do you live with a child obsessed with video games?
A kid who’d rather play Minecraft than ball?
Who would sooner build worlds in Terraria than accompany you to the neighborhood barbecue?
I took it hard, the day I finally admitted to myself that what most inspires my nine-year-old son is a video game.
Certain we were on the road to laziness, brain atrophy, and obesity, I went through a long spell of helicopter parenting: policing, nagging, and threatening.
My lowest move was to hide the iPad.
This was not a sustainable approach. It didn’t make the desire for video games go away. If anything, the deprivation increased the appetite. It made everybody feel bad.
I had to face facts: the world was against me in this fight. Laptops, iPad, iPod, smart phones, Xbox–this stuff isn’t going anywhere.
I needed a positive approach to video games, to screen time in general, a term meaning any time spent in front of a screen: games, movies, or movies of other kids playing games. The following strategies worked.
I now look at screen time as a fact of life. It doesn’t depress me that my kids like this stuff. I no longer believe that loving Minecraft means you are a lazy and dull person, irrevocably obsessed with video games and destined to suffer from nervous breakdowns or clogged arteries.
And most importantly, I don’t feel guilty about my changed beliefs.
Limits are the key. Start with your attitude: approach video games as one of many options in the vast tool bag containing cool things your kids get to do, rather than the evil monster that will take over your life.
The beast can be tamed. Here’s how.
#1 Accept that gaming is fun for your child, even if it’s not fun for you
Those of us who did not grow up with the iPad, PlayStation, PC games and multitudes of devices wonder why anyone would want to spend down time in a two-dimensional world with no real plot.
Well, not a lot of us want to play tag for more than ten minutes, either.
Minecraft offers yet another opportunity to separate your experience from that of your child.
It isn’t your fault. The love of games did not come from your failure to expose them to sports or to read to them. They like what they like.
As long it’s not dangerous or illegal, it’s all alright. End of story.
Does this make you nervous? Dr. Devorah Heitner, author of “Screenwise: Helping Kids Thrive (and Survive) in Their Digital World” and founder of Raising Digital Natives, talks to us about how to take the fear out of allowing our children to have a relationship with digital media and technology.This packed masterclass is one of the 60+ masterclasses you get when you join the AFineParent Academy. Click here to learn more.#2 Decide what you can live with
Take a couple of days to study your own behavior.
Do you start slamming cabinet doors when your kid has been using a screen for more than a half hour? Do you begin to pace the halls after forty-five minutes? Look for signs of edginess, like mindless snacking.
In our house, screen time means total silence, which I love—I get things done! But after an hour, it starts feeling creepy, similar to what I feel on a gorgeous Sunday when I hear the sound of a golf tournament coming from our living room. I start imagining fat cells expanding. People on the couch begin to resemble potatoes.
If I demand an immediate cease and desist, things go downhill quickly. The kids pounce on each other. It’s as if all that stillness incubates an explosion of physicality. They have poor attitudes, back talking about dinner, negotiating everything, even what to have for a snack.
This was good information. I extended screen time by a half hour, and I gave fair warning. Ninety minutes. That’s what we can live with.
Soon, this developed into house policy: they get screens on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday for ninety minutes. Nothing during the week, because it’s too hard for them to go into that still, focused game mode and still keep up with the work/school routine.
Here are three more tips for developing your house policy:
- Both parents should be involved. If Mom is the only one who ever says, “Time’s up,” she’s going to be very unpopular very fast.
- Consider not owning an Xbox, PlayStation or Wii. Large gaming systems are harder to manage for two reasons:
- They put you in a bigger playing field. Now you’re dealing with God of War, The Witcher, Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, Halo and Assassin’s Creed. Not having them in your house might eliminate a few haggling sessions.
- A lot of these games are violent. Since they are played on a bigger screen, with a joystick, it feels a little more edgy, more full body. This makes the off button harder to push.
Screen time in the morning is different from screen time in the afternoon. The research of Dr. John J. Ratey of Harvard Medical School, author of the book Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, and now the “Sparking Life” movement, has shown that a person of any age who exercises even a half hour in the morning is much more likely to be able to sit still and focus, and retain what he learns. Ratey’s research is behind the idea of brain breaks in corporate offices: short periods of movement every hour shown to increase productivity and elevate mood.
#3 Decide on your approach
Now that you’ve decided it’s okay if they like something you don’t, and you know what you can live with, you need a way to look at your approach to limits. Most people will fall into one of two camps.
1. The “Gaming as Dessert” approach.
This approach assumes that it’s a privilege to play games. They are a reward, maybe instead of allowance. Practice your trumpet for a half hour, earn a half hour on the iPad. Mow the lawn, you earn an hour (depending on the size of the lawn).
Some kids (and their parents) love elaborate systems like this. Similar to a star chart, grids can be made, boxes checked. Negotiators love hashing out how much screen time is earned from each chore. Consider keeping track with different colored ink for different tasks.
2. The “Gaming Manifesto” approach.
This is for parents who’d rather avoid negotiations. You set up the screen time policy, maybe write it out, perhaps on a white board. Post it in the house where it can be referred to often. The advantage here is keeping it simple.
It’s unrealistic to think that the Manifesto means the end of negotiation. Your child will come to you and say, “I’m all caught up. Can I do a half hour of Terraria?” Direct his attention to the white board and say, “I’m glad you’re caught up! But remember, we don’t use screens except on weekends (or whatever your policy is).” When he asks why, the white board is there, a comforting object: “That’s our policy!”
Helpful hint: Avoid using screens as the off button.
Travel days are one thing; everybody needs some mind numbing to get through an airport wait. But the days of using the Baby Mozart DVD to grab a shower are over.
Now that they are older, appetites can build. For both of you. If you dole out screen time so you can clean the kitchen, you’ll want to clean the bathroom, too. Maybe finish that thing at work you didn’t get to last week.
Don’t be afraid to simply say, “No.” Even when it appears that there is nothing else to do, all their friends are at camp and your house feels like the most boring place in the world. It isn’t. There are toys. Books. A back yard.
Once I practiced this, I saw it really can work. I got out of the shower, scared to look, and found my kids making a bubble soup in the kitchen sink. They had wooden spoons, tongs, a spatula. They carried the whole thing outside and … I stopped watching. Maybe they poured it on my tulips and that’s why they didn’t come back. Doesn’t matter. They were industrious. Nobody got hurt. At least none of the people. Or the pets. As for the tulips… it’s still an unsolved mystery and at this point, I am content to leave it at that.
#4 Consider consequences
There will be sneaking. Here are some strategies to handle it when it happens.
- Have a fixed spot for portable gaming devices. Keep them in a specific place, a corner shelf or a large tray on the kitchen counter. This way it’s easier to see if any are missing.
