Video Gaming Addiction, or How to Protect Kids Online

Computers are a normal part of life for both adults and children. However, they are not always useful, especially when we talk about gaming. However, to forbid a modern child to play on a computer is the same as to forbid playing ordinary games that were played previously. Let us discuss the ways of protection and smart playing.

Kids and Video Games

First of all, find out what video games your child is playing. Ask to talk about the game and show it to you, or even better – install it yourself and try it. You may be very surprised: Modern games are incredibly beautiful, they are often real works of art. They are complex and require very developed fine motor skills, attentiveness, and the ability to make decisions quickly and plan many steps ahead. These games can easily please you, and then, you and your child will have another common interest.

If the game, in your opinion, is still terrible or teaches bad things, remember that your child is relieving stress and struggling with negative emotions this way. If they do this too often and for a long time, this is an occasion to think not so much about the ban on video games but about the reasons for so much negativity in the life of a son or daughter. No one goes headlong into this world from a good life.

Means of Protection

What to do when the child wants to spend the whole day in the game? This fact indicates that things are not going well for the child in the real world, and your task is, first of all, to help them with solving problems at school and communicating with you and other relatives.

An original way to return a child's passion for games to a reasonable course is to adapt them to business, that is, to study. For example, the Minecraft game, which is wildly popular with schoolchildren, released a special educational version that includes assignments for all basic school subjects. You can also get your child interested in developing game portals, which offer to train mindfulness, memory, mental arithmetic, multitasking, and other cognitive abilities in the form of exciting mini-games.

If everything is fine with the child, and they just prefer games to other types of leisure, but this worries you, try to show what other good ways to spend free time exist. Perhaps, the child simply does not know. How can they find out how cool it is to ride a bike if parents spend all their evenings at a laptop, and classmates are doing the same?

In general, scientists constantly emphasize that the influence of the family and the environment on the child's behavior is always many times stronger than any activity, including video games. For example, clinical psychologists believe that it is always necessary to treat a child's addiction to games at the family level. Moreover, they emphasize that if the situation is really serious, you should contact a psychotherapist.