It is not as beneficial to provide strategies and approaches to develop healthy gaming habits and to develop young people’s self-awareness and self-control to support their gaming and all aspects of their lives into the future as it is to provide parents and children with a specific “length of time” to spend on screens or playing games.

A “time-based” approach to managing technology continues to dictate despite experts’ ongoing efforts to abandon the “screentime” concept in favor of more nuanced ideas about how to engage with technology. Parents are drawn to this advice because it is a low-engagement strategy that merely requires clock-watching. Children will not be able to learn to control their own screen time in this way.

It’s best to give parents a series of tips and advice to help them be more involved in their kids’ gaming and help them teach their kids self-awareness and self-control.

Gaming tips:
Play games with your kids: The Digital Australia 2020 report found that more and more parents are playing games with their kids. Playing games with your child or teen is a great way to talk to them, learn about how important games are to them, and bond with them.

As children get older, they have a variety of competing priorities. Help them prioritize: You can assist your child or teen in learning to prioritize important aspects of their life over gaming by using a Family Technology Plan or something similar so that you can come up with family-friendly rules together. These can be anything you want, but they should teach your child that gaming is secondary to other activities like eating, cleaning their room, doing their homework, and spending time with family, just like any other hobby. The rules may have nothing to do with gaming management; instead, they focus on encouraging the actions and routines we know are important and help us feel good. Norms like:

“We spend an hour together on weekends,” “One hour of homework before gaming,” “No gaming on school nights,” “Spend 30 minutes a day walking the dog,” and “No gaming before gaming.”

Be aware of classifications: The 2020 Digital Australia report’s research has shown that the typical gamer has been an adult for nearly two decades. Most video games are designed for adults, so they are not just for kids. Be aware that there is a classification system for games when purchasing them for your child or yourself. Numerous well-known video games have explicit language, nudity, excessive violence, horror, and sex acts that are only intended for adults. Be aware that the classifications are the same as those for movies.

Ensure that your child plays various games: Gaming offers a wide range of experiences and genres, just like any other medium—movies, books, television. Encourage your child to play games that offer a variety of experiences rather than just the most popular ones. Some games have a lot of storytelling while others are slow and meditative. If your child enjoys first-person shooters, make a deal with them to play other games first before allowing them to play more of them.

Credit: eSmart