- Have a consequence system set up. Discuss this when you explain the limits. Keep the consequences logical, simple, and direct. In our house, the penalty for sneaking is loss of screen time. If I walk into my daughter’s room on Saturday morning and find her in bed with a screen, I say nothing. I hold out my palm and she sets the device in it. Our limits only allow screens on weekends, so losing a day is harsh. If she does it again, that’s it for the weekend. Then we start on the following weekend.
- Never punish yourself with your consequences. If you can’t live without the hour of silence you get when your kids are playing Minecraft, make the consequence something else. No dessert. No sleepover. Make sure it is discussed clearly and ahead of time, so everyone involved knows what to expect and you aren’t tempted to dole out punishment-disguised-as-consequences in the heat of the moment.
#5 Decide on a ritual for transition time
Rarely do we power down at the office and jump back into domestic life. There is the gathering of stuff, walking to your car or the bus. The commute is part of the transition.
In the same way, our kids need a transition from the virtual world to the real world. Here are some simple steps:
- Use specific language so your kids know they are transitioning. They’ve just been killing creepers and building worlds, which can be tense work. Lighten the mood. Refer to the real world as the RW. Call them back: “You are hereby summoned to the RW! I missed you!” In a subtle way, this privileges the real world over the virtual, while also recognizing that when they are gaming, they really are somewhere else.
- Make it physical. This doesn’t have to be a mile run, or a game of soccer. How about a drink? It’s simple, free and easy. An hour on the screen without moving usually means not a single swallow of water. Consider a stretch routine. Not an hour of kid yoga, but a simple Reach for the Sky. Maybe throw in an arm stretch: right arm folds across the chest, hold for a breath, repeat with the left arm. The point is to bring awareness back to the body, reminding your child he’s a human being, in a three-dimensional world. Teeth brushing might work. Face washing, anything that gets the focus back on the physical self.
#6 Counterbalance screen time with time outdoors
This tip comes directly from the research of Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder
No experience beats the outdoors for stimulating all the senses, according to Louv. Contact with nature is as vital to kids as good nutrition and adequate sleep.
I happen to agree. Even when getting my kids outside is like moving cinder blocks, once we get there, I see immediate benefits. My son is not big on team sports, but outside, especially in summer, he’s unstoppable. If I get him on a hiking trail with a creek, we don’t get past the water. Clothing? So what! He’s fully submerged, rolling around in ankle deep water. It makes for a long, soggy walk back to the car. Talk about all the senses.
The outdoors is the polar opposite of the intense, narrow, hunched-over focus of a video game. The abundant feeling of the whole body in a vast world contrasts nicely with the handheld, 2-D device. Without any lecturing or rules, nature is an invitation to be physical, human and real.
#7 Search for a gaming camp
This summer I signed my son up for Minecraft camp, through the local children’s museum. For three days, twelve kids got to play Minecraft in the same world, in the museum’s basement STEAM lab, complete with 3-D printers.
My friends thought I’d gone mad: wasn’t this exactly what you didn’t want? Your child gaming, in summer?
I saw several benefits to this camp:
- Experience in virtual reality, with strangers, in a safe, structured environment. When one of the kids used his avatar to destroy my kid’s house, he could turn around and say, “Hey! Why’d you do that?” Not possible when you’re on a server in the library with anonymous people who think it’s fun to kill you.
- Exposure to the camp leader, a twenty-something man with experience in an animation lab, working on films like How To Train Your Dragon ll and Madagascar 3. He was as excited as the kids were about what they were learning. If my son really doesn’t find anything else he loves as much as building stuff in 2-D, maybe an animator isn’t the worst career he could end up in?
- Set gaming time. I built up the camp each time he argued for more screen time in summer: “Well, you have camp coming up.” When it was over, I still used it: “Remember, you got to play all day for three days. That was awesome, wasn’t it!”
- Finally, 3-D printers are just cool. A machine works relentlessly laying down polymer to build an object my boy designed. Something he can then hold in his hand. Something that is not a piece of paper. Astonishing.
The 2-Minute Action Plan for Fine Parents
Here are some ideas to help you cultivate a positive approach to your child’s love of video games / screen time.
- Can you name three activates your child loves that you do not? Do any of those trigger negativity the way video games do?
- At what point does your negative reaction to screen time kick in? As soon as you see the device? Candy Crush sound effects? What are the signs? Do you snack mindlessly? Feel crabby? Yell at the dog? Identifying your own limits can help you outline an approach you can live with.
- What kind of a planner are you? Do you like charts, details and equations? Or are you more a Big Picture person. Consider your own checking account. Do you record every purchase immediately, or do you sit down once a week and go through the records in one sitting. Do you like using markers, maps and diagrams? Will a simple white board do?
- What did you sneak as a kid? Cans of soda? A book under the blanket? Remember, just because your dominant feeling about screens is negative, that doesn’t mean you can’t somehow relate to your child’s enjoyment of it.
- How do you transition from work to home? What about your commute do you like? Do you listen to music? Do you walk? If your own transition isn’t where you want it to be, what are some actions you can take to bring you back to your physical self before you walk through the front door?
The Ongoing Action Plan for Fine Parents
- Choose one activity your child loves that you do not. Challenge yourself to write, or say, a statement about it. It might sound like this: “I am not a sports fan, but my child loves soccer. I’m willing to drive all over town to foster that love.” How willing are you to move towards that model in regard to screen time?
- Decide this week: do I want an Xbox in my house? If your spouse loves the Xbox, prepare to have a heart to heart about what kind of plan you can both enforce for the kids.
- Prepare to call the family meeting where you unfold your new approach. Knowing your own trigger signs and when they kick in will help you understand what kind of plan you want propose, a Dessert approach, or a Manifesto. Be open to your child’s input and know which points are you willing to negotiate.
- Set up an easy, consistent ritual for the end of screen time, something as simple as a drink of water, a two-minute stretch or a walk around the yard.
- Can you get your kids outside once this week? Maybe on the weekend when you have more time and some help? You’ll feel a lot better about your kids playing video games if they are also spending time in the boundless world of nature.
Thanks for this, Christy. I’ve actually pretty much made screen time a very occasional thing in my house. My kids use iPads and White Boards at school, and we do not own a video game system. But I think I do need to come up with a policy.
Thanks for your input here. Sorry to be so late responding, but I’m really excited to see that other parents struggle with this too. In regard to a policy, it seems to me that a steadfast one really does help avoid struggle.
Id rather have my children be online learning and socializing than be in front of a television for hours watching real wives of whatever or kardashian crap. For close to a century now we have spent 7 hrs a day being hypnotized by bad news ,bad programming and our kids play online talking with others and its supposeably bad.
