Every Parents Question
Today I talked with two parents who both have children into gaming. Not shocking in today’s era, so that’s not the interesting part.
I got a chance to briefly explain what Frenzy Esports is all about, it went something like this “Frenzy Esports’ mission is to help parents connect with their gamer kids/teens while teaching good life habits.” Now those of you that are really familiar with Frenzy, you know thats not the whole meal deal, however it is a MAJOR part of our mission.
Now comes the interesting part.
Parent 1 and 2 both had very similar questions, which seems to be the main topic of discussion with most parents I tell about Frenzy.
These parent both have similar aged kids ranging from 9-15 who play a lot of video games, the question was simple.
“How do you manage time spent playing video games?”
The question can be as simple as that, but really they are asking a deeper questions because simply managing your childs play time on a game is seemingly simple. Tell them when it’s been enough time and don’t let them play anymore that day, right…? Sure. But these parents were asking a deeper question.
My response, “by teaching moderation. Kids don’t just automatically have an internal clock that tells them ‘ok this has been enough, it’s time now’ until they get bored with whatever it is they are doing. These games are made to cure boredom. Moderation is a learned skill and it’s learned by knowing how to recognize. Once your child can recognize the cues of ‘it’s been enough time’ they will begin to self moderate and you won’t need to guide as much. Case in point my 10 year old self moderates pretty well with some guidance still needed every now and then. This is because we have tought him how to recognize the cues that tell him it’s time to be done.”
You see when I was a teenager (insert back in my day voice) we would have weekend long gaming sessions, drag our TVs and consoles to friends houses, set up, and game! The whole weekend! During the week was a tad different, I played soccer every day, walk around, drove out in the woods, and would play video games. Moderation was naturally occurring, I just didn’t realize it. This was in the Nokia brick days, yah you remember those. Before texting was a thing!
Fast forward to now, 3 year olds know what a cell phone is and how to operate it, taking endless amounts of pics, texting random people, and playing games. Hopefully learning games, but THEY ARE GAMES! From super young our children in today’s society are learning how to operate a very powerful computer. This is their future.
It’s part of their life and it’ll be an even bigger part of their future.
So how does one teach moderation?
By teaching recognition.
How do you teach recognition?
By you the parent, first recognizing the cues and then constructively outlining and helping guide your child to come to the conclusion you did, that we all get tired and need to take breaks. It’s not easy, it takes time and patience so put on your patience jacket and get comfortable.
The Cues:
These can vary per child but are pretty similar and luckily should be easy for adults to recognize.
Excessive blinking: Time for a break, the eyes are tired.
Getting easily frustrated: most often means it’s time for a break. There are caveats and that’s a different convo. Maybe I’ll write that one soon.
Getting snappy with you or others: there are many factors to this behavior so this is more of an out of character snappiness.
There are more cues but these are some of the top ones, if you would like to learn more or continue this conversation consider joining our discord community or reach out through our contact form.
The majorly important takeaways I want to leave with you; change is not immediate please have some patience with your child they will get it and understand. Treat your child with respect and let them own this process with your guidance.
It’s a journey folks and we are just starting.