Get Over Yourself and Play Video Games With Your Child
You must play video games with your children. This is no longer necessary. This is your parental responsibility. Your child is growing up in an electronically-mediated world, where the line between “virtual” and “real” life is becoming more and more blurred.
Like it or not, video games are your child’s introduction to the future, and your job as a parent is to help them understand and navigate the virtual world safely and decently. Plus, playing with kids is a lot of fun and will bring you closer together. As the saying goes: a family that plays together stays together.
“But I haven’t touched video games since they took the Defender from Pizza Palace!” You might say. Hey, I got you. It’s not that hard to get started, and you already have a great teacher that you put to bed every night.
Let your child choose the game for himself
Perhaps you picture yourself playing educational games with your children, non-violent games with positive, life-affirming messages, and possibly bunny bunnies. But, between us, if you’re not a gamer, you probably don’t know what’s fun for a kid. So let them choose what you play together. You may be pleasantly surprised by their choice.
I’m pretty liberal in letting my kid try different kinds of games, so my 12-year-old Dex has played all but the most violent games, and he genuinely prefers creative games to shooters or Grand Theft Auto 5 . He played Minecraft for many years, going from a five-year-old escaping a creeper to learning the basics of design and electrical engineering, building intricate Redstone mansions and hardware on a server he set up with his high school friends. It’s pretty damn educational, but I never tell him that.
If your older child is really into more violent or intense play, I wouldn’t worry about it right away. When I was a kid, I loved playing Vietnam in the woods with my friends and it was as brutal as Battlefield . But the decision about the appropriateness of any content is up to you as a parent. Much research has been done on the topic of violence in video games and the relationship to actual aggression, but there are no clear conclusions . The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends checking game ratings, such as those published by Common Sense Media , and avoiding games in which “killing others is a central theme”.
Learn to play
Now that the game is selected, you need to overcome your fear of the game itself. If you’re not playing, the learning curve can be steep – these controllers have a lot of buttons and everything moves very fast – but at least your child will be surprised by your awkward attempts and ridiculous deaths. They might even learn a thing or two about overcoming fear and getting out of their comfort zone to try something new, so just go in there and suck, noob! I swear you’ll get (a little) better if you play more.
Once you have mastered the basics of the game, let your child guide you. Let them show you how to get bonuses and how to beat the boss level. Discuss strategies and possible solutions to the puzzles with them. They will love the opportunity to play the teacher and change the traditional roles of parent and child, and if you are playing something competitive, they will definitely love the opportunity to kick a new player’s ass, especially if it’s mom or dad!
Kids don’t have a lot of power, so giving them virtual power is always fun, but more importantly, they’ll see you handle yourself. This gives you a great opportunity to model behavior. If you always play fair, show a good sense of humor in the face of disappointment, maintain respect and maintain composure whether you win or lose, they will notice, and this is better than just saying the words.
Talk about what you play
Once you (to some extent) understand the world your children play in, you will be much better able to interpret, explain, and contextualize their experiences, and that’s almost all your job as a parent. This is especially important when playing with young children. By guiding your child towards more creative and positive content in play, keeping them from anxious or overly mature content, they can help them develop skills to make the same positive choices later on.
As they get older, you will be able to use the content of the games for more abstract and intelligent things. Dex and I talked about the moral implications of killing creatures in Minecraft , conversations that would be impossible if we both didn’t understand the mechanics of the game.
Set limits
When it comes to nurturing healthy play habits, the best thing you can do for your child is to lead by example. When Dex was very young, he and I played Lego: Star Wars for hours together. But when it came time for me to wash the dishes and he went to bed, it was easy to say, “I want to keep playing too, buddy, but I have to do housework and you need to get some sleep.”
Now that he’s in his teens, the lesson seems to drag on … most of the time. He can grumble a little at times if I tell him to turn off Smash Bros. and practice playing the violin, but it won’t be a big drama. He knows the rules, but more importantly, he knows that the rules are meaningful, fair and humane. For example, if you go to sleep, but it is among the ten best in Fortnite, I’ll give him a few extra minutes so that he went to the royal victory (I’m not a monster). If I didn’t know what it all meant and just said, “Okay, screen time is up,” and shut it down on the Xbox, it would cause unnecessary conflict, and really, who needs the hassle?
The main reason you should play games with your child is because they are awesome. I love to play video games with my child. It’s a way to spend time with your loved one, to do what we both like. We usually don’t “connect” like we’re in a very special episode of an old sitcom. I don’t spend a lot of time teaching life lessons or instilling good moral behavior. We’re just relaxing on the couch, killing aliens, killing each other, and killing a little time before dinner. At another time or in another place, we could sit in the boat with our fishing rods out, not talking or fishing. And isn’t that the whole point?