I dont think either is good excessively. Everything in moderation is the key here.
Thanks for this. Good read. A little comment about the Xbox. We did buy an Xbox eventually, although ours is not connected to internet, you can’t play online. The rationale behind it was that it would help to prevent (or limit?) my kids from going to their peers’ to play games that I had no control over. Because my kids have grown up and they like to spend time at their friends’, in particular to play on their Xbox, Wii, play station, you name it, that they didn’t have at home. And these other kids often have big sisters and brothers, who may play games that may not be appropriate for my kids, age-wise. Their parents may be around, but I can’t exactly impose my views on them, nor can I prevent my kids from going to their friends’. So my kids and I discussed what games they would like and could play, I bought them, and I found that they would be more incline to stay at home, or invite their friends to our place for a game. For us it works. For now.
Wow, flo, great point. I grew up without being allowed to have a gaming system or to watch much TV, and I was required to play one sport and one musical instrument at all times (my choice of which). I planned to duplicate this with my kids, because I ended up reading so much and developing a love for music and the outdoors that I think I would have really missed out on if I had been spending a lot of time gaming, which is definitely fun but addicting! But while I did not sneak much TV or games at friends’ houses, I know it’s common for kids to do that and now that it’s so much more prevalent, it’s probably likely. Your approach sounds very well-reasoned!
Hi Kelly,
I’m glad I saw your comment because I want to approach my children’s upbringing the same way! One sport, one instrument. I’ve considered letting them substitute an instrument with a language once they hit 13. I want to know how you felt about this sort of upbringing? How did your parent/s encourage this or make it known that it was the rules? Did you resent it at all? Did you find it difficult to uphold along with your normal studies?
Thanks!!
Kelly, coming from the same type of house hold I was miserable and would you want that from your kids if you want your child to be good with instruments don’t pressure them it will come naturally same with sports video games are another factor most kids love it because they’re parents don’t force them to play it comes naturally.
This is such a great point. I know when my son goes to friends houses, they ALL have Xbox, and they do get to use it and I certainly don’t get a say in what they play, or how long. So, unless I always want to be the hostess, then you make a great point. Having your own system at least means a. kids will want to come over and b. you get to supervise what they play, and for how long.
This really helped me because im doing a project on videogames and this gave me some information!!!
THANKS
This really helped me because im doing a project on videogames and this gave me some information!!!
THANKS
Thank you for this. The suggestions for transitioning from game time back to the real world was particularly helpful. That’s the hardest part in my house and the kids’ legitimate sadness and struggle left me feeling guilty and frustrated. I’m excited to try all of this out :).
I’m wondering how it went? I think you zeroed in on exactly what’s difficult: “The legitimate sadness” when time is up. I don’t like upsetting my kids, and not just because I don’t like noise and fuss. I want to make them happy! My son happens to struggle extra hard with endings. Ends of vacation, end of a movie, end of playdate, end of weekend, and, today, end of summer. So this just makes end of screen time even more difficult. And it is always difficult. Sometimes there is less fuss than other times, and I always have to prepare myself for the heart catching sadness.
I have tried hard to resist buying a game system for my kids but eventually I gave in because I realized that he was really interested in computers and nothing I do can change that. So now I own an Xbox, Wii and we let the kids play on our old laptop. At first when he was young, setting time limits was easy, I set a timer on the TV and it shuts off at the time limit we settled upon. As he got older, he is now 8 yrs old, he refuses to use the timer as a means of ending game time because many games require you to save your progress. So now the arguments center around when he can save his game and exit. It is extremely frustrating because sometimes he is 20 mins over his time limit because he can’t save his game. I want to be a fair parent. Do you have any suggestions for ending game time on time? I have tried giving advanced warnings but that doesn’t seem to help either.
The single most important thing a parent can be is rational. When rules are based in sound reason and logic kids not only learn to understand why they’re important, they’re capable of reasonably figuring out new situations based on that underlying logic. The entire point of childhood is learning how the world works, it’s literally what their brains are wired to do. Likewise they WILL notice when word and deed don’t match up. Life may not be fair, but *people* should be. If they don’t learn that lesson from you they’ll learn to be bullies.
With that in mind think about this logically: If he’s playing a game that only saves at predetermined points as he progresses through the game (instead of whenever he chooses) he has no way of knowing when the next save point will appear, or how long it will take him to get to it. Your time limit forces him to either give up his time playing and quit potentially very early, or go over the time limit until the next available save point.
You could force him to quit early but then you’re punishing him for something completely beyond his control, which teaches him that he’s going to be punished no matter what he does so he may as well break your rules anyway. Not the lesson you want to convey.
You could force him to quit early BUT allow him to “store” time and use it later, but that’s probably going to play merry hell with your schedule.
Or, the best option, you could sit down with him towards the end of the time period and watch for the final savepoint even if it’s past your arbitrary deadline. You learn about the games he’s playing, he feels you respect and value something that’s important to him, and overall he learns to respect your rules far more because he knows they’re grounded in reason and fairness.
Thank you J for your eloquent response. You have touched many points of parenting I think I have forgotten amidst the frustration of enforcing the rules. I think I also need to look at the bigger picture as well. It is difficult for adults to excercise self-control as well…how many of us are guilty of staying up late to watch “Game of Thrones” on PVR instead of sleeping?! I think my kids understand the rationale for the rules but exercising it is a whole different matter that takes self-discipline.
When you can beat them, join them! After racking my brain, I remembered there were times when I sat down and played video games with him and we did stop close to the time limit. I don’t do it often but I think you are on to something. Thanks!
Thanks for this exchange. I learned from this, and I’m so glad this came up. I love the idea of sitting with your child and playing, or being involved as a way to wrap up. I find consistently that once a child feels heard/seen/felt, he is far more apt to co operate with any limits. Having said that, though, I also think part of this is the sadness issue Angela L spoke of. Saying no, or enforcing a limit, brings up that very unpleasant experience of disappointing your kids. And its part of life.
“Your time limit forces him to either give up his time playing and quit potentially very early, or go over the time limit until the next available save point. “
This is a good point and occurs frequently with my son. There are times I’ll let him play it out to the next save point–it could be another 20 minutes. And then, there are times when he quits a few minutes early because he realizes that he’ll not have time to get to that next point. We do maintain a time limit, but I agree that having a measure of flexibility is key.
Mrs. McElwee your article has given us something very important: A lesson in how dangerous it is for parents to remain ignorant of the technology in their children’s lives.
Unfortunately it teaches us this by example. Every word in this article from your use of the term “screens” to your dislike of “joysticks” broadcasts an absolute ignorance of technology. You provably do not know even the most basic facts about the technology you’re speaking about and your ignorance is dangerous not just to your own children but now to others’ as well.
