A Parent's Guide to Video Games

Few topics in today’s media-saturated world can get a parent or teacher ranting like kids and video gaming. According to Pew Research Center*, 72% of teens have played video games in the last year, and they only represent 28% of the video-game-playing population. The video gaming world often represents unknown territory to parents, though, and their attempts to enforce boundaries and limits on their gaming kids typically end in tension and conflict.

Video games developed a bad reputation among child psychologists in the 1980s and after, when home gaming first became affordable for the average family. Most of the advice given to parents was anecdotal; child behaviorists and teachers worried about what appeared to be a glazed-eye of gaming young people. As video game technology vastly improved toward the century’s end, gaming options exploded from simple, pixelated viewing and simplistic goals to intricately animated universes, awe-inspiring digital effects, full musical scores, A-list voiceover talent, and vastly more complicated objectives. But the questions and worries they inspire remain.

How should I handle unhealthy gaming?

It’s easy to fall into unhealthy habits with games—they’re designed to be addictive. How can we help our kids stay of sound mind rather than letting their hobbies consume them?

The first step is understanding and empathy. It’s startlingly easy to develop a dependence on gaming. Video games offer a simpler representation of our real lives, one in which every problem has a solution that can be reached in a handful of hours. We crave the dopamine release associated with accomplishments, and video games offer continuous hits. And, as with many addictive behaviors, video game addiction can often arise as a symptom of deeper problems—loneliness, dissatisfaction, purposelessness, and others.

Because addiction often serves as a salve to the feeling of disconnection, it’s important not to make your teen feel attacked or devalued when you broach the topic of their habit. Ease into it. Express an interest in their favorite games. Show them that you care about them and, by extension, the things they care about. With that foundation, you can start having conversations about what the habit is doing to them, and how they can regain control without abandoning something they feel is a part of their identity.

Encourage your teens to pursue games in a healthy way that honors themselves and God. They don’t have to cut themselves off entirely; it’s possible to spend a reasonable amount of time on their hobby without losing the ability to engage with the people around them.

Though the Bible is silent on video gaming, it is anything but silent on conviction of the Holy Spirit on right and wrong (John 16:7–9) and on doing whatever is necessary to keep God the ultimate priority in the believer’s life (Philippians 3:7–10). God also wants every Christian to know unequivocally that, even in our failures (Psalm 143:10), we are valued, gifted, forgiven by His grace, and therefore fully good enough (Psalm 139:13–14; Ephesians 2:10; Romans 15:7; Romans 8:1).

Video games offer an immersive form of entertainment—a way to amuse ourselves or to detach. And whatever value they can offer, they cannot replace a relationship with your teen or a growing walk with Christ. Enjoy them responsibly.

The above text is taken from A Parent's Guide to Video Games by Axis.org.

*US Statistics

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