How to Get Your Child to Stop Talking Too Much About Their Favorite Video Game
A few years ago, a friend’s son, who was about eight years old at the time, asked me if he could tell me anything about Minecraft. My own son was not yet old enough to play games like Minecraft, so with little or no knowledge of it, I said that of course he could tell me. I bent down with my undivided attention as my friend muttered, “You will regret it.” This boy, whom I love very much, began to tell me not something about Minecraft, but all about Minecraft.
I have found that it is not uncommon for a child to explain play to attentive adults in excruciating detail. Now that my son is 10 years old and an avid gamer of Minecraft , Among Us , Fortnite and many other games, I am learning a lot more than I ever thought about games that I have never played myself. He continued for many months, playing a couple of rounds of Bed Wars or Cake Wars, and then tracked me down wherever I was in the house to tell me moment by moment who destroyed whose bed / cake, who betrayed whom, and who ended up. won.
I know that I am not alone; This is a phenomenon that friends and colleagues have told me that they also face on a day-to-day basis, especially because due to the pandemic, we are all mostly at home and available at any time of the day. And although I love that my son wants to share his hobbies with me, after about the 87th retelling, I found that my eyes began to glaze over. I’m glad he found games that he likes so much, but it’s damn boring for one person to listen to another person describe the video game they were playing when that conversation goes way beyond: “It was fun; I won.”
However, there is also a voice constantly whispering in my head that it is important to listen to the “little things” our children tell us so that when they have “big things” to share, they come to us. So I had to devise strategies to listen to this continuous repetition of the video game, while leaving me time for, say, work or sleep. And I will share them with you now if you also have a child in your life who loves to retell these experiences in every detail.
To ask questions
It may sound obvious, but this is my strategy when I see us moving from “let me tell you about this game very quickly” to “let me tell you every detail of how I just spent the last hour. … “I listen to the part that piques my interest and then redirect it to that. (It might sound like, “How did you decide which cake to pick first?”)
Having a specific question to be answered seems to pull it out of the retelling of the play and give it an anchor on which to base its narrative. It’s more interesting to know about a particular aspect of the game, it’s easier for me to follow him, and he feels like he’s teaching me something.
Tell me one more thing
Asking questions is great, but sometimes when a question is answered the child will want to go back to a full resume. Sometimes I just let it play out with some “mm-hmm” and a few “oh wow”, but sometimes I kind of work. And if I work, I’m always on time, so the time I can devote to audition is limited.
But instead of interrupting it and saying, “I really can’t listen to it right now,” I translate it from the retelling, saying, “I have something to do, but I want to hear it. A bit more; can you tell me something else about this? “It makes him highlight the most important part of the story, which is probably the main thing that he wanted to tell me anyway.
Tell me everything you can in one minute
Sometimes when a child talks, it seems that what he is telling us is less important than what he just wants to talk. So when I get the impression that their brains are overflowing with thoughts and they are looking for a target to spew them out, I say, “Looks like you have something to say about this! I’m going to spot you; let’s see how much you can tell me about it in one minute. Reade set Go!”
The quick retelling becomes even more impetuous, but it turns it into a game that takes their breath away at the end and with a sense of accomplishment for taking up the challenge. Besides, it’s more interesting for you.
Let’s press pause for now
However, more than any other tactic, I always insist on “pause” in these conversations with my son. Many times I have seen that it is really important for him to tell me what happened in the game, either because of the drama with the other player, or because something exciting or unusual happened. But then again, this is not always the best time for me to drop everything and listen to everything. In such cases, I suggest “pause” the conversation and come back to it later. “I really want to hear it, but I’m afraid I’m too distracted right now to be a good listener,” I say. “Can I press pause now and you will tell me when I finish my work?”
The key, of course, is to start playing again later, when it is less intrusive, such as when you are having lunch or cooking dinner together. This sends a signal that while you want to hear what they have to tell you, you have other obligations – and sometimes prioritizing listening to them actually means waiting until you can no longer be present.
Watch or play with them
I was never a big video game enthusiast, but I was also not a big dinosaur enthusiast until my child was two years old and began a long-term obsession with these creatures. I learned more about dinosaurs than I ever thought I could, not because I suddenly cared so much, but because he cared. We talk about what we care about, and talk about them with people with whom we want to share our hobbies. So, share it with them.
My child loves it when I sit down to watch him play several rounds of whatever game he is currently playing, and even more he loves teaching me how to play it. This is a small piece of experience that they really want to share with us. So sometimes the best way to get them to stop chatting about it is to let them show you what the fuss is about .