What is the difference between coloring and drawing on sheets of paper or on a tablet? Do you arbitrarily limit “paper” time as well, telling your children they can only draw or read for 90 minutes on weekends?
Are you aware that there are games intended for adults 18 and older for every console, the PC, and even cellphones?
Are you even aware that games HAVE age ratings and content warnings on them?
Are you aware that in minecraft it’s possible to create fully working circuitry and computers, just like real life computer scientists create? Only without the danger of a soldering iron or expense of components and a breadboard?
I had a 4.0 in undergrad, I’m holding just shy of a 4.0 as I finish my Master’s degree, my friends are engineers working for major corporations and coders working for government contractors, and we are all gamers. I grew up a gamer, and my children will be raised as gamers.
I urge anyone reading this not to go down the path of ignorance and superstition. Educate yourselves about what your children are really doing and you’ll be amazed at what you find.
Look, I love technology as much as the next person, but my child needs to understand that with the game time there are responsibilities a person has to accomplish before they can spend time in front of a video game. He has to earn Xbox time by doing his chores for the day and if it’s a weekday, he must also accomplish his homework before grabbing the iPad or Xbox for Terraria or Minecraft. This he understands and grasps quite well.
Some of them have educational, creative value–I agree. Just the other day, my son somehow managed to snag 3 hours of Minecraft time because I finally gave in to playing it with him (I had been scared of getting addicted to the game as my husband recently did). We played in creative mode and it was fun to design and create a house. My son even built a house underwater in the nearby lake. It was pretty industrious! His brain is active and he is being creative. This game I’ve become more okay with.
The problem my husband and I face, is the constant hounding and irritation we endure when we try to do something as a family AWAY from the house and away from the game system. If he didn’t get to play before we left the house, all we hear all day is “I can’t wait to get home (to play video games)” when we are already out doing things that are fun and interesting. Today we went to a dinosaur exhibit with bounce houses and robotic dinosaurs. It was pretty much a dinosaur fair for families. As a kid that love dinosaurs, we expected him to enjoy himself, but instead he was more concerned about getting home to his games. We enjoy video games too, and we love playing as a family. Where we struggle is helping him to understand that it’s important and possible to bond as a family in other ways doing things that we all enjoy that don’t necessarily revolve around media and video games.
As a family, and as a young individual we want to foster creativity and activity in the outside world in addition to technology. There is a great big world out there to explore and experience in person. I think that balance is all the parents here are trying to achieve.
Balance is exactly our issue, too. It’s so important but feels so elusive.
My husband is a software engineer with a Ph.D. in Computer Science. He works for a tech company in Silicon Valley, and we are both gamers from way way back in the day. So we understand tech and we’re comfortable with our kids using this stuff. We well and fully know that Minecraft is not the same thing, at all, as sitting slack-jawed in front of a screen with no thought or strategy.
But my husband and I, even though we loved our video games and still do…when we were kids we also had other things we enjoyed in life. We played some sports (not well, but we still did it anyway) and we played outside with our friends and we went to the beach in the summer and we went sledding in the winter, and we liked these things. Gaming was our favorite thing, sure – but it wasn’t the ONLY thing we enjoyed. Our children, meanwhile, really only want to be playing games 24/7.
Let me use an example. We took them to Universal Studios last year. Two boys, ages 7 and 9, prime ages for this kind of experience, right? Well they had fun in the park for about 45 minutes, and then started advocating to go back to the hotel and play on the iPad for the rest of the day! When my parents took me to amusement parks as a child, I wasn’t thinking about my Super NES back at home, even though playing on it was my favorite pastime. If I was at an amusement park, I was riding rides and eating cotton candy and playing carnival games and browsing the gift shop and heck, just walking around taking it all in. The NES would still be there when I got home, and I’d be happy to see it, but I wouldn’t be dreaming of it when I had other fun things to do.
Our boys just don’t have that perspective at all. Nothing in real life ever even slightly competes with the screens, for them. That is what worries me. They are good boys and they obey whatever limits I put into place. But they always act like life in between screen sessions is something they are reluctantly enduring, not enjoying. They’re constantly checking the time to see how close they are to the next availability of screens, even when we’re doing fun activities. My husband and I have tried a lot of different things in terms of how much screen time we allow, when we allow it, what needs to be done first, etc. Some things work better than others just in the flow of our days. But no decision we make seems to change the basic dynamic that screens are always what they want, all the time, and nothing else will ever live up. THAT is the part that worries me so much, you know? I’d be chill about 5 hours of Minecraft if there was just one hour where they willingly and enthusiastically were living their lives doing anything else, especially outdoors. There’s a lot of information out there about if you should limit screen time and how you should limit screen time, but I’ve yet to see anyone address what you do if your child has no other interests regardless of the limits you set.
Absolutely! You’ve described my feelings and our situation with our 7 and 10 year old boys exactly. It’s my biggest parenting frustration and worry.
Yes, this exactly! The day seems to revolve around when they can play their next video game in my house. I like an occasional video game and my husband play every night, I’m not against that at all. But like you, I am concerned that the gaming at times feels like an unhealthy obsession with my kids overshadowing any other thoughts of joy. Learning to balance this as we go and they will hopefully learn real life is fun too!
Totally agree…I don’t mind the play time so much, but my son doesn’t want to do ANYTHING else. He doesn’t really complain but even when we are doing something amazing he is thinking/talking about video games and asking how long he’ll get to play later, when we’re leaving, etc. The obsession is what is concerning.
So for all of you parents – Kira, Sally, Amy, Ambrea, and KJ – I’m wondering how your posts have aged? Did your kids ever get over the obsession? Have they experienced negative effects from too much screen time? Did your kids ever find joy in other activities? What strategies did you use to find balance that ended up working? Because now I’m late 2021, I’m in that same place with my 7-year-old son, and Im about to lose it. It’s a constant battle for us – like you, I would not care if my son spent 3 hours playing video games if only he seemed to find joy in other activities. Part of me wants to just completely take video games away for a month as the “policy” so that he simply stops asking me about it constantly. Idk what to do – so what did you all end up doing with your kids? And did it work?
Thank you so much for posting this. Reading through this article as an undergrad who has been gaming since I was around 7, I couldn’t stand so much of what I was reading. Video games quite literally build your brain. Parents need to do research before posting articles like this. You would never limit reading time for your child, would you? Video games are even better than reading books at developing many skills.
Please do not limit video game time for your children. Encourage it. Play with them. Help them understand what skills they are building. (Keep in mind this for real video games, not brainless stuff like Candy Crush.)
what is your take on Fortnite? is it ok to let 10 year olds play?
what is your take on Fortnite? is it ok to let 10 year olds play? my issue is my son doesn’t do his school work and just wants to play fornite, brawl stars… Thanks
Thank you for an excellent, balanced article, Christy.
