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Your kids play video games all day and dont wanna stop. What do you do during a pandemic? - Akron Beacon Journal

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You may think you’ve heard this story before. And you probably have read some variation of it. But in the age of pandemic, the relationship between children and their video games has undergone a sea change.

Let’s begin with an all-too-familiar scenario.

You give your kid an hour of computer time. But when the time is up, they beg for a few more minutes. Just 5 minutes. Maybe 10. But soon, 15 minutes have passed and there’s no sign that they’re about to stop. Frustrations grow and, before you know it, what seemed like a simple deadline has grown into a full-fledged generational battle.

Worst of all, the resentment often lingers. Depending on the child, that simple disagreement may manifest itself in rudeness, aggressiveness or even downright hostility.

Nothing like 'Jeopardy'

"It feels like you’re dealing with an addiction" said Dr. Robin Arthur, a clinical psychologist who is a consultant to the Children’s Home of Cincinnati and CEO of Transform Consulting. "And in a sense, you are. Social media and video games stimulate the same part of the brain that addiction does. Imagine when you take away a drug from an addict or a beer from an alcoholic. It’s the same thing when you try to separate children from their online entertainment."

From new pillagers and villages, traders and occupations, weapons and blocks, 'Village & Pillage' overhauled the popular ‘Minecraft’ video game.

"These aren’t like the games I played when I was a kid," said Natalie Hastings, a mother of two living in Anderson Township. "I played nerdy things like ‘Jeopardy’ for Nintendo. But the games are very different today. My boys get much more invested on an emotional level in everything they play."

This year, the problem has exploded. As so many pandemic-related restrictions cut us off from the world around us, young people’s opportunities for "real" play all but disappeared. What was left? Home computers and mobile phones that offered safe contact with the outside world and access to a kaleidoscope of video games, fast-moving videos and all manner of entertainment.

So when Hastings tells her boys that it’s time to stop playing, it’s not just a matter of them walking away from some light entertainment.

"For one thing, many of these games don’t have a simple beginning and end," said Hastings. "They go on and on forever. So there is no clean place to stop a game. The other thing is that, because they are playing online with teams of their friends, they panic when I tell them to stop. Because when they ditch the game, they’re abandoning their friends. They’re betraying them. That’s nothing like ‘Jeopardy.’ "

Even more screen time

Consider this. According to Microsoft, its "Minecraft" video game saw a 25% increase in new players in April – the month after schools closed – along with a 40% leap in multiplayer sessions. And that’s for a game that was already played by more than 125 million people every month.

That’s just one game. Add other top-sellers like "Grant Theft Auto," "Fortnight" and "Apex" and you have a staggering amount of time committed to screens. (That doesn’t even include mobile juggernauts like "Candy Crush" and "Roblox.")

"Children from 8 to 12 years old use just under five hours of screen time per day," said Arthur. "For teenagers, that number goes up to seven hours a day. And that’s not including school and homework."

With millions of kids beginning their academic years in online-only environments, that is likely to add another three to five hours a day sitting in front of a screen.

"Parents are going to have to get creative to deal with this," said clinical psychologist Dr. Shantel Thomas, CEO of A Sound Mind Counseling Service. "Usually, I would say involvement in organized sports is a good alternative. But for many younger children, that isn’t an alternative this year."

For some children – especially younger ones – traditional tactics like setting specific time limits for online activity may be enough.

"But then you have to be strong enough to enforce those limits," said Thomas. "And that’s where you get pushback."

Some parents rely on software that shuts off online access for specific devices in the home. That way, parents can continue to use their own phones while their children find they can no longer get online.

"But the key is not to spend all your time fighting the games themselves," said Thomas. "You will never win that battle. The important thing is to help your children learn how to manage their own emotions and to speak properly about how they are feeling."

When her children were younger, Thomas turned to mobile phone apps like "Mood Tracker" and "Calm." Today, there are hundreds of similar apps out there.

"That helped them develop the tools they needed to manage their emotions when they did get offline," said Thomas.

The pandemic problem

The pandemic has made all this much more difficult for children. Remember, this is uncharted territory. And it’s not like we, as parents, can provide a step-by-step plan on how to navigate it. We don’t have any idea how all this will play out, either.

"You have to realize that our children were abruptly taken away from all of their friends," said Dr. Robin Smith, a Philadelphia-based psychologist popularly known as the Therapist-in-Residence on "The Oprah Winfrey Show." (Smith calls herself a "trauma surgeon for the heart and soul.") "Even summer vacations can be traumatic for children. I remember being heartbroken as I said goodbye to my friends at the end of second grade."

Summers without the usual network of friends can seem endless to a child. With this pandemic-induced "vacation," parents haven’t been able to offer any guidance on when it will end. Or how.

"The sense of loss and separation can be enormous," said Smith, who says she has seen an increase in loneliness, depression, anxiety and eating disorders since schools went on hiatus in March. "What seemed like an elongated snow day has now stretched on for three, four, five months. We can’t even tell them when the nightmare is going to end."

So what is the solution? Or is there one?

"First, you have to accept that technology is not going away," said Dr. Arthur. "So we have to model healthy technology behaviors for our children to see. If they see us doing it all the time, why would it not be OK for them to do it?"

That’s a tough one for parents. That means putting away the cell phones at dinner. Not scrolling through Instagram when you’re in bed. And making times that are 100% technology-free.

"It’s about creating a balance," said Arthur, invoking a very old-fashioned concept into an age that seems obsessed with living at the extremes. "There are some very positive reasons for technology to exist. But the technology exists to serve us, not the other way around.

"Yes, it’s more extreme right now. But I don’t think this is the ‘new normal’ that you keep hearing people talk about. I call this the ‘interim normal.’ We need to think forward and be ready to help children re-socialize when the opportunity is there. We owe that to them."

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Your kids play video games all day and dont wanna stop. What do you do during a pandemic? - Akron Beacon Journal
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