Gaming Addiction: Are you one of those parents who are finding it difficult to wean your child out of gaming addiction? According to behavioral health experts, instead of directly stopping them from playing, having an open and healthy conversation can help you better. Excessive gaming can affect the mental and physical health of children. This can be more stressful for the parents. While setting limits is important, children should be made aware of both the health benefits and harms of video games (Gaming addiction in kids).
Parents need to communicate honestly
Harneet Kaur Kohli, Consultant Psychologist, Manipal Hospital said, “Just telling the child not to play sports at all is not the solution as there are some sports which also help in developing problem solving skills and creativity.” . Parents need to communicate honestly and build a trust with their child to know what game they are playing.
Have a healthy conversation about sports with your child
Meemansa Singh Tanwar, Clinical Psychologist, Department of Mental Health & Behavioral Sciences, Fortis Healthcare, said, “When parents show a very distressing response to gaming addiction, children tend to hide it, resist it, And start to understand that my parents see it wrong but I want to do it. You allow them to play, have a healthy conversation with your child about the game, how to play it and what they enjoy about it.
how children are affected
A study of nearly 2,000 children published in JAMA Network Open found that children who played video games performed better on cognitive skill tests involving impulse control and working memory than those who never played. Studies have shown that video games positively affect the brain and can be helpful for people with cognitive disabilities such as autism. A recent review of 116 scientific studies published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience indicated that playing video games not only changes the performance of our brains but also their structure.
Studies have shown that video game players exhibit improvements in several types of attention, and require less activation to focus on difficult tasks. However, in gaming addicts it caused functional and structural changes in the neural reward system, a group of structures associated with pleasure, learning, and perceived motivation.
take a didactic approach
Tanwar explained that if parents come across some material that may show significantly offensive, violent or inappropriate behavior or language, take an educative approach where you talk about how research is telling us that The media we associate with can have an effect on our behavior and this is true for all of us. So let’s think seriously about this.
open communication is important
Kohli suggested that parents should communicate openly with children and be aware of what sports should be given to their child based on their age. Once communication is established, it becomes easier for parents to control their child’s screen time and activity, he said. If a child is spending his whole day on mobile phone, then parents must involve him in other activities (physical activities).
watch out for signs
The doctor said that parents can also encourage children to take up physical sports and other interesting activities based on their interests so that they learn to balance screen time and hobbies. In addition, Tanwar said that children sometimes use gaming as a means to fight stress. Watch for the Signs If your child’s time spent gaming isn’t reducing despite several attempts and it’s starting to affect their emotional, social, and academic functioning, seek help from a mental health professional.
Emphasis on the role of schools
The doctors also stressed on the role of schools as children spend at least seven-eight hours of their entire day in school. Schools should implement some educational programs to inform children and parents about the advantages and disadvantages of mobile phones and gaming, Kohli said. They should involve children in these programs in the form of physical activity so that they can understand better. Informing them about good uses will encourage them. They should use the phone in a limited way.