I appreciate that you touched on the fact that “…it’s okay if [our kids] like something [we] don’t.”
I personally don’t understand the draw to video games, but oh, how I love to read blogs–on several topics. My Feedly fills up just as fast as I empty it, and if I’m not careful, I can easily spend 2 hours on a Saturday morning reading and commenting on blogs.
My husband played video games before and after the kids were born. The girls were never interested, but our son used to sit on his daddy’s shoulders and watch him kill bad guys.
We had friends who strongly disapproved, but gaming was something the two of them enjoyed doing together. It was valuable, quality time. We made a decision for our family to allow for it, so our son grew up gaming with his daddy.
My husband slowed down on gaming about three years ago, but our son still enjoys it. Last year, to keep gaming a balanced part of our son’s life, we had a meeting of the minds.
My son asserted that the type of games he plays require longer time frames to get anywhere and chose to play less frequently but in longer bursts of time. Three times a week he sets a timer and respects the timer. It works well.
Staying familiar with the gaming scene is my husband’s job. He knows where to go to review games, how to make decisions for what is appropriate (or not), and he engages our son in the gaming conversations that bore me to tears.
Gaming IS a part of our son’s life. It is important to him. He enjoys it, and while it doesn’t consume his every waking hour, it still needs balance. I appreciate that this article sees the value in screen time with limits because basically, it’s just a microcosm of almost anything else we choose to do in life. We constantly need to re-evaluate. But teaching our children how to navigate these areas of their lives builds skills they’ll use throughout their lives.
I feel you. I seriously believe that this very issue, accepting that they like things I may not, is my biggest challenge as a parent. I’m getting better, and I’ll have to. I mean, wait till we bump up against boyfriend/girlfriends we don’t like!
“I mean, wait till we bump up against boyfriend/girlfriends we don’t like!” – EXACTLY! 😉
Thanks for this helpful post! I have four boys and currently we pretty strictly limit screen time for them. We don’t own a television and they can have the computer for cartoons once a week, if at all. They are nine and under. It’s difficult because I am quite addicted to my devices, myself. I don’t want them to turn into me, but I don’t think our strictness is going to prevent that. They are ok for now, they don’t ask for it, and they know that I use my devices pretty much for work, but they are always on me. I will use your tips for myself!
Interesting! Your boys don’t ask for it, maybe because they don’t have a big appetite for it?? I have another friend who doesn’t limit screen time at all, and she claims that as a result, when they have friends over, the screen is the LAST thing they want to do. They’ve had their fill, so when they have someone to play with, they want to play!
My children loves video gaming and I am very happy to read this wonderful post. I am also thankful to you for sharing this wonderful information with us.
What happens when your 9 year old sneaks into the home office at 5.30AM to play video games. He has been warned, threatened with no games for a week, but these threats doesn’t stop him sneaking. It is like, hang the consequences I will sneak anyway, How to deal with that?
Hi Robyn,
I had a similar issue with my kids and here are a few ways that I handled it.
1. For console games (xbox, PS4) I simply took the controllers and hid them so they would have to ask me for them when they wanted to play.
2. For PC games I have all of my computers locked with a secure password so it requires that I log them in for them to be able to access it. We also have a family computer and I use software that allows me to control the specific times the kids are allowed to use the computer, Internet, etc.
3. Tablet/SmartPhones – In addition to running software that filters where they can visit and what apps they can install, the kids surrender their devices at night so they aren’t up all night playing games.
I hope this helps and please feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions.
If my children were to sneak on any device then that game would be gone from our house forever. If it continued to happen video games might be gone forever from our house. I delete any game that causes issues such as arguing or getting overly upset while playing.
Love the forum
I have the same issue with my 9 year old. This summer, she plays online video games starting in the morning when she gets up until past midnight. She does this almost everyday. I work full time and my husband is home. When I arrive home from work, my daughter is still gaming. I am so upset! The other day, I had a talk with my daughter about limiting her time online. We agreed that she needs to do her reading and math reviews before she can play. However, once she starts playing, she doesn’t want to stop. I plan to turn off my wifi at home at 9pm, and will try to stick with this approach every evening. I’m not sure if this is going to work.
Hello Chanted,
I applaud you for wanting to limit the time your daughter is spending online playing games. One approach you may want to consider is seeing if your Internet router will allow you to place time restrictions on the device she’s playing. Typically you would simply need to get the IP address of the device and you can configure the settings in the router to allow it access for only a certain amount of time. Also, some console systems allow you to configure the amount of time kids are allowed to play per day. If she’s on a PC there are numerous applications available that you can install that will limit the amount of time. Having to remember to turn on/off the WiFi at your home can become a bit tedious, especially if you want to use WiFi after a certain time in the evening.
One side note, many online games have chat options that allow your kids to speak with other people online. This may be something you want to disable/restrict as it could expose your 9 year old to others that you don’t know, using language you don’t approve of and/or discussing topics that aren’t appropriate.
Hope this helps.
Could you teach out to me? I would like my child to be able to. Educatiinal things on the computer, internet, but that is all. Is there a way to control that strictly enough to prevent going to. Any other websites?
Thank you
Hello Christy,
I just became a parent yesterday, I’m pretty happy! Even before reading your article I had questions about this since I am a “computer addict” and I’ve been one for the past 15 years. I’m scared my child will see me pass several hours in front of the computer and want to do the same thing. I had a lot of time to think about this at the hospital, yesterday, I think the best way is to set rules for my child and for myself then to find the right balance between screen time and outdoor time. I don’t want him to not play video games since I think games can bring a lot of knowledge, I learned how to speak in English playing RPGs, I developed my patience playing online games and dealing with people, they also helped me on my social skills. My goal will be to balance the right amount of screen time for my child.
Thank you for your post, it gave me a better vision on the subject.
Hello
Looking for some help my son is 15 and addicted to his x box 1
I have tried time limits but he goes over today I found him on it at 3 in the morning after asking him to be off at 10:30 last night. He is an Honor roll student and takes all honor classes does band plays soccer. I took away his remote because this was the last straw anyone else gone through something like this.?
take the power cord
Why are you complaining and being so ungrateful. He is an honor roll student and he is physically active, don’t you think this shows that he is responsible enough to play games and also do his work and on top of that even do soccer. You should really see what is in front of your eyes, a magnificent son who just needs his mother to understand that he needs to have some fun in his life. However if his grades start to drop and he starts to do bad in his physical activities that when you need to have a conversation with him, trying to make him see that you are trying to do whats best for him. Do not just take away things with out explain why and trying to understand his point of view.
