So, the whole story started with movies. When parents saw strange behavior from their children, they started blaming the movies these children saw. When that didn’t work so well, and the children started playing video and computer games instead, the parent started to blame the violence in the games.
You hear about kids that collapse during game play, you hear about different kinds of attack when a kid’s body reacts for playing games to long. Most of these articles can be read in the news paper, and when you as a parent read these horrifying stories, of course you get worried.
Playing games can effect a gamer in a bad way, absolutely, especially if you’re under 18 and playing games suitable for people over 18. That could be true and we do not deny that. That’s the same thing as being under 18 and watching a movie which is suitable for people over 18. But be ware, in neither of these cases is the product to blame. The product usually has description of what kind of a game it is, and then it’s up to the player or buyer to determine if it’s suitable to play or buy the game.
When it comes to underage kids playing games suitable for people 18 and above, either they need adults to check upon them, or they need to understand that it is only a game, it’s a virtual world. If neither of these requirements can me met, well the chances might be that the player will unfortunately get affected in a bad way. The blame again lays on the gamer or any adult nearby.
DO NOT BLAME THE GAMES FOR MISTAKES MADE BY YOURSELVES!!!
So, let say you do have a child that plays a lot of games and these games may not necessarily be violent games, but they can be very time-consuming. As a parent, of course you will get worried. Your child maybe getting bad grades at school, or maybe does not socialize with other people as much as you would hope for. Or he/she might not even be willing to make it to lunch at time.
So how do you solve a situation like this? How do you reach to your child when all you see is him/her having a headphone on the head and just wanting to play games?
Whatever you do, do not just go in and unplug so the computer shuts down. That will do more harm and it will do good. Try another approach instead, for example if you are going have dinner soon, trying preparing him/her for it. Go to the room 30 minutes or maybe an hour before dinner and tell him/her that dinner is going to be ready in 30 minutes/an hour. That way you will prepare him/her so that they have the time to quit the game in time. This way they don’t quit the game drastically and after doing this a few times, it probably will come automatically next time dinner’s going to be ready. Trying to make the dinner around same time every day would help this approach very much.
This is something we think every concerned parent who has a child that plays a lot should think about.
Thanks for reading
Regards,
The crew of www.GamesNGuides.com