Your Kid Got a Video Game System Over the Holidays, And You're Worried They're Obsessed. Now What?
Whether it's a Switch or an iPad, introducing a new screen is going to introduce new tensions. The solution to these tensions may involve...acting like a video game?
A Quick Note from Patrick: If you’re the “video game person” in your family, there’s a familiar refrain leading up to the holidays, with people asking which system to buy, what video games are worth buying, etc. You probably field fewer questions about the consequences of buying that machine, and how it might change a child’s relationship with screen time. I’m so happy to have Ash “The Gamer Educator” Brandin back at Crossplay to address this topic!
If you recently introduced games over the holidays or if kids got more screen time than usual, you may notice they seem extra focused on screens lately. Are they obsessed? What’s going on? Don’t panic! Let’s break it down together.
If you didn’t catch my first article for Crossplay, where I talked about setting up screen time boundaries, be sure to check that out. If you want to see more of my work and advice, the best place to do that is my Instagram page, where I help families manage screen time and boundaries so they work for the whole family.
As someone who grew up playing video games, I definitely had (and still have) periods where I played a ton, and other periods where I didn’t touch a controller for months. Maybe you grew up with an N64 in the living room, or playing endless hours of Halo at a friend’s house. It makes sense that we might want to share those gaming memories with our own kids, yet even those of us who are/were gamers are quick to worry when our kids start to display difficult behaviors around screens.
It’s hard to allow screen time in this modern era of parenting and caregiving; no matter what we do, it can feel like the wrong move. When adults allow screens, they may be doing so out of desperation, and they may want their kids to recognize that this is a great thing we’re doing for them. When it’s time to turn the game off, though, kids may do what they do best: protest.
But when they protest, is that a sign anyone’s done anything wrong?
The short answer: no, probably not. When things are appealing, we anticipate them, and we may miss them when they’re gone. For kids and screen time, this may manifest as a child crying, whining, or talking constantly about a game when screen time is over. This doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with them; they’re doing something fun and they don’t want to stop. I like to hike, and leading up to a hike I spend time planning and looking at trail maps. That doesn’t mean I’m obsessed with hiking, it just means I’m looking forward to something I enjoy. Chances are you are the same way about something you enjoy, especially if it’s new.
Having a predictable relationship to screens can give us and our kids a framework to rely on that can make screens feel less special. A predictable routine—which doesn’t mean every day has to be the same—helps our kids know when to expect screens, just like they expect other routine parts of their day, such as meals, reading, homework, and bedtime. Unlike those other parts of the day, however, screen time is often a very appealing part of the day, even if it’s routine. It’s not surprising that they don’t like stopping something fun.
My go-to advice when this happens is to be like a video game. To an outsider, video games seem like a world without rules, but any gamer knows that video games are highly rule-based environments. Whether it’s physical boundaries to a level, conditional rules, or predictable structures, games lay out clear and neutral rules, and it’s up to us what we do within them. If we try to break a rule, the game doesn’t yell or admonish us, it just enforces the boundary. This adherence to rules allows the player a feeling of freedom and control within the game’s neutral boundaries.
Note: Instagram does not neatly embed into Substack. Click to see more of Ash’s work!
Hard as can sometimes be, we can provide that same sturdiness for our kids! We can validate how hard it is, and we can provide off-ramps to help them stop, like giving a warning or making a note of where they left off. But ultimately in those difficult moments, our kids are trying to see if we will stick to the boundary we set. Will we be like a video game that sticks to its rules? The way kids determine this is by testing our boundaries, sometimes in lots of different and difficult ways.
One thing I try when I’m getting frustrated in these moments is to imagine I’m an NPC. I have one goal—tell my kid that screen time is over—and I can find several ways of saying it, even repeating myself if I run out of things to say. Maybe one version is direct (“Screen time is over for today, time to turn it off”), another is inviting (“I put something you love in your dinner, let’s plug the tablet in and you can see what it is!”), and another is mysterious (“Something super cool happened today. When the Xbox is off, I’ll tell you the story”).
This way we’re staying sturdy in our boundaries while still meeting our kids where they’re at. It also gives our kids space to dislike our boundaries. Yes, kids are not going to like ending screen time. That’s their job; we make the rules, they have feelings about it.
I have feelings about the rules in video games, I have feelings about choices my boss may make, and similarly, our kids are going to have opinions about our choices. That doesn’t mean we change our rules, and by giving them space to feel those feelings, we’re also making it clear that they can dislike our rules and we will still stick to them, just like the video games they love.
Where to Find More of Ash’s Work:
How to Make a Gaming Schedule For Your Family (and how to stick to it)
How to Structure Gaming/Screen Time as Your Child Grows: Ages 8-12
When Making Screen Time Boundaries, We Must Remember This
Also:
A dam broke with my three-year-old over the holiday. She’s fallen in love with Toca Life World, and also fallen in love with asking to buy things every day.
We’re trying to marry buying an item in Toca Life World with a chore, but it doesn’t always work, and saying no frequently results in big tantrums.
But Toca Life World is so much healthier as a use of time than videos, so we’re still navigating a way through that makes her happy. To be determined lol
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