He may be a good son and a good student, but this is separate from following a household rule and his good grades rely on proper sleep habits to function and do well. So it doesn’t excuse on any grounds from having to follow rules and consequences as he will have to do in the real world.
Teaching alternative habits when a child can’t sleep, like reading a book, studying , listening to music, drawing….lots of things to bring on sleep.
We all know computers and video games don’t do that for us and disrupt sleep cycles.
Learning a better way is not a bad thing.
Good for you mom – stick to your guns in a loving way and have consequences to support his future.
The two things (a good student and staying up past time and breaking the rules of the house) do not grant him immunity from consequences and cooperation.
Many parents are too permissive and allow anything because they are constantly looking to make the child’s world a happy place and too easy and to avoid confrontations or consequences/punishments.
Let him be a kid. Believe it or not video games are a great way to expand a childs imagination. It’s like writing your own story. If you dream of playing professional basketball you can.
You said yourself he is an honor role student and plays sports. Clearly he was doing just fine with video games, and taking it away might cause him to lose motivation in school, or even cause him to quite sports. Life will be dull, and no one will be happy.
Really powerful.
G’day I’m a 30 year old dad. I let my boys play for 2 hrs, with a 10 minute warning before it goes off. Usually they get bored and do something else. I also love joining in with them it’s great bonding time and it believe it or not gives us something we can talk and realate to.. but most of all I always remind myself why did I bring my children into the cycle of life and death, it wasn’t to be a Nazi bastard, I’m here to show them love and understanding, and realise they are there own people and have their own interests and try not to force my crap on them because that’s what I want.
god yes
My kids 10 and 12 game:read/watch videos on their iPads 2-3 hrs a day every day unless there’s an event. I don’t feel guilty. They’re doing their work. They’re not overweight. They take breaks. Why does everyone freak out over gaming and not tv?
We struggle with this too… out 6 and 10 year old have major tantrums when its time to stop the screens. Both kids have OCD and transitions can be very tough.
We were sick of the fighting and wanted to include them in the process and give them control. So I quickly make some coins on my 3d printer and we made a hand written contract that the kids had input on. Each coin is worth X amount of time and they choose when to use it. (within a window of time). And when they are done with the coins they are done with screens. The contract is on the frig encase they forget what they agreed to!
I posted this on facebook and a bunch of parent friends wanted to use them to. So my wife and I decided to jump into it and make a business. We called it Screen Coin. And we’ve been using it with our kids since be beginning of the year.
Sorry for the “pitch”, delete this post if you like, but again we’re a small mom and pop business making this in our garage, in the hopes to help out some other parents.
If you want to get more info, check out the site. http://www.getscreencoin.com
Just saying, any game on console can be played on pc, and then it’s harder to track since they can say they were doing school Or whatever.
I have a wonderful four-year-old son who is very bright. He is showing an interest in playing computer games lately and I don’t quite know how to approach it. My tech-savvy husband rigged up a Super Mario Brothers emulator on a spare laptop just for fun one day and handed the controller over to him to see what he would do. With a little practice he loves it and he’s absolutely excellent at it! He’s to the point now where he only really struggles with the levels that even an adult would find difficult. It is really impressive. But…
He is four. He melts down like a four-year-old when play time is up. He melts down then he gets too frustrated, which is often and unpredictable. He can’t truly appreciate the chance to play the game and simply wants to consume. We’re not cool with it. We’ve decided Mario’s out for now and maybe more educational, age-appropriate games would serve him better. It was our bad for letting him get hooked! We told him and it didn’t seem to bother him much. In fact, it seemed like he might have understood our reasoning. We also need to let him play for less time per day, I think.
But I’m not sure how to approach even educational games the “right way” because of his age and aptitude. I feel like I’m in no-mom’s-land where there’s a ton of technology discouragement and not much guidance. I don’t think “avoid screentime” is going to be an option/solution in our family. That’s okay. But it is pretty scary to be in the very beginning and wonder about even my own beliefs about it. I just don’t know what to do.
Loving this page’s 10-part discipline series, by the way! Really, really enjoying it. Rock on!
Great post! We should know that video games aren’t all that bad. Maybe we think video games are bad because we are afraid and don’t know what to do if our kids become addicted to video games. Of course, we need to set up a time limit. But as parents, we also should spend more time with our kids and use your heart to care and understand the needs behind video game addiction.
Awesome thanks alot for this post. Cheers and Happy new year in advance
To prevent children from developing an addiction for video games, parents must limit game playing time as well as promote other modes of recreation. It is also advisable to check age game ratings and game content provided by the manufacturers and ensure its suitability for young kids.
Thanks for the information
It’s good stuff here and I have been looking for such information for many days. Thanks for sharing this information.
very nice
I have no problems with video games or the YouTube but when I want to take them to the beach and my 11 year old crys and whins the hole time at the beach I just lose. I get loved video games but I would have loved for my parents to take me to beach instead of playing video games. I at my wit’s end it’s not the time he spends on the games it the time he don’t want to spend with the family.
Thank you so much for this article. I have a 6 year old who is starting to delve into the world of gaming. I do not own a gaming system in our home however he has a computer in his room for school purposes however he has now learned how to turn on the computer and find these games himself. I love these ideas of posing restrictions on time for him we already do this for TV/movie time however I think I will need to extend it into gaming time. 30 minutes of reading for 30 minutes of gaming or movie time. I was so set into not having any gaming time at all that I realized it was placing a strain on our relationship as mother and son.
Hi – My son is 11 and he has been playing video games for some time now – I love all this – I wish I would have found all this info a long time ago -bit since I didnt how do I change things now (or not change things bc that might be an entire battle with him – “i have been playing like this always why do I have to change now it has all been fine”) -how do I smoothly incorporate these new ways?
This doesn’t work. This only makes your kids not like you behind your back and makes them jealous of their friends. This works from maybe ages 5-12 but once they’re a teenager, it’s a whole different story. If your teen is still always playing games, that’s their passion. By the time your kid is a teen, they’ve aged enough to realize the things they love in life. When they’re younger, expose them to all kids of media and take them places. Limiting screen time is OK then, but if your teen is passionate about games, then don’t take away their intrests.
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Wow – this is just the article I’ve been looking for and it felt as though you wrote it for me. Thank you!
