People often talk about the need for healthy gaming habits for kids and the importance of setting boundaries with screen time, and online gaming addiction, blah blah blah. However, as both a father and a gamer, I wanted to talk a bit about the importance of healthy gaming habits for parents.
You don’t have to be a gamer to have healthy gaming habits. Gaming is a part of all of our lives, whether you know it or not, and chances are it’s a large part of your child’s life both online and off. Gaming is more than sitting on the couch in front of your Nintendo, playing Super Mario Bros with a friend.
Nowadays, gaming plays a huge role in popular culture; From Fortnite and Ninja to Mythic Quest and Twitch.tv, gaming is all around us. We’re playing games on our desktops, consoles, laptops, and smartphones. We’re spending hours watching others playing games on countless platforms including Youtube, Twitch, Mixer, and Facebook. We’re wearing gaming clothes, cheering for competitive gaming teams, and watching movies about popular games. We’re building lifelong friendships on Minecraft servers, and meeting our future partners within World of Warcraft.
And gaming is only going to get bigger. It’s never too late for parents to begin placing a focus on understanding this space, and how their children are engaging within it.
First things first, there probably is no pause. Let that sink in for a second. Crazy huh? Well, no not really, but if you haven’t played games in 20 years, this might be a mind-blowing revelation. Repeat after me, “Online games have no pause.” “Online games have no pause.”
So, when you tell your kid to pause their game, what you may actually be asking them to do is:
Whoa, that last one hits a little close to home, huh?
That’s because every time your child has to leave a match at your request, it means you are forcing them to make a choice to either lose something they have worked hard for or to tell the person they love and respect, no. That’s a pretty tough choice for an adult, let alone a child. Rude.
Now, that’s not to say that kids should be free to game 24/7, and you better let them do what they want to do or suffer their wrath. It means, as, with most other areas of parenting, it’s important to set realistic boundaries, respect the agreements you make, and understand how they are spending their time. There will always be exceptions, but now that you are beginning to understand what you are asking, hopefully, you can find smarter ways to develop breaks within your child's gaming time.
Before I talk about defining realistic playtimes, it’s very important to understand what games your kids are playing. For instance, a Fortnite match may last 20 minutes, whereas a World of Warcraft raid may take 3–4 hours to prepare and execute. How you define your child's screen time may be dictated by what an average session might look like for them.
“I mean they are just playing games, how am I supposed to know what they are doing?”
Ask them? Ask if you can watch, and then ask questions. Research the game on your own, and bring it up at dinner. Engage with their interests? Find a common ground between what they love and why YOU love them.
It’s actually weird to write that because it feels pretty obvious, and yet when I talk to parents, I get the feeling this is still a foreign concept. Maybe this is because you believe these are just games they are playing. And yet, if they were playing baseball(which is just a game), you’d be at all their games, and you’d know their teammates and their coach. You’d know how many games they had won, and you may even have taken them out for ice cream after a tough loss. You’re engaged and supportive…of a game they play.
When it comes to the digital world and videogames, lots of parents tend to be hands-off. I’ve met the parents of pro players who tell me before they were flown across the world, they didn’t even know their kid played the game or was remotely good at it. Some still didn’t even believe their kids were good and figured it to all be an elaborate con to play games with their friends.
I’m literally livid typing this; Stop being hands-off with your kids and videogames. You can still be a parent while having an interest in what they do. Take the opportunity to get to know them, and then benefit from the new world of conversations you are about to have. Cherish that first time you talk to your kid about League of legends, and you get to see them light up.
Playtime is up to you and your child to agree upon. I can’t provide you with the magic number here. I would typically lean towards providing at least a few quality hours of gaming a night if their other responsibilities are taken care of. A few hours gives them time to connect with friends, chat a bit, figure out what they are doing, jump into some warmup matches, play a bit, chat some more, grind some ranked, make some content, etc. Whatever. For each parent (and child), this is going to be different. And it should be.
However, the important part here is that once this playtime is defined. Respect it.
If you and your child have agreed to allow 2 hours a night of Fortnite, then give them 2 hours of uninterrupted playtime. Not 45 minutes and then you need to check their pant size…real quick. 120 minutes of time for them to play their game. The time that you yourself have agreed to. This is important to them, and if they are important to you, then you respect it.
You ever have someone call you at work? You’re like, “Yeah, no... I’ve don’t have time to talk. Please don’t call me at work.”
Now imagine that TPS report you‘re trying to focus on is actually a 100' tall hell demon, which requires both you and 40 of your co-workers to skillfully coordinate to defeat, and you only have 120 minutes to make it happen before a real-life monster barges into your office, screaming and unplugs your computer? Pretty high-pressure work environment, right? Don’t be that real-life monster. Give your kids the space to work.
Yeah, get used to it. Defining and then respecting playtime, coupled with your new-found interest in what your children are doing, and the games they are playing will begin to create new opportunities for you to talk and bond. When you can recognize their accomplishments and setbacks, through what they are telling you, they will want to share more and more. As you sit with them and watch Dr. Lupo, and they have to awkwardly explain what he means by “dividing cheeks,” prepare to share moments of laughter and surprise together.
These are the moments that make being a parent wonderful. Hopefully, you will find them in other ways as well, through art, or music, or sports or movies. But none of these opportunities manifest themselves unless you make the move to find a common bond with your child.
Get over yourself and the fact that it is gaming. These are moments to strengthen your relationship and express your love.
The catalyst doesn’t matter.
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