I thought it would be best if you heard from a CHILD’s side of this. I am a child age 12 and my parents give me around the same time as you give your kids. But the one thing adults do not understand is that computer games are a window of opportunity to another dimension where you can build endless shapes and structures and let your mind expand with creativity (Minecraft). You can explore scenic places- real and fictional, you can relax in this virtual universe that is so much better than this Earth and all the jobs and school that comes with human life. You can do endless things that you would never get to do in real life. There will ALWAYS be a game that links to your interests. But all adults see is the 8-bit games that they played in their childhood that only had one objective and that they rarely played because there were things so much better than those games at the time. A few years ago my mum kept shortening my time on Minecraft because I was apparently spending too much time finishing my builds, soon after I thought of an idea that could help me and my brother so I asked my mum to have a go of Minecraft and she said no obviously so after asking her repetitively for a week she finally gave in. Within five minutes of the game my mum fell in love with the creativity that came with it and she was building some great builds but then after knowing how hard it was to build something awesome because she was a beginner, she looked at everything me and my brother had built and she looked like the proudest mum alive. She realised that it was good that I was playing the game because she could see the progress i was making as well. I was an expert on shapes after playing Minecraft and I was nailing one hundred percent scores on all my geometry tests, so was my brother. She then put the time up to it’s original limit and even played with us sometimes. That was a great family bond. What parents should know is that if children like to play computer games then let them play. But the more you limit their time, the more they’ll want to play. But if you let them play for a whole day (just one day not a whole day every day) then they’ll see how boring it can get if they do get the time they want and then they’ll want to go outside more often. Believe me, i’m the only Teenager in my class who has climbed 4 mountains because of the lesson I learned that too much can be boring. Most of my class hasn’t even gone on a walk properly. They only walk to get somewhere. The kids in my class are the kinds of kids who get 6 hours everyday. Don’t let that be your kids.
Why calling it obsession? We all used to play when we were kids. Yeah, we didn’t play computer games as often as our children now, but let’s be honest. If we had an opportunity, we would have played.
no
Can we have a researcher comment here please. It is my belief that some kids have an easier time with gaming and video game obsession. Some can leave it and others can’t enjoy the uncertainty of not having it available. Like a lot of things, I think it comes down to how your brain is wired.
Escape room games are becoming so popular in the USA and, Escape rooms are one of the best outdoor activities to enjoy with our loved ones.
The best escape room experience, 60-min adventures that intrigue all ages. You can play an Escape Room with your friends and family.
thanks for share these games for kids I think these are one of the best games!
I think you are right on many points and have some excellent ideas. I would caution you to not assume every family has two parents in it though. I agree that mom shouldn’t have to enforce all the rules, but there isn’t always another person there. I like to use a timer, so the kids can be mad at the timer, not me.
When I was a child my parents were always strict about me playing video games. Because of that fact I become really passionate about games. Over years I was growing and I wasn’t interested in talking to other people or having a girlfriend. I lost my virginity when I was 21 and got my first job when I was 23. Forbidden fruit always tastes awesome.
Would you suggest to let them have free rain of the times instead? I don’t mean to sound accusing but am actually curious… My 9 year old loves gaming, and would easily spend 6h+ on his xbox every day if he is allowed… I just don’t think it is healthy. How could your parents have approached it better with you?
I agree with VN. I am single parent of an only son . Before and after he got into games I tried a lot of activities .
Cricket , football , swimming , sailing, running , cycling, tennis , parkour , guitar, baritone , film school, digital music , painting , reading , board games, chess, cooking , crafting ( and the list goes on).
He just has never excelled at anything and so lost motivation .
He likes minecraft now but I don’t believe he gets anything out of it , just makes him irritable. When he stops he just lies around doing nothing .
I’m exhausted as I do everything with him and holding down a full time job!
I’m willing to put in the effort If anyone has other ideas….
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This was the most ill informed, ignorant pile of shit have ever read. try joining in with your kids and find out why they enjoy video games so much. I love gaming alone but it becomes 10 times more fun when me and my stepdad play games like Mario kart or super smash bros together. I think limiting this fun on the basis that your kid becomes ‘antisocial’ and ‘lazy’ is wrong, there are many games that allow your children to play with friends/ family through game chats, especial during this difficult time it is the best thing right now to be with friends in whatever world we want whilst we are stuck indoors.
Nice Information.
I love that you talked about setting a game time, talk about consequences, and helped me to understand the reason why he likes to play. My son is obsessed with playing video games, and I am looking for help and alternatives to not only understand him but to teach him something good. I will definitely apply every tip you talked about, and I will also start looking for less aggressive videogame alternatives.
So I think that you need a different perspective on this situation. I’m a thirteen year old kid, and I love playing video games. I do understand that there needs to be a limit, if I was a parent I wouldn’t want my kid playing video games 24/7. But the way you guys are talking about video games, makes it sound like some menace that you have to protect your children from. But video games are quite the opposite. They are intuitive and help stimulate your child. They also encourage kids to show creativity and passion. Too much screen time is a problem, and you need moderation. But you shouldn’t look at video games as something bad.
I think that you guys need a different perspective on this situation. I’m a thirteen year old kid and I love video games. Video games do need to be limited and should be handled in moderation, but they can be helpful. They are intuitive and encourage creativity and passion. You guys talk about video games like it’s really bad and shouldn’t exist, but that’s not what video games are. Try to see the perspectives of your children. Video games make them happy. You should try to understand that.
My son behaves like an addict in withdrawal when I try to enforce limits. My husband is wishy washy and can never be bothered to enforce any guidelines at all. SO I become the bad person. If I am not home or am not counting minutes no limits are enforced at all. I am so angry and hate the games so much I wish I could unplug them FOREVER! I think my children would be much better off. I have met many adult gamers and most seem to be socially challenged, undermotivated, and obese people with limited vocabularies. I am so frightened my child will end up like these people. He is already going down the path of social awkwardness, ennui, and obesity. While I think some people can handle gaming and lead fully funtioning lives, I don’t think my kids can and I want them to stop. I am sorry but right now I can’t see them as anything but time-wasting mind-sucking evils.
You are wise to be concerned. As an “old fashioned” parent I did not face these concerns. In “my days” it was also acceptable to be strict and teach children that actions have consequences. Having said that, mostly we were on the same page and there were fewer distractions. Modern parenting is a foreign concept and Im yet to be convinced that it will lead to strong adults who can make it in a hard world. Stand your ground. You are doing this because you care about your children. One day, hopefully, they will thank you.
It is a fair concern to want your children to be well-rounded enough that they will have motivation to engage in non-video game activities, but you expressed this otherwise valid worry in possibly the most cruel way you could muster.
You say adult gamers are “socially challenged;” I wonder if this is simply yet another example of the chicken-egg problem. Not all of us had the extreme privilege of having friends growing up, being invited to play-dates as a child and parties as a teen, and so we turned to solitary activities for solace. Some of us took up fishing, some of us working on our cars, some of us studying, some of us video gaming, and for many of us, there was a mixture of solitary activities we enjoyed. To you, who must have lived a severely sheltered life to see normal social struggles as an imminent threat, it may seem like gaming leads to socially challenged people. But perhaps it’s more intuitive to imagine that socially challenged people gravitate towards gaming.
Additionally, I wonder why you’re so deeply frightened over the prospect of your children becoming obese. Do you imagine they will suddenly gain a large amount of weight after simply sitting down more than usual? I really hope the meals you feed your children are nutritious enough that they do not need to engage in copious amounts of exercise just to keep the calories off. You should also consider that your children are almost certainly sitting more at school than they are at home; in fact, they probably sit during school for about 6 hours, with 2 hours out of their 8 hour schedule generously blocked off to account for recess and gym class. Do they usually put on weight during the school year from all this sitting?
Motivation is a serious problem, and a lack of motivation can be tangentially tied to some gaming. However, when you examine the root cause of demotivation, it’s often not specifically gaming, but any activity that does not require one to use their brain’s creative muscles. Some games fall under this category, but so does watching Netflix, reading magazines, etc. Remember that the root word of “productivity” is “product;” ask what end result your child (or even you!) are really producing when you engage in an activity. An artist can produce a painting, a programmer can produce a new video game, script, or tool. If your child likes building in Fortnite, maybe they would enjoy taking a kid-friendly woodworking class. Allowing your child to use gaming as leisure, just as you likely find reading Cosmopolitan leisurely, can help both of you discover productive hobbies for your child to enjoy.
This is kind of absurd, honestly. I question if it matters that your kid plays 60 minutes of games vs. 75, 90, 120. Probably not, so some leniency there might be warranted.
For instance, if 60 minutes rolls along and your kid is in the middle of a game or needs X time to reach a save point / finish a match, saying “sorry, 60 mins is up, shut it off NOW” is pretty cruel, actually. That’s like someone telling you while you’re in the middle of making dinner, with food in the oven, to stop NOW and go do something else. Not suggesting you’re this struct but “counting minutes” and “wish I could unplug them FOREVER” seem to point in that direction.
In this day-and-age, we should accept that our kids are going to be able to enjoy electronics more than some of us parents would have in our day. For me, I did love video games and played them daily after school, on weekends, etc. and “I turned out fine”. 🙂
The suggestion that gamers are lazy/fat/unhealthy/etc. is just like any other generalization — false.
Maybe encourage your kids ti play games that are constructive. Problem-solving games, thinking games, adventure games, etc. Skip the overly violent games (depending on your kid’s age). Mario, Zelda, Pikmin, Minecraft, and similar games are actually good for kids.
If your kids are obsessed with computer games then find them something more interesting to do. Rather than playing instruments or making them learn languages, which lets face it is just like extended homework.. consider what the games give them. Adventure, excitement. If your kid is obsessed with Fortnight take them to an Airsoft range to do it for real. If they love fighting games take them to a martial arts class. Fans of mine craft? Build a bivouac in the forest and teach them how to light a fire and cook their dinner on it. Guaranteed they will prefer the real thing.
Very nicely done. Your show schedule gave me the info on some shows I was wondering.
How do these kids handle sadness when they grow up? Sadness in some form or another WILL come. As parents, we do our children no favours by being overprotective. Sadly, I can testify that this is true.
“m” relax, first and foremost, does your kid get good grades, do they eat healthy, and are they physically active, if your child is these three things as well as a gamer, you have nothing to worry about, but if your child is overweight, or extremely socially inept, or acting like a drug addict then that’s when you know that it has gone to far, games by nature are not inherantly bad just like drugs, ment to ease wounds, and alcohol to make your worries dissapear, but overuse and too much will cause problems, in your situation i suggest you take your child and your significant other to a camping trip, no technology all relaxation, show them other wonders, make them notice the time they spend gaming or on the”Phone” or somthing like that, show your child that they have a problem and limits need to be set, after the fact (to ensure what your saying sticks) i suggest buying a timer for your son, to limit his time without having to keep track, and maybe encourage what he likes in the games, if he likes shooter games go do airsoft, if he likes building buy him a model car, if he likes adventure go on a hike… Please before you turn and go games are the root of all evil try some interactive strategies, you can still be strict on gaming time and make your son go ouside but he will be able to still do what he loves without staring at a screen. Most importantly have strict punishments where you will have to moniter him, it will ensure he isn’t doing anything he isn’t supposed to.
he likeley needs to be told no he cant play, make him do other things and set limits like stated above, because gaming addiction, just like alcohol and drugs, can be a dangerous thing
Dear Christy, i totally agree on your views here, In our olden days we are much used to many outdoor / physical games. So we could be healthy physically and mentally. We should encourage our children to do same as fine as possible. I am trying to reduce their television time first and avoid mobile use mostly.
Now, I am a huge Zelda fan. Not the biggest you’ll ever meet, but pretty big. Still small enough to not blindly love every game of the series though. Well anyways, ALttP was before my time. I am currently 18 years old and never played it when it first came out. Of course I got it on Virtual Console later on. And, to be perfectly honest… I didn’t love it. I had a good time playing it, but to this day I never actually finished it. There are things about it that just bothered me too much. Like Links puny sword. Or the lack of maneuverability when using items, or, well your sword. These little details made the game hard. I’m not saying that it’s too hard. I’m saying that it is harder (and thus more infuriating) than it needs to be. So that’s why I didn’t particularly like this entry to the series. I’ve gotta add, I definitely prefer the 3D titles over the 2D titles (apart from BotW, it was good but didn’t feel like a Zelda) and, like I said, ALttP was before my time so I am not the most impartial of judges… But yeah.
I love video games
From the article: “I’m glad you’re caught up! But remember, we don’t use screens except on weekends (or whatever your policy is).” When he asks why, the white board is there, a comforting object: “That’s our policy!”
Okay, but what’s the reason behind this limit?
If if the kid is doing what they’re supposed to be doing, getting their homework done, doing their chores, not talking back, etc., generally showing good behavior … then why impose such strict limits on something they truly enjoy?
Not every kid wants to go play outside all the time, not every kid wants to do puzzles or board games, not every kid is into art or reading. For some kids, the most important thing in their life (from their perspective) is video games. Placing an arbitrary limit on this seems… arbitrary… what’s the reason behind it?
It’s important to understand the games your kid is playing and whether or not they might be appropriate for them. I know parents who let their kids (who are nine years old and younger) play games like Call of Duty and that is absolutely inappropriate in my opinion. But for a kid to wants to play Minecraft, a game which actually teaches an important skills, or Roblox, where they can interact with other kids, including their own friends from school and the neighborhood, I I don’t think it’s all that bad of an activity.
Thank you so much. This is so helpful.
Your work always surprises me in the best way. m
Handling your child’s video game obsession positively can be challenging